Quantification the Syntactic Interfaces in Language Acquisition

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With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Jeffrey Lidz will conduct three years of developmental linguistic research on the syntax, semantics and use of quantificational expressions (e.g., two birds, every horse) in English and Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken by approximately 40 million people in southern India. The project uses the grammar and acquisition of quantification across diverse languages as a probe into the relative contributions of innate knowledge and linguistic experience in language acquisition. Previous research has shown that children systematically fail to detect both interpretations of ambiguous sentences like "every horse didn't jump over the fence," interpreting them as meaning only that no horses jumped. This observation holds for children learning English and Kannada, despite the many apparent differences between these two languages. This project will examine the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors that contribute to this effect, with two aims in mind. First, the project will determine whether children's errors are due their lacking the correct representations of the quantificational expressions or to their abilities to put their knowledge to use. Second, the project will examine the role of experience in leading children towards ultimately understanding such sentences like adults.The research component of the project involves language acquisition experiments with English- and Kannada-speaking children. The project also develops a program of training for graduate and undergraduate students which provides them with the skills required for active involvement in integrated research in theoretical and developmental linguistics. By comparing acquisition in children learning English and Kannada, the project expands the range of data typically used in theoretical linguistics and extends collaborations between American and Indian researchers.