{"title":"Twice Upon a Time: Children Use Syntax to Learn the Meanings of Yesterday and Tomorrow.","authors":"Urvi Maheshwari, David Barner","doi":"10.1111/desc.13600","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Time words like \"yesterday\" and \"tomorrow\" are abstract, and are interpreted relative to the context in which they are produced: the word \"tomorrow\" refers to a different point in time now than in 24 h. We tested 112 three- to five-year-old English- and Hindi-speaking children on their knowledge of \"yesterday\" and \"tomorrow,\" which are represented by the same word in Hindi-Urdu: \"kal.\" We found that Hindi learners performed better than English learners when tested on actual past and future events, but that performance for hypothetical events was poor for both groups. Compatible with a \"syntactic cues\" account, we conclude that syntactic tense information-which is necessary for differentiating \"yesterday\" from \"tomorrow\" in Hindi-may play a stronger role in learning the deictic status of these words than mapping of specific words to particular past and future events (\"event mapping\").</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 2","pages":"e13600"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Developmental Science","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13600","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Time words like "yesterday" and "tomorrow" are abstract, and are interpreted relative to the context in which they are produced: the word "tomorrow" refers to a different point in time now than in 24 h. We tested 112 three- to five-year-old English- and Hindi-speaking children on their knowledge of "yesterday" and "tomorrow," which are represented by the same word in Hindi-Urdu: "kal." We found that Hindi learners performed better than English learners when tested on actual past and future events, but that performance for hypothetical events was poor for both groups. Compatible with a "syntactic cues" account, we conclude that syntactic tense information-which is necessary for differentiating "yesterday" from "tomorrow" in Hindi-may play a stronger role in learning the deictic status of these words than mapping of specific words to particular past and future events ("event mapping").
期刊介绍：
Developmental Science publishes cutting-edge theory and up-to-the-minute research on scientific developmental psychology from leading thinkers in the field. It is currently the only journal that specifically focuses on human developmental cognitive neuroscience. Coverage includes: - Clinical, computational and comparative approaches to development - Key advances in cognitive and social development - Developmental cognitive neuroscience - Functional neuroimaging of the developing brain
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