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Part of
Interfaces in Grammar
Edited by Jianhua Hu and Haihua Pan
[Language Faculty and Beyond 15] 2019
► pp. 301–340

Chapter 11
The acquisition of nominal structure, word order and referentiality in Chinese

Corpus and experimental findings on the numeral phrase

| Tianjin Normal University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong
| Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
The mapping between nominal structure, word order and referentiality in Mandarin Chinese is examined from an acquisition perspective. Two aspects of the syntax-semantics interface are investigated based on early naturalistic data and experiments with preschool children: the Subject Specificity Constraint, which prohibits non-specific individual-denoting numeral phrases in subject position, and the referential difference between two types of noun phrases containing a modifier: inner modifier nominals (IMN) and outer modifier nominals (OWN) . Our findings reveal adult-like distribution of nominal types and an early sensitivity to the Subject Specificity Constraint. Given the poverty of the stimulus, the semantic difference between the two types of modified nominals, reflected in interactions with stress and focus, appears to be a late acquired interface property in child grammar.
Article outline
  • 1.The Subject Specificity Constraint in Chinese: An alternative view
  • 2.The mapping of specificity to word order within the numeral phrase: Inner Modifier Nominal (IMN) vs. Outer Modifier Nominal (OMN)
  • 3.Numeral phrases used by Mandarin-speaking children and adults
    • 3.1Numeral phrases in the naturalistic speech of two Mandarin children
      • Numeral-Classifier
      • Numeral-Classifier-Noun
      • Inner modifier nominal (IMN)
      • Classifier-Noun
    • 3.2Numeral phrases in child-directed adult speech
      • Numeral-Classifier
      • Numeral-Classifier-Noun
      • Inner modifier nominal (IMN)
      • Outer modifier nominal (OMN)
      • Classifier-Noun
    • 3.3Comparison of numeral phrases used in children and adults
  • 4.An experimental study on Mandarin-speaking children’s comprehension of the IMN /OMN distinction
    • 4.1Method
      • Test materials
      • Procedure
    • 4.2Results
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.15.11lee
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