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Later rather than sooner: extralinguistic categories in the acquisition of Thai classifiers*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Kathie Carpenter
Kathie Carpenter*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
*
Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
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Abstract

An experimental elicitation task with children between the ages of 1;8 and 11;3 shows that children learning Thai numeral classifiers begin with purely distributional information: specifically, (1) that classifiers must appear in the post-numeral position, and (2) that classifiers comprise a conventional, closed set of words. Semantic organizing features, such as salient features of the head noun's referent, appear later than these syntagmatic organizing features. Use of such semantic information is not an immature ‘first guess’ at grammatical categories, but rather, a necessary component of adult linguistic competence, because the categories are productive both for older children and for adults.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 93 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

The research reported here was part of a doctoral dissertation in the Linguistics Department of Stanford University, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, the Institute of International Education, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Spencer Foundation, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. I wish to thank Eve V. Clark for helpful comments on earlier versions, and the children, parents and staff of Prince Royal Academy, Dara, Suthep, Baan Dek, Pra Metta, Dek Dii and Regina Schools of Chiang Mai, Thailand, as well as the National Research Council of Thailand.

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