A Small Fan and a Small Handful of Fans Exploring the Acquisition of Count-mass Distinction in Mandarin

Proceedings of PACLIC 19, the 19th Asia-Pacific Conference on Language, Information and Computation. A Small Fan and a Small Handful of Fans Exploring the Acquisition of Count-mass Distinction in Mandarin Becky Hsuan-hua Huang Education and Information Studies UCLA 405 Hilgard Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90095-1521 beckyhua@ucla.edu David Barner Department of Psychology Harvard University 33 Kirkland Street Cambridge, MA 02138 barner@wjh.harvard.edu Peggy Li Department of Psychology Harvard University 33 Kirkland Street Cambridge, MA 02138 pegs@wjh.harvard.edu Abstract The count-mass distinction often served as a test case for asking how syntax and semantics are related, whether knowledge of one helps the acquisition of the other. Virtually no studies examined this distinction in classifier languages which supposedly lack the distinction. However, Cheng and Sybesma (1998) argued Mandarin as a classifier language encodes this distinction at the classifier level: classifiers can be categorized as “mass-classifiers” or “count-classifiers,” which categories denote different semantic meanings and occur in different syntactical constructions. The current study undertook Cheng and Sybesma’s framework to compare Mandarin adults’ and children’s interpretation of classifiers. Experiment 1 and 2 asked whether count-classifiers select individuals and mass classifiers non-individuals and sets of individuals. Adult data indicated that there is indeed such distinction in Mandarin, but 4- to 6-year-olds had not fully mastered the distinction. Experiment 3 tested participant’s syntactic sensitivity. Participants saw two contrasting pictures and had to match the “one-ADJ-CL-de-N” mass phrase to one and the “one-CL- ADJ-N” neutral phrase to the other. Adults were near perfect whereas six-year-old children were evenly split between those who were at-chance and those who knew the syntax. Our experimental data with children suggests that the mastery of the distinction appears quite late (6- or 7-years of age) relative to English-speaking children. 1. Introduction Natural language draws on representations of individuals and sets of individuals. Different languages encode individuation in different ways, thus presenting a problem to children acquiring language. In Indo-European languages like English, individuation is signaled by count-mass syntax. Count nouns (e.g., table) can co-occur directly with number words and be pluralized (five tables), while mass nouns (e.g., wood) cannot be pluralized or co-occur directly with number words, but require a classifier for counting (e.g., two pieces of wood). Mass and count nouns also co-occur selectively with different quantifiers (e.g., many/*much tables vs. *many/much wood). Semantically, count syntax specifies reference to individuals, while mass syntax is unspecified with regards to individuation (see Barner & Snedeker, 2005; Gillon, 1996). Thus, count nouns refer to individuals like tables, chairs and ideas, while mass nouns can refer to either individuals like jewelry and mail or non-individuals like hope and mustard. Certain researchers have claimed that classifier languages like Mandarin lack a count-mass distinction (Allan, 1980; Chierchia, 1994, 1998; Krifka, 1995), and that in these languages all common nouns are mass nouns. In support of this, nouns in Mandarin cannot co-occur directly with number words, but require classifiers for counting, like English mass nouns. Classifiers provide information such as the shape, animacy, functionality, and the unit of measure for the …

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