Does grammatical structure accelerate number word learning?
evidence from learners of dual and non-dual dialects of Slovenian
Abstract
How does linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? Previous studies have tested this question by comparing how children learning languages with different grammatical representations of number learn the meanings of labels for small numbers, like 1, 2, and 3. For example, children who acquire a language with singular-plural marking, like English, are faster to learn the word for 1 than children learning a language that lacks the singular-plural distinction, perhaps because the word for 1 is always used in singular contexts, highlighting its meaning. These studies are problematic, however, because reported differences in number word learning may be due to unmeasured cross-cultural differences rather than specific linguistic differences. To address this problem, we investigated number word learning in four groups of children from a single culture who spoke different dialects of the same language that differed chiefly with respect to how they grammatically mark number. We found that learning a dialect which features “dual” morphology (marking of pairs) accelerated children’s acquisition of the number word two relative to learning a “non-dual” dialect of the same language.
Keywords
števila;številke;slovnično število;dvojina;narečja;usvajanje;učenje;slovenščina;angleščina;
Data
| Language: | English |
|---|---|
| Year of publishing: | 2016 |
| Typology: | 1.01 - Original Scientific Article |
| Organization: | UNG - University of Nova Gorica |
| UDC: | 81 |
| COBISS: |
4474107
|
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| Views: | 4221 |
| Downloads: | 239 |
| Average score: | 0 (0 votes) |
| Metadata: |
|
Other data
| URN: | URN:SI:UNG |
|---|---|
| Type (COBISS): | Not categorized |
| Pages: | str. 1-16 |
| Volume: | ǂVol. ǂ11 |
| Issue: | ǂno. ǂ8 |
| Chronology: | Aug. 2016 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0159208 |
| ID: | 9160644 |
Recommended works:
Does grammatical structure accelerate number word learning?
2016,
evidence from learners of dual and non-dual dialects of Slovenian
Slovnična kategorija števila pri stavčnem ujemanju
2017,
dvojina v koordinaciji
Grammatical morphology as a source of early number word meanings
2013,
no subtitle data available
ǂThe ǂinterplay of grammatical number and the numeral system in early language acquisition
2020,
online lecture at Dipartimento di lingue e letterature, comunicazione, formazione e società, Università degli studi di Udine, 26. 11. 2020
Načini izražanja dvojine v angleščini in nemščini
2020,
no subtitle data available