Chapter published in:
Interfaces in Grammar
Edited by Jianhua Hu and Haihua Pan
[Language Faculty and Beyond 15] 2019
► pp. 301–340

The acquisition of nominal structure, word order and referentiality in Chinese

Corpus and experimental findings on the numeral phrase

| Tianjin Normal University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong
| Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
The mapping between nominal structure, word order and referentiality in Mandarin Chinese is examined from an acquisition perspective. Two aspects of the syntax-semantics interface are investigated based on early naturalistic data and experiments with preschool children: the Subject Specificity Constraint, which prohibits non-specific individual-denoting numeral phrases in subject position, and the referential difference between two types of noun phrases containing a modifier: inner modifier nominals (IMN) and outer modifier nominals (OWN) . Our findings reveal adult-like distribution of nominal types and an early sensitivity to the Subject Specificity Constraint. Given the poverty of the stimulus, the semantic difference between the two types of modified nominals, reflected in interactions with stress and focus, appears to be a late acquired interface property in child grammar.
Published online: 15 April 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.15.11lee
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