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Hungarian preschoolers ’ interpretation of doubly quantified sentences

Hungarian preschoolers ’ interpretation of doubly quantified sentences. Katalin É. Kiss, Mátyás Gerőcs , Tamás Zétényi Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy.

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Hungarian preschoolers ’ interpretation of doubly quantified sentences

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  1. Hungarianpreschoolers’ interpretation of doublyquantifiedsentences Katalin É. Kiss, Mátyás Gerőcs, Tamás Zétényi Research Institute forLinguistics of theHungarianAcademy

  2. Research question: howdoHungarianpreschoolersinterpretquanti-fiedsentenceswithtwonumericalquantifiers, e.g. (1) Két fiú is három tornyot épít. two boy DISTthreetower-ACCbuilds ’Twoboys (each) are building threetowers’.

  3. Previousexperimentsinvolvingtruthvaluejudgment, forcedchoice, and acting-outtasks: preschoolershaveaccesstothedistributivereadings of doublyquantifiedsentences. Follow-upquestion: Howdopreschoolersdeterminerelativescope?

  4. Whatlinguisticcuesdetermintheirscopechoice? Dotheyassociatesentence (1) withrepresentation (a) orrepresentation (b)? Fig.a: Fig.b: (1) Két fiú is három tornyot épít. twoboyseachthreetowers-ACCbuild

  5. Claim: Children’s scope interpretation cannot be derivedfromlinguisticfactorsalone, itis affectedby the structureof the visual representation of the event associated with the sentence. In a forcedchoicetask, they choosethe representationthat is easierto segment into identical subevents.

  6. Background: Musolino (1998): childrenassumeisomorphismbetweenthescopeorder & linearorder of QPs. Childrenhaveproblemswithinversescopebecause i. theycannotgeneratethecomplexstructureassociatedwithinversescope (Musolino 2000) ii. theycannotprocesssuchsentences(Musolino & Lidz 2003; Lidz et al. 2004) iii. Gennari&MacDonald (2005/2006): children’s behavior reflects the distributional patterns of actual languageuse

  7. ContradictoryresultsfromChinese: The scopeinterpretation of children is less isomorphicthanthescopeinterpretation of adults – cf. Thomas Hun-tak Lee (1997), Zhouand Crain(2009)

  8. Hungarianadultgrammar: overt Quantifier-Raising, preverbalQPsc-command and precedetheirscope.Subjectwidescope: (2) FocP 2 fiú isjFocP 3 tornyotkFoc′ FocTenseP építi Tense VP ti NP V′ tj V NP titk

  9. Objectwidescope: (3) FocP 3 tornyot iskFocP 2 fiúiFoc′ FocTenseP építi Tense VP ti NP V′ tj V NP titk

  10. Scope interpretation by Hungarian preschoolers É. Kiss–Gerőcs (2011): Starting hypothesis: isomorphism: widescopeassignedonthebasis of linearprecedence

  11. Hypothesesnotborne out; scopepreferencesoftencannot be derivedfromlinguisticcues E.g. Truth-valuejudgement of sentence - picturepairs: (4) Három maci is két autóval játszik. threeteddy-bearDISTtwocar-withplays ‘Threeteddybearseachareplayingwithtwocars.’

  12. Conditions and results (acceptancerates): i. S > O (subj.-initial, directscope): 91% (3 bears, 6 cars) ii. S < O (subj.-initial, inversescope): 63% 6 bears, 2 cars) iii. O > S (obj.-initial, directscope): 67% (2 cars, 6 bears) • O < S (obj.-initial, inversescope): 41% (6 cars, 3 bears)

  13. A follow-upexperimentcheckingtherole of furtherlinguisticfactors É. Kiss – Gerőcs – Zétényi (2012): Hypothesis: widescopeassignedtothe constituentthat has a more prominent grammaticalfunction/thetarole Forcedchoice, acting-outtasks Hypothesis again notfullyborne out.

  14. New hypotheses: children’s scope interpretation is affectedby visual cues Hypothesis 1: children assign wide scope to thequantified expression that has larger, moresalient denotata in the visualrepresentation. Hypothesis 2: children choose the picture that is easier to divideinto identical chunks representing identical subevents.

  15. Experiment 1Method Subjects: 27children, 12 boys + 15 girls, mean age 6,5 years (SD=4 months) Materials: Subjectswere shown 8test sentences + 8 fillers, each accompaniedby a pair of pictures. They had to decide which of the two pictures the sentence is about.

  16. Conditions Condition i SOV sentence, with the subject set more salient Conditionii SOV sentence, with the object set more salient Conditioniii OSV sentence, with the object set more salient Conditioniv OSV sentence, with the subject set more salient

  17. E.g.,Conditioniii:OSV sentence, with the object set more salient Fig.a: Fig.b: (5) Három tornyot is kétfiú épít. three tower-accdist two boy builds ‘Three towers(each), two boys are building.’

