Doctoral Dissertation Research: Licensing Conditions for Long Distance Binding in Child Language

这篇博士论文研究了儿童学习“远距离捆绑”(LDB)的明显延迟，这是一种现象，即代词等元素在语法上与其先行词相关联，在句子内或句子之间可以用几个单词隔开。延迟习得语言的某些方面被认为揭示了儿童学习语言的方式，也揭示了人类语言本身的性质。这个项目表明，与之前文献假设的学习兴趣语言的延迟学习相反，儿童在学习兴趣语言方面实际上并没有延迟，之前的研究发现延迟学习的证据是因为儿童对所使用的动词(如‘Think’，‘Believe’等)的理解。与成年人不同。这种理解上的差异导致了一种错觉，即学习LDB被推迟了。本研究采用实验性判断任务，考察儿童在控制有问题的动词的同时对语言习得的理解情况，从而揭示儿童的语言学习过程。该项目还包括一名本科生研究人员，为培养下一代语言科学家做出贡献。LDB是在一种目标语言中进行调查的，在目标语言中，意思为“自我”的反身词指的是句子中较早出现的名词。这项实验测试了孩子们是否能理解，在一个相当于英语中的句子中，‘约翰认为玛丽刷了[自我]，’自我‘既可以指玛丽(本地先行词)，也可以指约翰(长途先行词)。研究发现，儿童强烈倾向于使用本地先行词，而成年人则同时允许使用两种先行词。实验发现，为了使远距离先行词获得许可，它必须是对数的，这意味着它是信念或报告信息的来源。在一个句子中，比如‘John That Mary Brush[self]’，‘John’被认为是逻辑代词，因此是‘self’的合格先行词。然而，孩子们无法将第一个名词指定为逻辑代词，因为他们很难获得动词Think的正确属性。这项实验重复了之前的发现，即儿童在这样的句子中难以理解LDB。然后，它包括一个操作，它突出了‘Think’的对数意义，从而迫使儿童将第一个名词短语视为对数意义。先导研究发现，在第一个实验(没有对数操作)中，儿童不允许对LDB进行解释，而在第二个实验(突出对数)中，儿童确实允许对LDB进行解释。因此，这表明困难的根源不是LDB所涉及的计算复杂性，而是与孩子们习得像“Think”这样的动词和表示心理状态的类似动词有关。这一奖项反映了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。

This doctoral dissertation project investigates an apparent delay in children's learning of "long-distance binding" (LDB), a phenomenon whereby an element such as a pronoun is grammatically associated to its antecedent, from which it may be separated by several words within or across sentences. Delays in the acquisition of certain aspects of language are thought to reveal something about how children learn language, and something about the nature of human language itself. This project shows that, contrary to previous literature assuming delayed learning of LDB in the language of interest, children are in fact not delayed with respect to LDB, and the reason previous studies found evidence for a delay is that children's understanding of the verbs that were used (such as 'think', 'believe', etc.) differs from that of adults. This difference in understanding leads to the illusion that the learning of LDB is delayed. This project uses experimental judgment tasks to investigate children's understanding of LDB while controlling for the problematic verbs, shedding light on children's language learning process. The project also includes an undergraduate researcher, contributing to the training of the next generation of language scientists.LDB is investigated in a target language where a reflexive word meaning 'self' can refer to nouns that occur earlier in the sentence. The experiment tests whether children can understand that in a sentence equivalent to English 'John thinks that Mary brushed [self]', 'self' can refer to Mary (the local antecedent) but also John (the long distance antecedent). Children have been found to strongly prefer the local antecedent, while adults allow both antecedents. The experiment finds that in order for the long distance antecedent to be licensed it must be logophoric, which means it is the source of belief or reported information. In a sentence like 'John thinks that Mary brushed [self]', 'John' is considered logophoric, and thus is an eligible antecedent to 'self'. However, children fail to assign the first noun as logophoric because of their difficulty in acquiring the correct properties of the verb 'think'. This experiment replicates previous findings that children struggle with LDB in such sentences. It then includes a manipulation that highlights the logophoric meaning of 'think', thereby forcing children to consider the first noun phrase as logophoric. Pilot studies find that in the first experiment (no logophoric manipulation), children fail to allow the LDB interpretation, while in the second experiment (highlighting logophoricity), children do allow the LDB interpretation. This therefore shows that the locus of difficulty is not the computational complexity involved in LDB, but rather is related to children’s acquisition of verb like 'think' and similar verbs denoting mental states.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.