Stephen Crain
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 742278 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Stephen Crain |
| PRENOMES | Stephen |
| SOBRENOME | Crain |
| ASSINATURA | CRAIN S |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6370-7447 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 49 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 89 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 49 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1985 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
Conjunction is polarity sensitive in Mandarin
This study investigates how speakers of Mandarin interpret negative sentences with the conjunction (he ‘and’). Our experiments test three predictions that follow from the proposal that the Mandarin conjunction is a positive polarity item (PPI) for both children and adults. On this account, the Mandarin conjunction should be interpreted as taking scope over negation in simple negative sentences, but the conjunction should be interpreted in situ wh…
The interpretation of animate nouns in child and adult Mandarin
Using animate nouns to refer to entities in the world involves a complex interaction of ontology, cognition and language. The present study evaluates two accounts of the use of animate nouns, with Mandarin Chinese as the vehicle for testing between the competing accounts. One account was proposed by Cheng et al. (2008. How universal is the Universal Grinder? In Marjo van Koppen & Bert Botma (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands, 50-62. Amsterdam…
Children’s Interpretation of Sentences Containing Multiple Scalar Terms
Sentences containing the scalar term “some”, such as “The pig carried some of his rocks”, are usually interpreted as conveying the scalar inference that the pig did not carry all of his rocks. Previous research has reported that when interpreting such sentences, children tend to derive fewer of these scalar inferences than adults ( Noveck (2001); Papafragou & Musolino (2003); Guasti et al. (2005), among others). One approach to explaining these r…
How Adults and Children Interpret Disjunction under Negation in Dutch, French, Hungarian and Italian
In English, a sentence like “The cat didn’t eat the carrot or the pepper” typically receives a “neither” interpretation; in Japanese it receives a “not this or not that” interpretation. These two interpretations are in a subset/superset relation, such that the “neither” interpretation (strong reading) asymmetrically entails the “not this or not that” interpretation (weak reading). This asymmetrical entailment raises a learnability problem. Accord…
Negative sentences with disjunction in child Catalan
In English, the sentence Mary didn’t eat pizza or sushi is assigned the neither interpretation (both disjuncts must be false). In Mandarin Chinese, the equivalent sentence is assigned the at least one interpretation (at least one disjunct must be false). The cross-linguistic variation in the interpretation of negative sentences with disjunction has been attributed to the Disjunction Parameter. On one value of this lexical parameter, disjunction i…
The interpretation of disjunction in VP ellipsis
It has long been noted that verb phrase (VP) ellipsis cancels the polarity sensitivity of the English Positive Polarity Items (PPIs). In recent work, it has been proposed that words for disjunction are governed by a parameter. On one value of the parameter, disjunction is a PPI for adult speakers of many languages including Mandarin Chinese. On the other value, disjunction is interpreted in situ. It has also been proposed that child language lear…
Disjunction Triggers Exhaustivity Implicatures in 4- to 5-Year-Olds
Children’s difficulty deriving scalar implicatures has been attributed to a variety of factors including processing limitations, an inability to access scalar alternatives, and pragmatic tolerance. The present research explores the nature of children’s difficulty by investigating a previously unexplored kind of inference—an exhaustivity implicature that is triggered by disjunction. We reasoned that if children are able to draw quantity implicatur…
Testing theories of plural meanings
Like dishwashing detergents, all analogies are not the same
This response argues against the proposal that novel utterances are formed by analogy with stored exemplars that are close in meaning. Strings of words that are similar in meaning or even identical can behave very differently once inserted into different syntactic environments. Furthermore, phrases with similar meanings but different underlying syntactic structures can give rise to disparities in meaning in particular contexts. In short, analogy …
Understanding Prosodic Focus Marking in Mandarin Chinese
Children's comprehension of plural predicate conjunction
