From Number Cognition to Number Grammar

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。该项目将调查是否以及如何在婴儿早期出现的数字感知能力在成人语言使用的基本功能。 当代关于数与语言关系的观点强调语言对数知识的影响。相反，目前的项目强调的是数字知识对语言形成的影响。目的是解释说话人如何内隐地识别语言数字的知觉和概念前体，以及在与说话相关的正常时间压力下如何使用数字信息。这种压力来自于典型的每秒两个以上单词的语速，以及对数字信息的结构性需求，这种需求在连续的语音中每五秒左右出现一次。这项研究将比较不同的帐户如何数的知觉和概念来影响语言的使用，特别是影响是否出现在选择的话，在创建句子结构，或两者兼而有之。研究方法要求实验室任务，测量准确性，时间，注意力的位置，以及与动词和它们的主语之间以及代词和它们的先行词之间的数字一致性的产生相关的记忆资源。这项工作结合了人类智力的两个基石，计算能力和沟通能力。这些能力集中体现在数字在人类语言中所扮演的角色上，尤其是在语法上的数字一致性上。一致性远不是一个语法细节，而是复杂思想的语言表达背后的一个强大工具。这项研究旨在探索一种先前未被发现的联系，这种联系存在于进化上原始的数感和语言的一个明显的普遍特征之间。原始的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可以观察到。这种感觉允许物体的直接和精确的个性化，直到三个数字。巧合的是，语法数字系统（例如，英语中主语和动词之间的数字一致性）仅限于三位数。 有些语言对一件事、两件事和三件事有系统的、独特的一致性标记，但没有一种语言要求对四件事达成一致。这种规律性有两个谜团。第一个是为什么存在这种限制，第二个是为什么数字一致在世界上的语言中如此普遍。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。

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.