Collaborative Research: Context Dependence across Categories: Bridging Developmental, Experimental, and Theoretical Perspectives

对世界上的实体进行分类的能力是人类认知的一个基本部分。语言在这个过程中起着核心作用。然而，在自然语言的许多情况下，如果没有来自上下文的进一步信息，分类是不可能的。例如，像“tall”这样的可分级形容词，其含义会随着上下文而变化，甚至名词也会发生变化。当面对这种变化多端的、依赖于上下文的意义时，孩子们是如何成功地组装他们的词汇并确定所指的？这个项目通过研究在最基本和最早获得的类别之一：可数名词中出现的上下文依赖性来研究这个问题。对这些名词及其相关概念的研究一直是婴儿、数量/质量和物体/物质区分以及语言类型学研究的中心。因此，本研究的预期结果将具有广泛的跨学科影响。特别是，这些发现将为语言和认知在发展过程中相互交织的方式提供见解，并加深我们对上下文信息如何影响意义的理解。这个项目的出发点是一个公认的发现，即幼儿允许将物体碎片与整个物体同等对待，作为“叉子”或“杯子”等相应名词的指代物。本研究的关键假设是，这种明显的非成人行为源于儿童在使用语境信息来丰富固有的语境依赖的名义意义方面的困难。通过对儿童和成人进行的一系列行为实验，比较了名义可分级性和可分级性形容词，目的是利用这些行为反应来(A)确定发展的语言轨迹，(b)将类别/概念特异性与可分级性和上下文依赖性的更一般方面分离开来，以及(c)梳理语义和语用学贡献的意义部分。重点将放在指导、实践培训、本科、研究生和博士后水平的教育以及社区外展方面。这些发现将被纳入课堂，并将在学术场所广泛传播，从而促进科学发现。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ability to categorize entities in the world is a fundamental part of human cognition. Language plays a central role in this process. Yet in many cases in natural language, categorization is impossible without further information from the context. Such is the case, for example, with gradable adjectives such as 'tall', where meaning shifts from context to context, and even with nouns. How do children succeed at assembling their lexicon and determining reference when faced with such shifting, context-dependent meanings? This project pursues this question by examining the context-dependence that arises in one of the most basic and earliest-acquired categories: count nouns. The study of such nouns and corresponding concepts has stood at the center of research on infancy, the count/mass and object/substance distinctions, and language typology. Thus, the anticipated results from this research will have broad and interdisciplinary impact. In particular, the findings will offer insights into the ways language and cognition are intertwined in the course of development, and deepen our understanding of how contextual information influences meaning. This project takes as its starting point a well-established finding that young children allow object fragments to be treated on par with whole objects as referents for corresponding nouns like 'fork' or 'cup'. The key hypothesis of this research is that this apparent non-adult behavior stems from children's difficulties in using contextual information to enrich an inherently context-dependent nominal meaning. A series of behavioral experiments with children and adults compares nominal gradability with gradable adjectives, with the goal of using these behavioral responses to (a) identify a developmental linguistic trajectory, (b) dissociate category/concept-specific from more general aspects of gradability and context-dependence, and (c) tease apart parts of meaning contributed by semantics and pragmatics. Significant efforts will be directed towards mentoring, hands-on training, and education at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels, as well as community outreach. The findings will advance scientific discovery by being incorporated into classes and will be disseminated broadly in scholarly venues.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.