Previous developmental studies of conjunction have focused on the syntax of phrasal and sentential coordination (Lust, 1977; de Villiers, Tager-Flusberg & Hakuta, 1977; Bloom, Lahey, Hood, Lifter & Fiess, 1980, among others). The present study examined the flexibility of children's interpretation of conjunction. Specifically, when two predicates that can apply simultaneously to a single individual are conjoined in the scope of a plural definite (…
Differences in Scope Assignments for Child and Adult Speakers of Mandarin
Introduction to “Experimental Approaches to the Study of Child Language
Wh-Questions, Universal Statements and Free Choice Inferences in Child Mandarin
The Compositionality of Logical Connectives in Child Italian
The interpretation of logical connectives in Turkish
This study investigated how Turkish-speaking children and adults interpret negative sentences with disjunction (English or ) and ones with conjunction (English and ). The goal was to see whether Turkish-speaking children and adults assigned the same interpretation to both kinds of sentences and, if not, to determine the source of the differences. Turkish-speaking children and adults were found to assign different interpretations to negative sente…
Acquisition of Quantifiers
Explaining children's nonadult interpretations of sentences with quantifiers has been the objective of extensive research for more than 50 years. This article reviews four areas of research, each of which began with the observation that children and adults respond differently to sentences with quantifiers. The observed differences have been subject to considerable debate, often drawing upon linguistic theory for answers and sometimes resulting in…
Born in the USA
One of the challenges confronted by language learners is to master the interpretation of sentences with multiple logical operators (e.g., nominal quantifiers, modals, negation), where different interpretations depend on different scope assignments. Five-year-old children have been found to access some readings of potentially ambiguous sentences much less than adults do (Lidz and Musolino, Lang Acquis 13(2):73–102, 2006; Musolino, Universal Gramma…
Children's Knowledge of Free Choice Inferences and Scalar Implicatures
Journal Article Children's Knowledge of Free Choice Inferences and Scalar Implicatures Get access Lyn Tieu, Lyn Tieu École Normale Supérieure Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jacopo Romoli, Jacopo Romoli University of Ulster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Peng Zhou, Peng Zhou Macquarie University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Schol…
Children’s knowledge of double negative structures in Mandarin Chinese
Acquisition of the polarity sensitive item renhe ‘any’ in Mandarin Chinese
The present study investigated Mandarin-speaking children's acquisition of the polarity sensitive item renhe ‘any’ in Mandarin Chinese. Like its English counterpart any , renhe can be used as a negative polarity item (NPI), or as a free choice (FC) item, and both the distribution and interpretation of renhe are governed by the same syntactic and semantic constraints as English any . Using a Truth Value Judgment Task, the present study tested five…
Acquisition of the numerical wh-pronoun ji ‘how many’ in Mandarin Chinese
What’s parsing got to do with it
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Downward entailment in child Mandarin
There are three hallmarks of core linguistic properties. First, they are expected to be manifested in typologically different languages. Second, they should unify superficially unrelated linguistic phenomena. Third, they are expected to emerge early in the course of language development, all things being equal (Crain, 1991). The present study investigates a candidate for a core linguistic property, namely the semantic property of downward entailm…
Children's interpretation of disjunction in the scope of ‘before’
This study investigates three- to five-year-old children's interpretation of disjunction in sentences like ‘The dog reached the finish line before the turtle or the bunny’. English disjunction has a conjunctive interpretation in such sentences (‘The dog reached the finish line before the turtle and before the bunny’). This interpretation conforms with classical logic. Mandarin disjunction (‘huozhe’) can take scope over ‘before’ (‘zai ... zhiqian’…
Navigating negative quantificational space
This paper reports the findings from an interconnected set of experiments designed to assess children's knowledge of the semantic interactions between negation and quantified NPs. Our main finding is that young children, unlike adults, systematically interpret these elements on the basis of their position in overt syntax. We argue that this observation can be derived from an interplay between fundamental properties of universal grammar and basic …
Children's Knowledge of Free Choice Inferences and Scalar Implicatures
Journal Article Children's Knowledge of Free Choice Inferences and Scalar Implicatures Get access Lyn Tieu, Lyn Tieu École Normale Supérieure Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jacopo Romoli, Jacopo Romoli University of Ulster Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Peng Zhou, Peng Zhou Macquarie University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Schol…
