Three limitations are recognized in the present study and are recommended to take into consideration for future research.
First, the older child groups and the adults did not show a clear pattern in interpreting bare conditionals as they did in interpreting donkey sentences. Although this study followed previous research (Geurts 2002, Foppolo 2009) using acceptability tasks for the subjects to choose between two pictures, it is inferred that the acceptability of the test sentences might be affected by grammaticality; hence, variations of readings occurred. Moreover, picture illustrations could cause ambiguity that biased the subjects’ interpretations. As a result, future research can adopt grammaticality or interpretation tasks for children to complete to avoid these potential problems affecting interpretations.
Second, mean scores were counted based on literature in this study, yet it is more suitable to compare interpretations of sentence types on the basis of testing subjects’ preferences for readings. Therefore, frequency counts together with the Chi-squared test instead of mean scores can be used for statistical analysis for future research.
Last but not least, Grade 4 was found unable to interpret youxie ‘some’ in an adult-like
manner; hence, children over ten years old can be recruited in future research to further investigate a developmental pattern of children’s acquisition of sentences with quantification.
B IBLIOGRAPHY
Assink, Egbert, Sonja van Well, and Paul Knuijt. 2003. Age-of-acquisition effects in native speakers and second-language learners. Memory & Cognition 31.8:1218-1228.
Caramelli, Nicoletta, Annalisa Setti, and Donatella D. Maurizzi. 2004. Concrete and abstract concepts in school age children. Psychology of Language and Communication 8.2:19-34.
Champollion, Lucas. 2016. Homogeneity in donkey sentences. Proceedings of the 26th
Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, SALT, ed. by Mary Moroney, Carol-Rose
Little, Jacob Collard and Dan Burgdorf, 684–704. Austin: University of Texas.Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen, and C.-T. James Huang. 1996. Two types of donkey sentences. Natural
Language Semantics 4:121-163.
Cheung, Candice Chi Hang. 2007. The syntax and semantics of bare conditionals in Chinese.
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 11, ed. by Estela Puig-Waldmüller, 150-164. Barcelona:
Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Chomsky, Noam, 1986. Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. New York:
Praeger.
Cohen, Ariel. 2001. Relative readings of many, often, and generics. Natural Language
Semantics 9.1:41-67.
Cook, Vivian, 1988. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Crain, Stephen, Rosalind Thornton, Carole Boster, Laura Conway, Diane Lillo-Martin, and Elaine Woodams. 2009. Quantification without quantification. Language Acquisition 5.2:83-153.
Dekker, Paul. 2001. On if and only. Proceedings of the 11th
Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, SALT, ed. by Rachel Hastings, Brendan Jackson and Zsofia Zvolenszky,
114-133. New York: New York University.DeVault, David, and Matthew Stone. 2004. Proceedings of the 20th International Conference
on Computational Linguistics, COLING, ed. by Lothar Lemnitzer, Detmar Meurers and
Erhard Hinrichs, 1247-1253. Geneva, Switzerland: University of Geneva.Foppolo, Francesca. 2009. The puzzle of donkey anaphora resolution. Proceedings of the 38th
Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, ed. by Martin Walkow and
Muhammad Abdurrahman, 297-310. Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts.Gass, Susan, and Larry Selinker. 1994. Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gelman, Susan, and Henry Wellman. 1991. Insides and essences: Early understandings of the non-obvious. Cognition 38.3:213-244.
Gentner, Dedre, and Cecile Toupin. 1986. Systematicity and surface similarity in the development of analogy. Cognitive Science 10.3:277-300.
Geurts, Bart. 2002. Donkey business. Linguistics and Philosophy 25.2:129-156.
Geurts, Bart. 2003. Quantifying kids. Language Acquisition 11:197-218.
Gopnik, Alison, and Andrew N. Meltzoff. 1997. Words, thoughts and theories. Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press.
Gopnik, Alison. 1988. Conceptual and semantic development as theory change. Mind and
Language 3:163-179.
Grosz, Patrick, Pritty Patel-Grosz, Evelina Fedorenko, and Edward Gibson. 2014. Constraints on donkey pronouns. Journal of Semantics 32.4:619-648.
Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Herburger, Elena.1997. Focus and weak noun phrases. Natural Language Semantics 5.1:53-78.
Herburger, Elena. 2015. Conditional perfection: The truth and the whole truth. Proceedings of
the 25
thSemantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, SALT, ed. by Sarah D'Antonio, Mary
Moroney, and Carol Rose Little, 615-635. Standford, California: Stanford University.Huang, C.-T. James. 1984. On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. Linguistic
Inquiry 15.4:531-574.
Inhelder, Bärbel, and Jean Piaget. 1958. The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to
Adolescence: An Essay on the Construction of Formal Operational Structures. New York:
Basic Books.
Ireri, Anthony, Daniel Mukuni, Philomena Mathuvi, Amos Njagi, and Njagi Karugu. 2012. An overview of major biological and contextual factors in language acquisition. American
Journal of Linguistics 1.3:33-39.
