Syntactic bootstrapping attitude verbs despite impoverished morphosyntax
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21630856 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nick Huang (0000-0001-8022-1097, National University of Singapore, corresponding author), Aaron Steven White (0000-0003-0057-9246, University of Rochester), Chia-Hsuan Liao (0000-0003-1100-0738, National Tsing Hua University), Valentine Hacquard (0000-0003-3854-0312, University of Maryland), Jeffrey Lidz (0000-0001-8829-1495, University of Maryland) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 27-53 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language Acquisition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1048-9223 • E-ISSN: 1532-7817 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/10489223.2021.1934686 |
| OpenAlex | W3192698066 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 43 |
Attitude verbs like think and want describe mental states (belief and desire) that lack reliable physical correlates that could help children learn their meanings. Nevertheless, children succeed in doing so. For this reason, attitude verbs have been a parade case for syntactic bootstrapping. We assess a recent syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis, in which children assign belief semantics to verbs whose complement clauses morphosyntactically resemble the declarative main clauses of their language, while assigning desire semantics to verbs whose complement clauses do not. This hypothesis, building on the cross-linguistic generalization that belief complements have the morphosyntactic hallmarks of declarative main clauses, has been elaborated for languages with relatively rich morphosyntax. This article looks at Mandarin Chinese, whose null arguments and impoverished morphology mean that the differences necessary for syntactic bootstrapping might be much harder to detect. Our corpus analysis, however, shows that Mandarin belief complements have the profile of declarative main clauses, while desire complements do not. We also show that a computational implementation of this hypothesis can learn the right semantic contrasts between Mandarin and English belief and desire verbs, using morphosyntactic features in child-ambient speech. These results provide novel cross-linguistic support for this syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis
Generalization · Linguistics · Mandarin Chinese · Morpheme · Syntax · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Mathematics · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Mandarin Chinese
Putting the “Noun Bias” in Context
Hard Words
Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words
Stanza
Use of the mutual exclusivity assumption by young word learners
The Mutual Exclusivity Bias in Children's Word Learning
Pro-Drop in Chinese
Mood and gradability
The Structural Sources of Verb Meanings
Human simulations of vocabulary learning
Control complements in Mandarin Chinese
Identifying Chinese dependent clauses in the forms of subjects
Two-year-old children differentiate test questions from genuine questions
Order and Constituency in Mandarin Chinese
Epistemics and attitudes
The Development of Autonomy in Preschool Mandarin Chinese-Speaking Children's Play Narratives
Talking about the past
A syntactic analysis of interpretive restrictions on imperative, promissive, and exhortative subjects
Hope for syntactic bootstrapping
Multiple-modal constructions in Mandarin Chinese and their finiteness properties
Acquisition of mental state language in Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking children
The Input to Verb Learning in Mandarin Chinese
Nouns are not always learned before verbs
Preschool children's comprehension and production of directive forms
On the development of communicative understandings
Is there a finite vs. nonfinite distinction in Chinese
On the event relativity of modal auxiliaries
Quantifying into Question Acts
Month-olds understand the cooperative logic of requests
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |