Binding in Adult and Child Thai

约束原则可能是人类语言中研究得最多的原则，它规定了句子中名词（如代词、普通名词和专有名词等）可能出现的位置，以及它们可能/不可能指的是什么。许多著名的研究人员认为，这些原则是我们天生的语言天赋的一部分，因为(i)它们存在于我们有数据的绝大多数语言中，（ii）迄今为止研究过的每种语言的儿童在最早的可测试年龄就表现出了这些原则。这种先天性的论点在某种程度上受到少数语言存在的威胁，例如泰语，在这些语言中，约束原则似乎不成立。如果这些原则是天生的，那么像泰语这样的特殊语言就不应该存在。那么为什么说泰语的人不遵守约束性原则呢？泰国儿童掌握着这个谜题的答案：如果泰国儿童，不像泰国成年人，在年轻时就表现出对约束原则的了解，这将表明这些原则确实是我们天生的语言天赋的一部分，随着儿童的成熟，他们在成人输入的基础上“忘记”了这些原则。然而，如果泰国儿童在发展的任何阶段都没有表现出具有约束力的原则的证据，这将表明这些原则不是天生的。如果是这样的话，学习其他语言（如英语）的儿童就无法获得这些天生的原则，而必须简单地根据经验和其他（非语言）机制来学习它们。该项目将对80名3 -7岁的泰国儿童和20名说泰语的成年人进行六个实验，每个实验针对约束原则的不同方面。该项目不仅将解决认知科学中最大的争论之一（先天与后天），而且还将从一种未被充分研究的语言中收集数据，并建立和促进泰国和美国学术机构之间的关系。此外，这项工作将为泰语习得标准的发展奠定基础，这些标准可用于言语病理学或教育评估目的。

The Binding Principles, perhaps the most well studied principles in human language, state where in a sentence nominals (e.g., pronouns, common and proper nouns, etc.) may occur, and what they may/may not refer to. Many prominent researchers argue that these principles are part of our innate linguistic endowment because (i) they occur in the vast majority of languages for which we have data, and (ii) children in every language studied to date exhibit them at the very earliest testable ages. This argument for innateness is threatened somewhat by the existence of a handful of languages, e.g., Thai, in which the Binding Principles appear not to hold. If these principles are innate, exceptional languages like Thai should not exist.So why don't Thai speakers obey the Binding Principles? Thai children hold the answer to this puzzle: if Thai children, unlike Thai adults, exhibit knowledge of the Binding Principles at young ages, this will show that the principles are indeed part of our innate linguistic endowment, and that as children mature, they 'unlearn' these principles on the basis of adult input. However, if Thai children show no evidence of the Binding Principles at any stage in development, this will suggest that the principles are not innate. If this is the case, children acquiring other languages (e.g., English) do not have access to these innate principles, and must simply learn them on the basis of experience and other (non-linguistic) mechanisms. This project will test 80 Thai children aged 3yrs-7yrs and 20 adult Thai speakers on six experiments, each targeting a different aspect of the Binding Principles. The project will not only address one of the biggest debates in cognitive science (nature versus nurture), but it will also gather data from an understudied language, as well as establish and foster relations between academic institutions in Thailand and the United States. Moreover, this work will lay the foundation for the development of standards for the acquisition of Thai that may be used for Speech Pathology or educational assessment purposes.