Kanazawa, Makoto. 1994. Weak vs. strong readings of donkey sentences and monotonicity inferences in a dynamic setting. Linguistics and Philosophy 17.2:109-158.
Katsos, Napoleon , Chris Cummins, Maria-José Ezeizabarrena, Anna Gavarró, Jelena Kuvač Kraljević, Gordana Hrzica, Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Athina Skordi, Kristine Jensen de López, Lone Sundahl, Angeliek van Hout,Bart Hollebrandse, Jessica Overweg, Myrthe Faber, Margreet van Koert, Nafsika Smith, Maigi Vija, Sirli Zupping, Sari Kunnari, Tiffany Morisseau, Manana Rusieshvili, Kazuko Yatsushiro, Anja Fengler, Spyridoula Varlokosta, Katerina Konstantzou, Shira Farby, Maria Teresa Guasti, Mirta Vernice, Reiko Okabe, Miwa Isobe, Peter Crosthwaite, Yoonjee Hong, Ingrida Balčiūnienė, Yanti Marina Ahmad Nizar, Helen Grech, Daniela Gatt, Win Nee Cheong, Arve Asbjørnsen, Janne von Koss Torkildsen, Ewa Haman, Aneta Miękisz, Natalia Gagarina, Julia Puzanova, Darinka Anđelković, Maja Savić, Smiljana Jošić, Daniela Slančová, Svetlana Kapalková, Tania Barberán, Duygu Özge, Saima Hassan, Cecilia Yuet Hung Chan, Tomoya Okubo, Heather van der Lely, Uli Sauerland, and Ira Noveck. 2016. Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers.
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences 113.33:9244–9249.
Keil, Frank C. 1989. Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Krifka, Manfred. 1996. Pragmatic strengthening in plural predications and donkey sentences.
Proceedings of the 6
thSemantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, SALT, ed. by Teresa
Galloway and Justin Spence, 136-153. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University.Larsen-Freeman, Diane, and Michael Long. 1991. An Introduction to Second Language
Acquisition Research. London & New York: Longman.
Mayberry, Rachel. 2007. When timing is everything: Age of first-language acquisition effects on second-language learning. Applied Psycholinguistics 28:537-549.
Miller, Scott. 1987. Developmental Research Methods. California: SAGE Publications Inc.
Ni, Weijia. 1987. Empty topics in Chinese. UConn Working Papers in Linguistics 1. Connecticut, Storrs: University of Connecticut.
Pan, Haihua, and Yan Jiang. 1997. NP interpretation and donkey sentences in Chinese.
Proceedings of the Workshop on Interface Strategies in Chinese. Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University.
Pearson, Barbara Zurer, and Peter de Villiers. 2005. Child language acquisition: Discourse, narrative, and pragmatics. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd edition), ed. by Keith Brown. Oxford, UK: Elsevier.
Philip, William. 1995. Event Quantification in the Acquisition of Universal Quantification.
Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Piaget, Jean. 1936. Origins of Intelligence in the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Prévost, Philippe, and Johanne Paradis (eds.) 2004. The Acquisition of French in Different
Contexts: Focus on Functional Categories. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.Rooth, Mats. 1987. Noun phrase interpretation in montague grammar, file change semantics, and situation semantics. Generalized Quantifiers: Linguistic and Logical Approaches, ed.
by Peter Gärdenfors, 237-268. Dordrecht, Netherland: D. Reidel.
Simons, Daniel J., and Frank C. Keil. 1995. An abstract to concrete shift in the development of biological thought: The insides story. Cognition 56.2:129-163.
Tannen, Deborah. 1982. Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy.
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Thuan, Tran, and Benjamin Bruening. 2013. Wh-phrases as indefinites: A Vietnamese perspective. Linguistics of Vietnamese: An International Survey, ed. by Daniel Hole and Elisabeth Löbel, 217-241. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.
Wang, Xin. 2007. Guanyu luziju de jidian yiwen yu sikao [Some questions and reflections about donkey sentences]. Yuwen Xuekan [Journal of Language and Literature Studies]
3:69-72.
Xu, Dan (ed.) 2012. Plurality and Classifiers across Languages in China. Berlin, Germany:
De Gruyter Mouton.
Yatsushiro, Kazuko. 2008. Quantifier acquisition: Presuppositions of “every.” Proceedings of
SuB12, ed. by Atle Grønn, 663-677. Oslo, Norway: University of Oslo.
Yoon, Youngeun. 1994. Weak and Strong Interpretations of Quantifiers and Definite NPs in English and Korean. Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
Yoon, Youngeun. 1996. Total and partial predicates and the weak and strong interpretations.
Natural Language Semantics 4.3:217-236.
