scholarly journals Context sensitivity and the semantics of count nouns in the evaluation of partial objects by children and adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Kristen SYRETT ◽  
Athulya ARAVIND
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Context Dependence ◽  
Count Noun ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Conceptual Representations ◽  
Children's Behavior ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Adult Performance ◽  
Multiple Accounts

Abstract Previous research has documented that children count spatiotemporally-distinct partial objects as if they were whole objects. This behavior extends beyond counting to inclusion of partial objects in assessment and comparisons of quantities. Multiple accounts of this performance have been proposed: children and adults differ qualitatively in their conceptual representations, children lack the processing skills to immediately individuate entities in a given domain, or children cannot readily access relevant linguistic alternatives for the target count noun. We advance a new account, appealing to theoretical proposals about underspecification in nominal semantics and the role of the discourse context. Our results demonstrate that there are limits to which children allow partial objects to serve as wholes, and that under certain conditions, adult performance resembles that of children by allowing in partial objects. We propose that children's behavior is in fact licensed by the inherent context dependence of count nouns.

scholarly journals Category Markers or Attributes

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (12) ◽  
pp. 1287-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Keates ◽  
Susan A. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Category Membership ◽  
Count Noun ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Grammatical Form ◽  
Form Class ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Inductive Inferences ◽  
Test Objects

To clarify the role of labels in early induction, we compared 16-month-old infants' ( n = 114) generalization of target properties to test objects when objects were introduced by the experimenter in one of the following ways: (a) with a general attentional phrase, (b) highlighted with a flashlight and a general attentional phrase, (c) via a recorded voice that labeled the objects using a naming phrase, (d) with a label consisting of a count noun embedded within a naming phrase, (e) with a label consisting of a single word that was not marked as belonging to a particular grammatical form class, and (f) with a label consisting of an adjective. Infants relied on object labels to guide their inductive inferences only when the labels were presented referentially, embedded within an intentional naming phrase, and marked as count nouns. These results suggest that infants do not view labels as attributes of objects; rather, infants understand that count-noun labels are intentional markers denoting category membership.

Comparison with an indeterminate pronoun

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osamu Sawada
Keyword(s):  
Scale Structure ◽  
Dual Use ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Individual Comparison ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Striking Parallelism

Chapter 4 focuses on the dual-use phenomenon of comparison with an indeterminate pronoun in Japanese (and other languages) and considers the similarities and differences between at-issue comparative meaning (i.e. individual comparison) and a CI comparative meaning (i.e. noteworthy comparison). Although an individual comparison and a noteworthy comparison are compositionally and dimensionally different, there is a striking parallelism in terms of the scale structure. The chapter explains the similarities and differences between the two kinds of comparison in a systematic way. It also considers the role of scalarity and comparison in a discourse context and argues that they provide a way of signaling to what extent an at-issue utterance contributes to the goal of the conversation. The timing of signaling information on noteworthiness in a discourse and its pragmatic effect are also discussed.

Discourse, Context, and Coherence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Una Stojnić
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Pure Indexicals

On the received view, the resolution of context-sensitivity is at least partly determined by non-linguistic features of utterance situation. If I say ‘He’s happy’, what ‘he’ picks out is underspecified by its linguistic meaning, and is only fixed through extra-linguistic supplementation: the speaker’s intention, and/or some objective, non-linguistic feature of the utterance situation. This underspecification is exhibited by most context-sensitive expressions, with the exception of pure indexicals, like ‘I.’ While this received view is prima facie appealing, I argue it is deeply mistaken. I defend an account according to which context-sensitivity resolution is governed by linguistic mechanisms determining prominence of candidate resolutions of context-sensitive items. Thus, on this account, the linguistic meaning of a context-sensitive expression fully specifies its resolution in a context, automatically selecting the resolution antecedently set by the prominence-governing linguistic mechanisms.

