Doctoral Dissertation Research: The mental representation and acquisition of the universal quantifiers

像“猫”这样的词让人想起不同个体的不同联想(例如，过敏反应和安慰伴侣)。但与此同时，说英语的人与“猫”这个词配对的意思至少必须足够相似，才能进行成功的交流。这暗示了意义上的某种程度的不变性，但留下了我们对这个词的共同理解的详细程度的开放。如果说话者确实分享了关于一个单词含义的细微细节，那么他们是如何获得这些细节的问题就出现了。没有两个孩子在语言学习过程中有完全相同的经历，那么他们如何才能对一个单词有共同的理解呢？这个项目探索了两个问题--在说话者之间分享词义的哪个方面，以及这个词义是如何获得的？--对于数量词“每个”和“每个”。更好地理解说话者如何代表和习得这些单词，将有助于我们理解思维的逻辑原语，以及儿童在学习语言时如何利用他们的输入。这项研究汇集了不同领域的方法。视觉科学实验测试参与者对集合和个人属性的记忆，以确定“每个”和“每个”的含义是否暗示了集合的表征。语言学语料库分析确定了儿童言语中存在的数据。来自发展心理学的技术被用来测试儿童是否真的使用这些线索来学习“每个”和“每个”之间的相关区别。该项目所追求的假设是，当“每个圆圈都是绿色的”这样的句子意味着集合(圆圈的集合)的表示时，最小差别的“每个圆圈是绿色的”只暗示了个体及其属性的表示。该项目还涉及向当地家庭和高中生推广相关问题(例如，更广泛的语言和思维之间的关系)。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A word like “cat” calls to mind different associations for different individuals (e.g., allergic reactions versus comforting companion). But at the same time, whatever meaning English speakers have paired with the word “cat” must be at least similar enough to enable successful communication. This suggests some level of invariance in meaning, but leaves open the level of detail at which our understanding of the word is shared. If speakers do share fine-grained details about a word’s meaning, the question of how they acquired those details arises. No two children have the exact same experience in the course of language learning, so how would they come to have a common understanding of a word? This project explores both questions – what aspect of word meaning is shared across speakers and how is this meaning acquired? – for the quantificational words “each” and “every”. Gaining a better understanding of how speakers represent and acquire these words will improve our understanding of the logical primitives of thought and the ways in which children make use of their input when learning a language.The research brings together approaches from various fields. Vision science experiments test participants’ memory for set and individual properties to determine whether the meanings of “each” and “every” implicate representations of sets. A linguistic corpus analysis identifies the data present in speech to children. Techniques from developmental psychology are used to test whether children in fact use these cues in learning the relevant difference between “each” and “every”. The project pursues the hypothesis that while a sentence like “every circle is green” implicates representations of sets (the set of circles), the minimally different “each circle is green” implicates only representations of individuals and their properties. The project also involves conducting outreach about related issues (e.g., the relationship between language and thought more generally) to local families and high school students.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.