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Distributive marker and numerals

Issue

In this study, we investigate distributivity and collectivity in numerals. The

comprehension of numerals with and without distributive markers, illustrated in (1-3),

was tested in Serbian children and adults. Our results show that Serbian children are

sensitive to the distributive marker and thus interpret (1) more collectively than (2-3).

This experimental work is a part of a larger project which deals with the interpretations of

numerals (paucals, non-paucals, collective numerals).

Experiment

A comprehension study (TVJT, Crain & Thornton, 1998) was run with a target group of

24 children (mean age = 4.6, 9 girls) and a control group of 21 adults, native speakers of

Serbian. The participants were asked to give judgments of truth and falsity for test

sentences under three experimental conditions:

Non-atomic distributive - there are two groups of two girls and each group is washing a

boat (4 girls, 2 boats)

Atomic distributive – there are two girls who are each washing a boat (2 girls, 2 boats)

Collective – there are two girls who are washing a boat together (2 girls, 1 boat).

Test sentences

(1) Dve devojke peru brod.

two girls wash boat

Two girls are washing a boat.

(2) Dve devojke peru po brod.

two girls wash DIST boat

Two girls are washing a boat each.

(3) Po dve devojke peru brod.

DIST two girls wash boat

The girls are washing a boat two by two.

Each participant was tested on 78 items in total (54 test items, 12 controls and 12

distractors), over three sessions. Individual sessions lasted around 7 minutes each.

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Results

The impact of a sentence type on truth judgments is analyzed for each condition in a

within subject design. The results provide evidence for two main patterns: (i) in adult

Serbian, the position of distributive marker po forces either non-atomic or atomic

distributive reading (figures, right); (ii) children show weak sensitivity to the presence

and the position of the distributive marker (figures, left).

Discussion

Serbian has a distributive marker po that yields an atomic distributive reading if operating

on an object (sentence 2) and a non-atomic distributive reading if operating on a subject

(sentence 3). Adults accept collective reading only when no distributive marker is present

(sentence 1). Although children and adults’ results differ, children show preference for

adult-like interpretation of sentences with distributor.

The results from [2] showed that Serbian children have a strong preference for

distributive readings even without the distributor and that they reject collective readings.

Collective markers seem to be present in Serbian [1]. Children may allow collective

interpretation only with collective markers. Nevertheless, our results, contrary to the

results from [2], show that children do accept collective reading. This goes along with the

results for English [3]. Why do the results differ?

Our hypothesis are that (a) this may be the priming effect of distributive marker,

(b) Serbian has several classes of numerals that differ morphosyntactically and may be

responsible for distributive vs. collective distinction in numerals. Empirical studies in

progress investigate these hypothesis.

Word count: 498

References [1] Arsenijević, B. 2006a. Semantics of the Serbo-Croatian nominal suffix –je. Formal description of Slavic languages 6.5, Nova Gorica. [2]Knežević, N. 2012. Serbian Distributive Children. Current Issues in Generative Linguistics : Syntax, Semantics and Phonology, Generative Linguistics in Wroclaw No.2, [ed] Joanna Blaszczak, Bozena Rozwadowska, Wojcijech Witkowski, pp. 26-41. [3]Musolino, J. 2009. The Logical Syntax of Number words: Theory, acquisition and processing. Cognition, Vol. 111, pp. 24-45.

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Test item examples

Non-atomic condition Atomic condition Collective condition

(1) Dve devojke peru brod.

Two girls are washing a boat.

(2) Dve devojke peru po brod.

Two girls are washing a boat each.

(3) Po dve devojke peru brod.

The girls are washing a boat two by two.

Figures

CHILDREN ADULTS

Percentages of Yes (green)/No(red) answers for each condition, depending on the

sentence, among children (left hand side) and adults (right hand side)