A PPENDIX A
Test Items Used in Donkey Sentences in Isolation (DSII)
Q1:
每個有氣球的小朋友都喜歡氣球。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q2:
有些有氣球的小朋友喜歡氣球。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q3:
不是每個有氣球的小朋友都喜歡氣球。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q4:
每個有養貓咪的人都很寵愛貓咪。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q5:
有些有養貓咪的人很寵愛貓咪。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q6:
不是每個有養貓咪的人都很寵愛貓咪。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q7:
每個經過城市的河流都美化了城市。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q8:
有些經過城市的河流美化了城市。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q9:
不是每個經過城市的河流都美化了城市。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q10:
每個保護著花朵的木欄都圍著花朵。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q11:
有些保護著花朵的木欄圍著花朵。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q12:
不是每個保護著花朵的木欄都圍著花朵。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
A PPENDIX B
Test Items Used in Donkey Sentences in Context (DSIC)
Q1:
遊樂場的小丑很會做氣球，今天他做了一個特殊造型的氣球。
小朋友都很想要那一個氣球。
所以，每個有氣球的小朋友都喜歡氣球。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q2:
老師帶了很多不同的氣球來布置教室，但只有一顆是特別造型的氣球。
有拿到這顆特別造型氣球的小朋友就很開 心。
所以，有些有氣球的小朋友喜歡氣球。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q3:
遊樂場的小丑很會做氣球，今天他做了一個特別造型的氣球。
有兩個小朋友很想要那個氣球。
所以，不是每個有氣球的小朋友都喜歡氣球。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q4:
最近有很多人領養貓咪當寵物。不管是不是自己養的貓咪，他們每一隻都很 喜歡。
所以，每個有養貓咪的人都很寵愛貓咪。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q5:
最近有很多人養貓咪當寵物，有一兩位只喜歡自己養的貓咪。
但大多數的人不管是不是自己養的貓咪，他 們每一隻都很喜歡。
所以，有些有養貓咪的人很寵愛貓咪。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q6:
最近有很多人養貓咪當寵物，有一兩位只喜歡自己養的貓咪。
但大多數的人不管是不是自己養的貓咪，他 們每一隻都很喜歡。
所以，不是每個有養貓咪的人都很寵愛貓咪。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q7:
寶島國有三條河流流經過很多城市。只有一位市長有好好規劃，讓他的城市因為 河流流過，變的很漂亮。
所以，每個經過城市的河流都美化了城市。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q8:
水晶國有很多城市，每一個城市都有河流經過。
但只有亮亮城市有注重清潔，所以亮亮城市 很乾淨漂亮。
所以，有些經過城市的河流美化了城市。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q9:
寶島國有三條河流流經過很多城市。只有一位市長有好好規劃，讓河流流過的地 方很漂亮。
所以，不是每個經過城市的河流都美化了城 市。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q10:
媽媽很寶貝她種的花。媽媽圍了木欄要保護他種的每一朵花。
所以，每個保護著花朵的木欄都圍著花朵。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q11:
媽媽有好多木欄，但是有一兩個壞掉了。木欄都是要拿來保護媽媽種的每一朵花。
所以，有些保護著花朵的木欄圍著花朵。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q12:
媽媽有好多木欄，但是有一兩個壞掉了。木欄都是要拿來保護媽媽種的每一朵花。
所以，不是每個保護著花朵的木欄都圍著花 朵。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
A PPENDIX C
Test Items Used in Bare Conditionals in Isolation (BCII)
Q1:
誰愛慕歌手，演唱會的門票就給誰。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q2:
王子遇到了誰，誰就倒楣。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q3:
誰有線索，誰就知道答案。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q4:
小花喜歡誰，我們就見誰。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q5:
小明尋找誰，小美就採訪誰。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q6:
大明找誰，誰就跑回家。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q7:
誰起床，誰就寫封信。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q8:
誰做蛋糕，老師就幫誰。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q9:
誰愛慕歌手，演唱會的門票就給那個人。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q10:
小偷遇到了誰，他就倒楣。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q11:
誰有線索，那個人就知道答案。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q12:
組長喜歡誰，老闆就見他。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q13:
爺爺尋找誰，記者就採訪那個人。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q14:
老師找誰，他就跑回家。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q15:
誰起床，那個人就寫封信。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q16:
所以，老師說：誰做蛋糕，老師就幫他。請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
A PPENDIX D
Test Items Used in Bare Conditionals in Context (BCIC)
Q1:
有一位歌手很紅，很多人很喜歡他。歌手的經紀人有很多他的演唱會門票。
經紀人說：誰愛慕歌手，演唱會的門票就給 誰。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q2:
王子被魔女下了魔咒。只要王子一出去自己的房間，遇到的每一個 人都會倒大楣。
所以，王子遇到了誰，誰就倒楣。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q3:
老師準備了一個遊戲。但遊戲只有一個線索，要讓全班同學搶那個 線索。
所以，誰有線索，誰就知道答案。
請問是圖片A還是圖片B是這句話的意思呢?
Q4:
小花很喜歡他的男朋友。小花帶男朋友讓小花的父母認識。
小花帶男朋友讓小花的父母認識。