Ling 411 Roeper Apr 5,07
What does a child need to learn about quantification?
I. Meaning: every, each, most, all, some
every, each all => sets
behave differently
A. every: a. takes a set
b. exhaustive: may not omit any
c. takes other quantifiers in scope
a. every boy has three heads
d.
collective and distributive
1. He lifted every glass (Tunstall diss)
=/= he lifted each glass
2. all = distributive in more contexts
all the boys have hats
=/= every boy has hats
e. each: always distributive
B. Syntax:
1. every does not float
a. the boys are each playing baseball
b. *the boys are every playing baseball
c. Note: every floats in German
2. Has no partitive:
a. each of the boys
b. *every of the boys
3. Does not allow ellipsis:
a. I have toys. Want some?
*Want every
4. Internal use:
a. his every move
b. *his each move
5. Does not have adverbial use
a. I like most children
b. I like children most
c. I like every child
d. *I like children every
6. Subject to barriers:
a. there is a horse that every boy is on
=> no wide scope for every
Naturalistic Data:
10 uses of every N among 18 children
strauss: 3 children 25 instances—17 were
“everyday”, “everytime” and
others were: “every glasses”, “every people”
History of Quanficition Studies—Overview
I. Quantifiers:
A. Pragmatic: 1) people have noses => isomorphism
Put your finger here (on one’s nose)
2) people have eyes
3) unicycles have wheels
4) *every unicycle has wheels
B. Group Readings:
5) they have a hat
6) We gave them a bed
7) Referential obscurity:
a. we gave them a cup
b. we gave them a cup of coffee
C. Bound Variables
8) everyone has an eye
D. First Order Hypotheses:
H1: children have only pragmatic binding at first
=cognitive hypothesis
H2: Children cannot fix scope relations
H3: Children have all kinds of binding in UG
II. Evidence:
A. Donaldson and LLoyd: 9) are all the cars are in the garage?
Only true for: 10) every garage has a car
c-g c-g c-g empty g
B. Roeper and Matthei:
11) The circles have some black
12) Note: the men are all here/All the men are here
13) "Only I want milk" = I want only milk
D. Tan: 16) "Look at these frogs. They don't have lillypads.
Give them a lilypad" 3/5 many lillypads
2/5 one lillypad for the whole group
17) "here's some plants by the window.
They are missing flowers. Give them flowers.
Now give them a butterfly." 4/5 many butterflies
18) "here are some little boys and girls.
Give them a toy to play with" 4/5 many toys
19) deVilliers and Roeper:
a. there is a horse for everyone
b. there is a horse that everyone is riding on
(b) should allow only one horse, but children
give it the many-horse reading
=> 80 children--2nd/3rd graders still disobey
barriers.
E. Whose hat is he lifting => no (4%) bound readings => defeats
a simple cognitive hypothesis
Both => bound readings (20%):
a. who thinks he has a hat
b. who does he think has a hat
F. Discourse Context:
a. Every boy is driving. A truck is broken
b. Every cat is sleeping. A bed is broken
=> 80 children => all have it by 5 years, except disordered
ones
G. Lexical level:
a. every dog is a pony-rider
=>? not this pony
=> No children extend this to mean "every pony"
H. “Bunny-spreading”
dog-bone dog-bone dog-bone rabbit-carrot
Does every dog have a bone? “Not this carrot”
I Conclusions: Syntactic Phenomena fixed before LF phenomena
a. cross-over and superiority
Syntactic Hypothesis: Partial CP, only C.
V or NP
/ \
V CP
/ \
spec C = barrier
V or NP
/ \
V C = no barrier
| |
a. Q Moves over CP=> because CP has no Spec
[there is a horse that every boy is riding]
b. Q moves into upper clause over NP
[there is a horse for everyone = distributed]
c. Q will not move across discourse boundary
[every chicken stood up. A chicken hatched]
d. BV does not arise in cross-over cases
wh- does not spread as a Q to he
[whose hat is he lifting] => wh- =/= adverb
e. Hypothesis: Q will not move into word-level (pony-riding)
I. Adverb Hypothesis: [a boy always has a milkshake]
IV. SUMMARY:
1. Children overgeneralize "distributive" reading:
a. plurals: a dog has noses
b. E/A: every boy has a milkshake =>
1. classic spreading
= every milkshake linked to a dog
2. bunny-spreading:
= every object is isomorphic