That Doesn't Count: The Interference of Language in the Development of Counting Mechanisms in English-Speaking Preschoolers
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2010
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
Phenomena in the development of counting principles alongside language
acquisition in preschoolers provide insight into mechanisms for quantifying entities
in English. In particular, research has sought to discover the relationship between
language acquisition and two phenomena – the ability to distinguish between parts
and wholes and the ability to use containers to quantify substances like sand – in
quantification tasks. I sought to discover how mastery of measure words like “cup”
(in cup of sand) and “piece” (in piece of a fork) improve a child’s ability to correctly
quantify substances and broken objects. Shipley and Shepperson (1990), Sophian
and Kailihiwa (1998) and Melgoza, Pogue & Barner (2008) showed that
preschoolers do not discriminate between parts and wholes in counting broken
objects. Huntley-Fenner (2001) showed that preschoolers cannot use containers to
help differentiate amounts of substance-mass nouns like “sand” in difficult ratios.
Instead, preschoolers prefer to count each discrete physical object as a count-noun
unit (“fork”) regardless of its whole/piece status (“whole fork” or “piece of a fork”).
These findings beg further questions. Does mastery of either measure words or
counting principles foster the development of the other? And if so, which one comes
first? I collected original data to compare preschooler responses in three tasks and
show that mastery of measure words does not improve performance in quantification
tasks. Some subjects failed at a language-based quantification task but were
successful in a non-linguistic quantification task, which suggests language as a
constraining factor in the ability to effectively communicate about number.