The influence of discourse context on children's provision of auxiliary BE

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA L. THEAKSTON ◽  
ELENA V. M. LIEVEN
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Prior Use ◽  
Single Child ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Children's Speech

ABSTRACTChildren pass through a stage in development when they produce utterances that contain auxiliary BE (he's playing) and utterances where auxiliary BE is omitted (he playing). One explanation that has been put forward to explain this phenomenon is the presence of questions in the input that model S-V word order (Theakston, Lieven & Tomasello, 2003). The current paper reports two studies that investigate the role of the input in children's use and non-use of auxiliary BE in declaratives. In Study 1, 96 children aged from 2 ; 5 to 2 ; 10 were exposed to known and novel verbs modelled in questions only or declaratives only. In Study 2, naturalistic data from a dense database from a single child between the ages of 2 ; 8 to 3 ; 2 were examined to investigate the influence of (1) declaratives and questions in the input in prior discourse, and (2) the child's immediately previous use of declaratives where auxiliary BE was produced or omitted, on his subsequent use or non-use of auxiliary BE. The results show that in both the experimental and naturalistic contexts, the presence of questions in the input resulted in lower levels of auxiliary provision in the children's speech than in utterances following declaratives in the input. In addition, the children's prior use or non-use of auxiliary BE influenced subsequent use. The findings are discussed in the context of usage-based theories of language acquisition and the role of the language children hear in their developing linguistic representations.

Disciplining Young Children: The Role of Verbal Instructions and Reasoning

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 336-341
Author(s):  
Nathan J. Blum ◽  
George E. Williams ◽  
Patrick C. Friman ◽  
Edward R. Christophersen
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Problem Behaviors ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Verbal Reasoning ◽  
Behavioral Psychology ◽  
Children's Behavior ◽  
Verbal Instructions ◽  
Oppositional Behaviors ◽  
Preschool Age Children

Pediatricians are often asked to advise parents who are having difficulty managing the oppositional behaviors of their toddlers and preschool-age children. A large number of articles provide advice to pediatricians and parents on effective disciplinary strategies. However, despite the fact that verbal explanations, reasoning, and instructions are commonly used by parents, few articles directly address the use of these strategies to affect children's behavior. In this paper, we review studies that explicitly investigate the ability of adults' verbal explanations or instructions to alter the behavior of young children. These studies suggest that under most circumstances, verbal explanations and instructions are not effective in changing young children's problem behaviors. We then discuss how theories in developmental and behavioral psychology help explain the limitations of using verbal reasoning and instructions to change young children's problem behaviors. Finally, we provide some recommendations for parents on the use of verbal explanations and instructions in disciplining young children.

scholarly journals Maternal emotions during the pre/postnatal periods and children's sleep behaviors: The mediating role of children's behavior

2020 ◽  
Vol 273 ◽  
pp. 138-145
Author(s):  
Jianghong Liu ◽  
Xiaopeng Ji ◽  
Guanghai Wang ◽  
Yuli Li ◽  
Patrick W. Leung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediating Role ◽  
Children's Behavior ◽  
Sleep Behaviors ◽  
Children’S Sleep

Peer group victimization as a predictor of children's behavior problems at home and in school

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID SCHWARTZ ◽  
STEVEN A. MCFADYEN–KETCHUM ◽  
KENNETH A. DODGE ◽  
GREG S. PETTIT ◽  
JOHN E. BATES
Keyword(s):  
Behavior Problems ◽  
Peer Group ◽  
Peer Rejection ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Children's Behavior ◽  
Dependent Behavior ◽  
Children’S Behavior Problems ◽  
At Home

This study reports a short-term prospective investigation of the role of peer group victimization in the development of children's behavior problems, at home and in school. Sociometric interviews were utilized to assess aggression, victimization by peers, and peer rejection, for 330 children who were in either the third or fourth grade (approximate mean ages of 8–9 years old). Behavior problems were assessed using standardized behavior checklists completed by mothers and teachers. A follow-up assessment of behavior problems was completed 2 years later, when the children were in either the fifth or sixth grade (approximate mean ages of 10–11 years old). Victimization was both concurrently and prospectively associated with externalizing, attention dysregulation, and immature/dependent behavior. Victimization also predicted increases in these difficulties over time, and incremented the prediction in later behavior problems associated with peer rejection and aggression. The results of this investigation demonstrate that victimization in the peer group is an important predictor of later behavioral maladjustment.

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