Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Semantics in Acquisition

  • Book
  • © 2006

Overview

Editors:
  1. Veerle van Geenhoven

    1. Radboud Universiteit, The Netherlands

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • The two linguistic subfields of semantics and language acquisition are connected to each other, which has rarely been done before
  • Semantics usually deals with adult language, and language acquisition usually is studied from the perspective of syntax or from a functional perspective, but not systematically from a formal semantic one

Part of the book series: Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics (SITP, volume 35)

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

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. The development of the syntax-semantics interface

    1. ‘Mismatches’ of Form and Interpretation

      • Greg Carlson
      Pages 19-36

    2. Watching Noun Phrases Emerge: Seeking Compositionality

      • Tom Roeper
      Pages 37-64

    3. Cross-Linguistic Acquisition of Complement Tense

      • Ayumi Matsuo
      Pages 65-88

  3. Acquiring Universal Quantification

    1. Everybody Knows

      • Luisa Meroni, Andrea Gualmini, Stephen Crain
      Pages 89-114

    2. The Effect of Context on Children'S Interpretations of Universally Quantified Sentences

      • Kenneth F Drozd, Erik van Loosbroek
      Pages 115-140

    3. Structure and Meaning in the Acquisition of Scope

      • Julien Musolino
      Pages 141-166

  5. Finiteness and its development

    1. On Finiteness

      • Wolfgang Klein
      Pages 245-272

    2. Functions of Finiteness in Child Language

      • Petra Gretsch
      Pages 273-302

  6. Focus particles in child language

    1. Additive Particles and Scope Marking in Child German

      • Ulrike Nederstigt
      Pages 303-328

    2. (Un)Stressed ook in Child Dutch

      • Wenda Bergsma
      Pages 329-348

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 349-358
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

A good deal of work in language acquisition has been devoted to children’s interpretation of sentences that contain the universal quantifier, e. g. , every in English. It has been observed in several experimental studies and across several languages that some school-age children experience difficulty in interpreting such sentences (e. g. , Inhelder & Piaget, 1964; Roeper & de Villiers, 1991; Philip, 1995). Non-adult responses from children have been found in various conditions, including the circumstance exemplified in the picture in Figure 1, where three boys are each riding an elephant and a fourth elephant (referred to as the ‘extra-object’) is not being ridden. Some children who are shown such a picture sometimes respond No to the question in (1) relative to this picture: (1) Is every boy riding an elephant? Figure 1. The Extra-Object Condition To justify their negative answer to the question in (1), children often point to the extra object, i. e. , the elephant that is not being ridden. This reply has been called the symmetrical response or the exhaustive pairing response since children who give this kind of response seem to interpret the question to be about the symmetry (i. e. , one-to-one relation) between the set of entities denoted by the subject noun (the boys) and the set denoted by the object noun (the elephants).

Editors and Affiliations

  • Radboud Universiteit, The Netherlands

    Veerle van Geenhoven

About the editor

Veerle Van Geenhoven is a formal semanticist with a primary interest in crosslinguistic research. She received a 'Dr.phil.' degree in linguistics from the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany, in 1996, and a university lecturing qualification (Habilitation) from the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany, in 2005. She held positions at the University of Stuttgart, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the University of Bielefeld, UC Santa Cruz, and the Radboud University in Nijjmegen. In the last years, her research has been made possible by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Bibliographic Information

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation