From Number Cognition to Number Grammar

从数字认知到数字语法

• 批准号: 0843866
• 负责人: J. Kathryn Bock
• 金额: $ 46.98万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-01 至 2013-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0843866&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Number; Cognition; Grammar

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Kathryn Bock will conduct three years of psycholinguistic research on the cognitive processes involved in producing number agreement in spontaneous speech. The project will investigate whether and how the number-perception abilities that are present in early infancy serve basic functions in adult language use. Contemporary views of the relationship between number and language emphasize the effect that language has on number knowledge. The current project emphasizes, instead, the effect that number knowledge has on shaping language. The goal is to explain how speakers tacitly identify the perceptual and conceptual precursors of linguistic number and how number information is used under the normal time pressures associated with speaking. The pressures stem from typical speech rates of more than two words per second and from structural demands for number information that occur every five seconds or so in running speech. The research will compare different accounts of how number perception and conception come to influence language use, particularly whether the influence arises during the choice of words, during the creation of sentence structures, or both. The research methods call on laboratory tasks that measure the accuracy, timing, locus of attention, and memory resources associated with the production of number agreement between verbs and their subjects and between pronouns and their antecedents.The work unites two cornerstones of human intelligence, the ability to count and the ability to communicate. These abilities converge in the role that number plays in human language, especially in grammatical number agreement. Far from being a grammatical detail, agreement is a powerful vehicle behind the linguistic expression of complex ideas. The research is designed to explore a previously unidentified link between an evolutionarily primitive number sense and an apparent universal feature of language. The primitive number sense is found in humans and many other species, and is observable in very young infants before the onset of language acquisition. The sense allows immediate and precise individuation of objects up to a numerosity of three. Coincidentally, or not, grammatical number systems (e.g., number agreement between subjects and verbs in English) are limited to threesomes. There are languages with systematic, distinctive agreement markers for one thing, two things, and three things, but none that demand agreement for exactly four things. Two mysteries surround this regularity. The first is why the limitation exists, and the second is why number agreement is so common in the languages of the world. The aim is to find answers to both of these questions. Such answers can serve in turn to support the understanding of specific language disorders in children and language disabilities in adults, the development of effective methods for second-language learning, and the creation of workable systems for human-computer interaction.

该奖项由 2009 年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法 111-5）资助。在国家科学基金会的支持下，Kathryn Bock 博士将对自发言语中产生数字一致性所涉及的认知过程进行为期三年的心理语言学研究。该项目将调查婴儿早期出现的数字感知能力是否以及如何在成人语言使用中发挥基本功能。 当代关于数字与语言之间关系的观点强调了语言对数字知识的影响。相反，当前的项目强调数字知识对塑造语言的影响。目的是解释说话者如何默认识别语言数字的感知和概念前体，以及在与说话相关的正常时间压力下如何使用数字信息。这些压力源于每秒超过两个单词的典型语速，以及在运行语音中每五秒左右出现一次的数字信息的结构需求。该研究将比较关于数字感知和概念如何影响语言使用的不同说法，特别是这种影响是否出现在单词选择过程中、句子结构创建过程中或两者兼而有之。研究方法要求进行实验室任务，测量与动词和主语之间以及代词和先行词之间的数字一致性产生相关的准确性、时间安排、注意力集中和记忆资源。这项工作结合了人类智力的两个基石，即计数能力和沟通能力。这些能力集中在数字在人类语言中所扮演的角色中，特别是在语法数字一致性方面。一致性远不是语法细节，而是复杂思想的语言表达背后的强大工具。该研究旨在探索进化上的原始数感与语言的明显普遍特征之间以前未被识别的联系。原始数感存在于人类和许多其他物种中，并且在语言习得开始之前的非常年幼的婴儿中就可以观察到。这种感觉允许对最多三个物体进行立即和精确的个体化。不管是否巧合，语法数字系统（例如英语中主语和动词之间的数字一致）仅限于三元组。 有些语言对一件事、两件事和三件事有系统的、独特的一致标记，但没有一种语言要求对四件事达成一致。围绕这一规律有两个谜团。第一个是为什么存在这种限制，第二个是为什么数字协议在世界语言中如此普遍。目的是找到这两个问题的答案。这些答案反过来可以帮助理解儿童的特定语言障碍和成人的语言障碍，开发有效的第二语言学习方法，以及创建可行的人机交互系统。