【112學年度心哲所春季心智系列講座】
Our next 2024 Spring Research Seminar talk is on May 10 (Fri). Information about this talk:
Speaker: Dr. Brian Yowyu Lin (National Taiwan University)
(https://www.forex.ntu.edu.tw/lin-yowyu/?lang=en)
Time & Place: May 10 (Fri) 15:30-17:20, ZhiXing Building Room 321, Yang Ming campus in Taipei City, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
Format: In English
Title:
Developmental Trajectory of Argument Structures Among Mandarin-Speaking Children
(The theme of this invited talk is related to psycholinguistics, linking topics of mind/brain, psychology, and linguistics. It may be interesting to compare analytical philosophy/philosophy of language with the topic in this talk, which adopts a perspective rooted in the realms of cognition, psychology, and language analysis.)
Abstract:
This study aimed to examine Borer and Wexler’s Maturation Hypothesis and Mandarin-speaking children’s developmental trajectory of argument structures. According to Borer and Wexler’s Maturation Hypothesis, even though children are born with all the syntactic components needed to learn a language, these components don’t become mature until roughly the age of four. To date, many studies have examined Maturation Hypothesis but the results are still far from conclusive. To further investigate the Maturation Hypothesis, the present study examines Mandarin unaccusatives with preverbal and postverbal arguments, unergatives and passives. If the Maturation Hypothesis is correct, children’s comprehension of unaccusatives with postverbal arguments and unergatives would precede their understanding of unaccusatives with preverbal arguments and passives. Preliminary results confirmed the Maturation Hypothesis. Mandarin children across one to four years old showed much better understanding of unaccusatives with postverbal arguments and unergatives than of the other two structures.
For more seminar information: https://forms.gle/bggagJWPLUT2K7W89