  18. Conditioniv:OSV sentence, with the subject set more salient Fig.a: Fig.b: (6) Három tornyot is két fiú épít. three tower-accdist two boy builds ‘Three towers (each) are being built by twoboys.’

  19. Resultsinconditionsiii, iv (7)b. Három tornyot is két fiú épít. ‘Three towers are being built by two boys.’ Conditioniii.big towers, small boys: directscope (3 big towers, 6 small boys): 33% inversescope (6 big towers, 2 small boys): 67% Conditioniv. small towers, big boys: directscope (3 small towers, 6 big boys): 30% inversescope (6 small towers, 2 big boys): 70% Hypothesisnotborne out.

  20. Experiment 2Method Subjects: 38 children, 18 boys + 20 girls, mean age 6,5 (SD=4 months) Materials: Subjects were shown 8test sentences + 7 fillers. Test sentenceswereaccompaniedby pairs of pictures, showingtheirdirect & inversescopes. They had to decide which of the two pictures the sentence is about.

  21. Onemember of eachpicturepairwaschunkedintoidenticalsubeventsseparatedbyspaces. Intheotherpicture, themembers of thetwosetsweremixed.

  22. Conditions: Condition i SOV, withthedirectscoperepresentationchunked Conditionii SOV, withtheinversescoperepresentationchunked Conditioniii OSV, withthedirectscoperepresentationchunked Conditioniv OSV, withtheinversescoperepresentationchunked

  23. E.g., Condition i: SOV, withthedirectscoperepresentationchunked Fig.a: Fig.b: Fig. 14a (7) Három lány is két virágot locsol. threegirlDISTtwoflowerwaters ’Threegirls (each) arewateringtwoflowers.’

  24. E.g., Conditionii: SOV, withtheinversescoperepresentationchunked Fig.a: Fig.b: Fig. 18a. 18b (7) Három lány is két virágot locsol. threegirlDISTtwoflowerwaters ’Threegirls (each) arewateringtwoflowers.’

  25. Results: Preferenceforscopereadingwith a chunkedvisualrepresentation: Condition i: SOV, chunkeddirectscope: 66% Conditionii: SOV, chunkedinversescope: 29% Conditioniii: OSV, chunkeddirectscope: 58% Conditioniv: OSV, chunkedinversescope: 71%

  26. Hypothesisconfirmedinconditions i, iii, iv.Whataboutconditionii? The visualstimulimaynothavebeensufficientlydifferent. (8) Két markoló is három gödröt ás. twoexcavatorDISTthreehole-ACCdigs ’Twoexcavators (each) arediggingthreeholes.’

  27. (8) Két markoló is három gödröt ás.twoexcavatorDISTthreehole-ACCdigs Fig. a: Fig. b:

  28. (9) Két fiú is három tornyot épít.two boy DISTthreetowerbuilds ’Twoboys (each) are building threetowers.’ Fig.a: Fig.b: • Fig. 15aFig. 15b

  29. (8), (9): widescopeassignedtotheinitial, subjectquantifier Whenbothpicturesareeasytochunkintoidenticalsubevents, linguisticprominencefactorsdecidescopepreferences.

  30. Conclusion: The primaryfactordeterminingchildren’spreferredscopereading is thestructure of thevisualrepresentation of theevent. Linguisticcuesplay a secondaryrole; themajority of subjectsassignwidescopetothelinguistically more prominentquantifieronlyifbothvisualrepresentationsaresegmentableintoidenticalsubevents.

  31. More generally: Whereasadultsprocessinga doublyquantifiedsentencehaveno problemsinmentallyreconstructingthecomplexsituationpresentedlinguistically, preschoolersalsoexploitvisualcues.  Theirprocessingabilitiesarestillimmature.

  32. Eyetrackingconfirmsthatchunkedvisualinformation is easiertoprocess: Heat map: Multipleeye-movementswhenobserving mixed representations; asmanybriefgazesasthenumber of subeventswhenobservingchunkedrepresentations. Much more time is spenton mixed representationsthanonchunkedones.

  33. Chunkingalsohelpsinfantstointerpretatvisualstimuli Feigenson & Halberda (2004): Infantscandistinguishsets of individualslargerthan 3 ifthesetsarechunked.

  34. Chunking has alsobeenclaimedto play a roleintheinterpretation of universalquantifiers: Philip (1995), Brooks & Braine (1996), Braine & Sekerina (1996), etc.: Universalquantificationinchildgrammar is quantification over (sub)eventsratherthanindividuals.

  35. Quantification over (sub)-events is more elementarythanquantification over individuals Bach, Jelinek, Kratzer and Partee (1995): A-quantification is primarytoD-quantification. A-quantification is universal, D-quantification is not– cf. Mohawk, Navajo, Lakhota, StraitsSalish. Languageswithdeficientnumbersystems: the Amazonian Mundurucú, theAustralianWarlpiri, Mayali, Gun-djeyhmi, onlyhaveA-quantification.

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