Structure Dependence in Grammar Formation
A fundamental goal of linguistic theory is to account for language acquisition. At the heart of the problem is the poverty of the stimulus, which underdetermines the hypotheses that children formulate. Generative grammar proposes that the form for expressing rules is innately constrained, and one putative constraint is structure-dependence. The present study subjected this proposal to an empirical test. In the first experiment, yes/no questions—a…
Tasks and timing in the perception of linguistic anomaly
Scope assignment in child language
Language Acquisition is Language Change
Children's Knowledge of the Quantifier Dou in Mandarin Chinese
Anomaly Detection
The Interpretation of Disjunction in Universal Grammar
Child and adult speakers of English have different ideas of what `or' means in ordinary statements of the form `A or B'. Even more far-reaching differences between children and adults are found in other languages. This tells us that young children do not learn what `or' means by watching how adults use `or'. An alternative is to suppose that children draw upon a priori knowledge of the meaning of `or'. This conclusion is reinforced by the observa…
Acquisition of Quantifiers
Explaining children's nonadult interpretations of sentences with quantifiers has been the objective of extensive research for more than 50 years. This article reviews four areas of research, each of which began with the observation that children and adults respond differently to sentences with quantifiers. The observed differences have been subject to considerable debate, often drawing upon linguistic theory for answers and sometimes resulting in…
Acquisition of the numerical wh-pronoun ji ‘how many’ in Mandarin Chinese
The Structure of Children's Linguistic Knowledge
July 01 2005 The Structure of Children's Linguistic Knowledge In Special Collection: CogNet Andrea Gualmini, Andrea Gualmini University of Maryland Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Stephen Crain Stephen Crain University of Maryland Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Andrea Gualmini University of Maryland Stephen Crain University of Maryland Online ISS…
The interpretation of animate nouns in child and adult Mandarin
Using animate nouns to refer to entities in the world involves a complex interaction of ontology, cognition and language. The present study evaluates two accounts of the use of animate nouns, with Mandarin Chinese as the vehicle for testing between the competing accounts. One account was proposed by Cheng et al. (2008. How universal is the Universal Grinder? In Marjo van Koppen & Bert Botma (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands, 50-62. Amsterdam…
Wh-Questions, Universal Statements and Free Choice Inferences in Child Mandarin
The Compositionality of Logical Connectives in Child Italian
Universal Grammar versus language diversity
Is Generative Grammar deceptively simple or simply deceptive
On the acquisition of pronominal reference
On not being led up the garden path
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On the acquisition of pronominal reference
Structure Dependence in Grammar Formation
A fundamental goal of linguistic theory is to account for language acquisition. At the heart of the problem is the poverty of the stimulus, which underdetermines the hypotheses that children formulate. Generative grammar proposes that the form for expressing rules is innately constrained, and one putative constraint is structure-dependence. The present study subjected this proposal to an empirical test. In the first experiment, yes/no questions—a…
Contextual information and temporal terms
We report an experiment designed to identify how contextual information can influence children's performance on an experimental task involving temporal terms. Grain (1982) reported improved performance on a comprehension task when subjects were provided with contextual information, and he suggested that the improvement was due to satisfaction of presuppositions. However, this contextual information might have served to simplify task demands by pr…
Comprehension of Temporal Terms By Good and Poor Readers
Poor beginning readers often have difficulty comprehending spoken sentences with complex syntactic structures. This study attempts to identify the reasons for this difficulty. Second-grade good and poor readers were tested for comprehension of spoken sentences containing the temporal terms before and after. Processing load was varied systematically while holding syntax constant in an effort to determine whether processing factors contribute to po…
Theoretical Perspectives on Language Deficits
Seventh International Congress for the Study of Child Language
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Comprehension of nonlexical categories in agrammatism
Tasks and timing in the perception of linguistic anomaly
