{"title":"Syntactic Cues to Individuation in Mandarin Chinese.","authors":"Pierina Cheung, David Barner, Peggy Li","doi":"10.17791/jcs.2009.10.2.135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17791/jcs.2009.10.2.135","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When presented with an entity (e.g., a wooden honey-dipper) labeled with a novel noun, how does a listener know that the noun refers to an instance of an object kind (honey-dipper) rather than to a substance kind (wood)? While English speakers draw upon count-mass syntax for clues to the noun's meaning, linguists have proposed that classifier languages, which lack count-mass syntax, provide other syntactic cues. Three experiments tested Mandarin-speakers' sensitivity to the diminutive suffix -zi and the general classifier ge when interpreting novel nouns. Experiment 1 found that -zi occurs more frequently with nouns that denote object kinds. Experiment 2 demonstrated Mandarin-speaking adults' sensitivity to ge and -zi when inferring novel word meanings. Experiment 3 tested Mandarin three- to six-year-olds' sensitivity to ge. We discuss differences in the developmental course of these cues relative to cues in English, and the impact of this difference to children's understanding of individuation.</p>","PeriodicalId":43246,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognitive Science","volume":"10 2","pages":"135-148"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2009-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505892/pdf/nihms419856.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"31082426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}