Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Investigating the form-meaning mapping in the acquisition of English and Japanese measure phrase comparatives

  • Published:
Natural Language Semantics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We present a set of experiments investigating how English- and Japanese-speaking children interpret Measure Phrase comparatives (e.g., X is 10 meters taller than Y / X-wa Y-yori 10-meters takai). We show that despite overt cues to the comparative interpretation (i.e., the comparative -er morpheme in English, and explicit linguistic and visual reference to a contextual standard), children representing both languages diverge from their adult counterparts in that they access a non-adult-like ‘absolute measurement’ interpretation (i.e., X is 10 meters tall). We propose to account for their response pattern by appealing to proposals by Svenonius and Kennedy (in Frascarelli, ed., Phases of interpretation, Mouton de Gruyter, 2006) and Sawada and Grano (Nat Lang Semant 19:191−226, 2011) that Meas in the head of the DegP, which houses the differential, selects for an absolute minimal value: zero. We argue that young children appeal to this absolute zero minimum in lieu of the correct derived standard, and must learn to override this value by appealing to the context to set the standard of comparison when interpretation requires them to do so.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alrenga, Peter, Christopher Kennedy, and Jason Merchant. 2012. A new standard of comparison. In Proceedings of WCCFL 30, ed. Nathan Arnett and Ryan Bennett, 32–42. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

  • Barner, David, and Jesse Snedeker. 2008. Compositionality and statistics in adjective acquisition: 4-year-olds interpret tall and short based on the size distributions of novel noun referents. Child Development 79: 594–608.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartsch, Renate, and Theo Vennemann. 1973. Semantic structures: A study in the relation between syntax and semantics. Frankfurt: Athenäum Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, Sigrid. 2011. Comparison constructions. In Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, vol. 2, ed. Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger, and Paul Portner, 1341–1389. Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, Sigrid, Toshiko Oda, and Koji Sugisaki. 2004. Parametric variation in the semantics of comparison: Japanese vs. English. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 13: 289–344.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beck, Sigrid, Svetlana Krasikova, Daniel Fleischer, Remus Gergel, Stefan Hofstetter, Christiane Savelsberg, John Vanderelst, and Elisabeth Villalta. 2009. Crosslinguistic variation in comparison constructions. Linguistic Variation Yearbook 9: 1–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhatt, Rajesh, and Shoichi Takahashi. 2011. Reduced and unreduced phrasal comparatives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29: 581–620.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bierwisch, Manfred. 1989. The semantics of gradation. In Dimensional adjectives: Grammatical structure and conceptual interpretation, ed. Manfred Bierwisch and Ewald Lang, 71–261. Berlin: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bloom, Lois, Lois Hood, and Patsy Lightbown. 1974. Imitation in language development: if, when and why. Cognitive Psychology 6: 380–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bloom, Lois, Patsy Lightbown, and Lois Hood. 1975. Structure and variation in child language. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 40(2): 1–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boster, Carole, and Stephen Crain. 1993. On children’s understanding of every and or. In Proceedings of early cognition and transition to language, ed. Carlota Smith, 1–23. Austin: University of Texas.

  • Brown, Roger. 1973. A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Chien, Yu-Chin, and Ken Wexler. 1990. Children’s knowledge of locality conditions in binding as evidence for the modularity of syntax and pragmatics. Language Acquisition 1: 225–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chierchia, Gennaro, Stephen Crain, Maria Guasti, and Rosalind Thornton. 1998. ‘Some’ and ‘or’: A study on the emergence of logical form. In Proceedings of BUCLD 22, ed. Annabel Greenhill et al;, 97–108. Somerville. MA: Cascadilla Press.

  • Choi, Youngon, and John C. Trueswell. 2010. Children’s (in)ability to recover from garden paths in a verb-final language: Evidence for developing control in sentence processing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 106: 41–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, Herbert. 1970. The primitive nature of children’s relational concepts. In Cognition and the development of language, ed. John R. Hayes, 269–278. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, Eve V. 1979. Building a vocabulary: Words for objects, actions and relations. In Language acquisition: Studies in first language development, ed. Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman, 149–160. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conroy, Anastasia, Eri Takahashi, Jeffrey Lidz, and Colin Phillips. 2009. Equal treatment for all antecedents: How children succeed with Principle B. Linguistic Inquiry 40: 446–486.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crain, Stephen, and Cecile McKee. 1985. The acquisition of structural restrictions on anaphora. In Proceedings of NELS 15, ed. Stephen Berman, Jae-Wong Choe, and Joyce McDonough, 94–110. Amherst, MA: GLSA.