Anomaly Detection
Levels of representation in child grammar
An account by Lebeaux (1988) of children's errors in comprehension and their non-adult productions suggests that the source of difficulty is the processing system. The claim is that children sometimes generate shallow representations, and thus they may not compute the level at which a particular constraint occurs. The proposal is tested by an investigation of the Crossover paradigm, the wanna contraction paradigm, and the that-trace paradigm. We …
Navigating negative quantificational space
This paper reports the findings from an interconnected set of experiments designed to assess children's knowledge of the semantic interactions between negation and quantified NPs. Our main finding is that young children, unlike adults, systematically interpret these elements on the basis of their position in overt syntax. We argue that this observation can be derived from an interplay between fundamental properties of universal grammar and basic …
Why language acquisition is a snap
Nativists inspired by Chomsky are apt to provide arguments with the follow-ing general form: languages exhibit interesting generalizations that are not suggested by casual (or even intensive) examination of what people actually say; correspondingly, adults (i.e., just about anyone above the age of four) know much more about language than they could plausibly have learned on the basis of their experience; so absent an alternative account of the re…
Why children and adults sometimes (but not always) compute implicatures
Noveck (2001 Noveck, I. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicatures. Cognition, 78: 168–188. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) argued that children even as old as 11 do not reliably endorse a scalar interpretation of weak scalar terms (some, might, or) (cf. Braine & Rumain, 1981 Braine, M. and Roumain, B. 1981. Children's comprehension of “or”: Evidence for a sequence of competencies. Journal …
The Structure of Children's Linguistic Knowledge
July 01 2005 The Structure of Children's Linguistic Knowledge In Special Collection: CogNet Andrea Gualmini, Andrea Gualmini University of Maryland Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Stephen Crain Stephen Crain University of Maryland Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Andrea Gualmini University of Maryland Stephen Crain University of Maryland Online ISS…
Language Acquisition is Language Change
Is Generative Grammar deceptively simple or simply deceptive
Hidden units in child language
The Interpretation of Disjunction in Universal Grammar
Child and adult speakers of English have different ideas of what `or' means in ordinary statements of the form `A or B'. Even more far-reaching differences between children and adults are found in other languages. This tells us that young children do not learn what `or' means by watching how adults use `or'. An alternative is to suppose that children draw upon a priori knowledge of the meaning of `or'. This conclusion is reinforced by the observa…
Scope assignment in child language
Focus identification in child Mandarin
In this study, we investigated how Mandarin-speaking children and adults interpret focus structures like Zhiyou Yuehan chi-le pingguo ‘Only John ate an apple’ and Shi Yuehan chi-de pingguo ‘It is John who ate an apple’. We found that children tended to associate focus operators zhiyou ‘only’ and shi ‘be’ with the verb phrase (VP), whereas adults uniquely associated them with the subject noun phrase (NP). To account for this difference, we propose…
Universal Grammar versus language diversity
Children's Knowledge of the Quantifier Dou in Mandarin Chinese
Downward entailment in child Mandarin
There are three hallmarks of core linguistic properties. First, they are expected to be manifested in typologically different languages. Second, they should unify superficially unrelated linguistic phenomena. Third, they are expected to emerge early in the course of language development, all things being equal (Crain, 1991). The present study investigates a candidate for a core linguistic property, namely the semantic property of downward entailm…
Children's interpretation of disjunction in the scope of ‘before’
This study investigates three- to five-year-old children's interpretation of disjunction in sentences like ‘The dog reached the finish line before the turtle or the bunny’. English disjunction has a conjunctive interpretation in such sentences (‘The dog reached the finish line before the turtle and before the bunny’). This interpretation conforms with classical logic. Mandarin disjunction (‘huozhe’) can take scope over ‘before’ (‘zai ... zhiqian’…
Linguistics (45 obras) · Psychology (41 obras) · Language Development and Disorders (34 obras) · Computer Science (33 obras) · Philosophy (33 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (24 obras) · Reading and Literacy Development (22 obras) · Natural language processing (16 obras) · Mandarin Chinese (15 obras) · Grammar (14 obras)