Domain restriction in child Mandarin: Implications for quantifier spreading

Abstract

AbstractThis study explores Mandarin children’s competence with quantifier domain restriction. We present results from two experiments in which adults and four- to five-year old children evaluated two possible candidates for the domain selection associated with the distributive operatordou‘all’ in Mandarin Chinese. In the first experiment, we investigated whether children and adults are capable of selecting an appropriate domain when two candidate NPs both appear insidedou’s quantification scope; i.e., both of the NPs c-commanddou. In the second experiment, still two candidate NPs were presented, but one withindou’s scope and the other outside its scope. Our results indicate that four- to five-year-old children are capable of basic distributive computation associated withdou, but they may choose an NP that adults do not usually choose as the domain ofdou, resulting in non-adult interpretations of distributive computation in certain cases. Based on the results, we propose that four- to five-year-old children are less certain about the domain restriction associated withdou-quantification. This proposal has important implications for the current debate on the acquisition of universal quantifiers, specifically, the problem of quantifier spreading. We explain children’s uncertainty about the domain restriction with a universal grammar-based statistical acquisition model.