  • Crain, Stephen, and Rosalind Thornton. 1998. Investigations in Universal Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cresswell, Maxwell. 1976. The semantics of degree. In Montague grammar, ed. Barbara H. Partee, 261–292. New York: Academic Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Dale, Philip S., and Larry Fenson. 1996. Lexical development norms for young children. Behavioral Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 28: 125–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donaldson, Margaret. 1963. A study of children’s thinking. London: Tavistock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donaldson, Margaret, and Roger J. Wales. 1970. On the acquisition of some relational terms. In Cognition and the development of language, ed. John R. Hayes and Roger Brown, 235–268. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duthie, John. 1963. A further study of overlap error in three-term series problems. In A study of children’s thinking, ed. Margaret Donaldson, 223–249. London: Tavistock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ebeling, Karen S., and Susan A. Gelman. 1994. Children’s use of context in interpreting big and little. Child Development 65: 1178–1192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gelman, Susan A., and Karen S. Ebeling. 1989. Children’s use of nonegocentric standards in judgments of functional size. Child Development 60: 920–932.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, Adele. 2006. Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gor, Vera, and Kristen Syrett. 2015. Picking up after sloppy children: What pronouns reveal about children’s analysis of English comparative constructions. In Proceedings of BUCLD 39, ed. Elizabeth Grillo and Kyle Jepson, 191–203. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

  • Grodzinsky, Yosef, and Tanya Reinhart. 1993. The innateness of binding and coreference. Linguistic Inquiry 24: 69–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guasti, Maria Teresa, Stavroula Stavrakaki, and Fabrizio Arosio. 2008. Number and case in the comprehension of relative clauses: Evidence from Italian and Greek. In Language acquisition and development, ed. Anna Gavarró and Maria João Freitas, 230–240. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hackl, Martin. 2001. Comparative quantifiers. PhD dissertation, MIT.

  • Hamburger, Henry, and Stephen Crain. 1982. Relative acquisition. In Language development, vol. 2, ed. Stan Kuczaj, 245–274. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayashishita, J.-R. 2009. Yori-comparative: A reply to Beck et al. (2004). Journal of East Asian Linguistics 18: 65–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heim, Irene. 1985. Notes on comparatives and related matters. Unpublished ms., University of Texas, Austin.

  • Heim, Irene, and Angelika Kratzer. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hellan, Lars. 1981. Towards an integrated analysis of comparatives. Tübingen: Narr.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoeksema, J. 1983. Negative polarity and the comparative. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1: 403–434.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hohaus, Vera, Sonja Tiemann, and Sigrid Beck. 2014. Acquisition of comparison constructions. Language Acquisition 21: 215–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyams, Nina. 1986. Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hyams, Nina. 1992. A reanalysis of null subjects in child language. In Theoretical issues in language acquisition, ed. Jürgen Weissenborn, Helen Goodluck, and Thomas Roeper, 249–268. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamp, Hans. 1975. Two theories about adjectives. In Formal semantics for natural languages, ed. Edward L. Keenan, 123–155. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kamp, Hans, and Barbara Partee. 1995. Prototype theory and compositionality. Cognition 57: 129–191.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Christopher. 2001. Polar opposition and the ontology of ‘degrees’. Linguistics and Philosophy 24: 33–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Christopher. 2007a. Modes of comparison. In Proceedings of CLS 43, ed. Malcolm Elliott et al., 141–165. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

  • Kennedy, Christopher. 2007b. Vagueness and grammar: The semantics of relative and absolute gradable adjectives. Linguistic and Philosophy 20: 1–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Christopher. 1999. Projecting the adjective: The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison. New York: Garland. (1997 PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz.)

  • Kennedy, Christopher, and Beth Levin. 2008. Measure of change: The adjectival core of degree achievements. In Adjectives and adverbs: Syntax, semantics and discourse, ed. Louise McNally and Christopher Kennedy, 156–183. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Christopher, and Louise McNally. 2005. Scale structure and the semantic typology of gradable predicates. Language 81: 345–381.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kikuchi, Akira. 2006. On the interpretation of measure phrases in English and Japanese. In Studies in language, speech and communication: The Proceedings of Linguistics and Phonetics 2002 (LP2002), ed. Shoshuke Haraguchi, Osamu Fujimura, and Bohumil Palek, 971–980. Prague: Karolinum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, Ewan. 1980. A semantics for positive and comparative adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy 4: 1–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kubota, Yusuke. 2011. Phrasal comparatives in Japanese: A measure function-based analysis. Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 8: 267–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • Layton, Thomas L., and Sheldon L. Stick. 1978. Comprehension and production of comparatives and superlatives. Journal of Child Language 6: 511–527.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lechner, Winfried. 2001. Reduced and phrasal comparatives. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 19: 683–735.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lechner, Winfried. 2004. Ellipsis in comparatives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • MacWhinney, Brian. 2000. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk, 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthei, Edward M. 1982. The acquisition of prenominal modifier sequences. Cognition 11: 301–332.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Deanna. 1999. Comparatives and superlatives: Lexical before functional. In Proceedings of BUCLD 24, ed. Alejna Brugos, Anna H.-J. Do, and Annabel Greenhill, 474–481. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

  • Nakanishi, Kimiko. 2007. Formal properties of measurement constructions. Berlin: de Gruyter.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Oda, Toshiko. 2008. Degree constructions in Japanese. PhD dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs.

  • Omaki, Akira, and Jeffrey Lidz. 2015. Linking parser development to acquisition of syntactic knowledge. Language Acquisition 22: 158–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pinkal, Manfred. 1989. On the logical structure of comparatives. In Logic and natural language (Lecture notes in artificial intelligence 459), ed. Rudi Studer, 146–167. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reinhart, Tanya. 1983. Coreference and bound anaphora: A restatement of the anaphora questions. Linguistics and Philosophy 6: 47–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rizzi, Luigi. 1986. Null objects in Italian and the theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry 17: 501–557.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roeper, Thomas. 1972. Approaches to a theory of language acquisition with examples from German children. PhD dissertation, Harvard University.

  • Rotstein, Carmen, and Yoad Winter. 2004. Total adjectives vs. partial adjectives: scale structure and higher order modifiers. Natural Language Semantics 12: 259–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sachs, Jacqueline. 1983. Talking about the there and then: The emergence of displaced reference in parent–child discourse. In Children’s language, vol. 4, ed. Keith E. Nelson, 1–28. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sapir, Edward. 1944. Grading: A study in semantics. Philosophy of Science 11: 93–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawada, Osamu. 2009. Pragmatic aspects of implicit comparison: An economy-based approach. Journal of Pragmatics 41: 1079–1103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sawada, Osamu, and Thomas Grano. 2011. Scale structure, coercion, and the interpretation of measure phrases in Japanese. Natural Language Semantics 19: 191–226.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarzschild, Roger. 2005. Measure phrases as modifiers of adjectives. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 34: 207–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwarzschild, Roger. 2008. The semantics of comparatives and other degree constructions. Language and Linguistics Compass 2: 308–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheldon, Amy. 1974. The role of parallel function in the acquisition of relative clauses in English. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13: 272–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siegal, Muffy. 1976. Capturing the adjective. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

  • Snyder, William, Ken Wexler, and Dolon Das. 1995. The syntactic representation of degree and quantity: Perspectives from Japanese and child English. In The Proceedings of WCCFL 13, ed. Raul Aranovich, et al., 581–596. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

  • Suppes, Patrick. 1974. The semantics of children’s language. American Psychologist 29: 103–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Svenonius, Peter, and Christopher Kennedy. 2006. Northern Norwegian degree questions and the syntax of measurement. In Phases of Interpretation (Studies in Generative Grammar 91), ed. Mara Frascarelli, 131–161. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Syrett, Kristen. 2013. The role of cardinality in the interpretation of measurement expressions. Language Acquisition 20: 228–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Syrett, Kristen, and Jeffrey Lidz. 2011. Competence, performance and the locality of Quantifier Raising: Evidence from 4-year-old children. Linguistic Inquiry 42: 305–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Syrett, Kristen, Evan Bradley, Christopher Kennedy, and Jeffrey Lidz. 2006. Shifting standards: Children’s understanding of gradable adjectives. In The Proceedings of the Inaugural GALANA (UConn Occasional Papers in Linguistics 4), ed. Kamil Ud Deen et al., 353–364. Cambridge, MA: UConn.

  • Syrett, Kristen, Christopher Kennedy, and Jeffrey Lidz. 2010. Meaning and context in children’s understanding of gradable adjectives. Journal of Semantics 27: 1–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Syrett, Kristen, Julien Musolino, and Rochel Gelman. 2012. How can syntax support number word acquisition? Language Learning and Development 8: 146–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tavakolian, Susan. 1981. The conjoined-clause analysis of relative clauses. In Language acquisition and linguistic theory, ed. Susan Tavakolian, 167–187. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueswell, John C., Irina Sekerina, Nicole M. Hill, and Marian L. Logrip. 1999. The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition 73: 89–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valian, Virginia. 1990. Syntactic subjects in the early speech of American and Italian children. Cognition 40: 21–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Stechow, Arnim. 1984a. My reaction to Cresswell’s, Hellan’s, Hoeksema’s and Seuren’s comments. Journal of Semantics 3: 183–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Stechow, Arnim. 1984b. Comparing semantic theories of comparison. Journal of Semantics 3: 1–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watanabe, Akira. 2013. Non-neutral interpretation of adjectives under measure phrase modification. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 22: 261–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Tomoe Arii, Kristen Syrett & Takuya Goro

  2. Department of Linguistics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-New Brunswick, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Kristen Syrett

  3. English Language, Culture & Literature Department at Tsuda College, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo, Japan

    Takuya Goro

Authors
  1. Tomoe Arii
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kristen Syrett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Takuya Goro
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tomoe Arii.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Arii, T., Syrett, K. & Goro, T. Investigating the form-meaning mapping in the acquisition of English and Japanese measure phrase comparatives. Nat Lang Semantics 25, 53–90 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-016-9129-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-016-9129-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation