Cover not available
Part of
Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In honor of Stephen Crain
Edited by Mineharu Nakayama, Yi-ching Su and Aijun Huang
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 60] 2017
► pp. 197–219

Chapter 9
Native and non-native comprehension of the Japanese existential quantifier nanko-ka

| University of Kansas
| Johnson County Community College
This paper discusses native and non-native speakers’ comprehension of the Japanese quantifier nanko-ka, which is viewed as an existential quantifier (cf., some in English) in Japanese. The existential quantifier is argued to be ambiguous at the semantics-pragmatics interface: at the semantic level, it means ‘at least one, possibly all’; at the pragmatic level, it is interpreted as ‘at least one, but not all’. Nanko-ka, as an existential quantifier in Japanese, is expected to exhibit this ambiguity, although there is no data that we are aware of which demonstrates that native speakers indeed access these two interpretations of nanko-ka. Thus, the first goal of the study reported in this paper is to examine native comprehension of this quantifier. As regards the acquisition of the existential quantifier, research in first language acquisition has suggested that children initially have limited access to the pragmatic interpretation of some, in comparison to adults. However, once it comes to adult second language acquisition, how adult L2 learners may cope with the ambiguity of the existential quantifier is not well-known. Given this, the second goal of the current paper is to investigate how nanko-ka is interpreted by English-speaking L2 learners of Japanese.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Nanko-ka as an existential quantifier: Semantic-pragmatic ambiguity
  • 3.The existential quantifier in adult second language acquisition
  • 4.Current study
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Materials
    • 4.3Procedures
    • 4.4Results
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Native comprehension of nanko-ka
    • 5.2Non-native comprehension of nanko-ka
    • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.60.10min
References (35)
References
Bott, L. & Noveck, I. 2004. Some utterances are underinformative: The onset and time course of scalar inferences. Journal of Memory and Language 51(3): 437–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bott, L., Baily, T.M. & Grodner, D. 2012. Distinguishing speed from accuracy in scalar implicatures. Journal of Memory and Language 66(1): 123–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Breheney, R., Katsos, N. & Williams, J. 2006. Are generalized scalar implicatures generated by default? An on-line investigation into the role of context in generating pragmatic inferences. Cognition 100(3): 434–463. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crain, S. & Thornton, R. 1998. Investigations in Universal Grammar: A Guide to Experiments on the Acquisition of Syntax and Semantics. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Degen, J. & Tanenhaus, M.K. 2015. Processing scalar implicature: A constraint-based approach. Cognitive Science 39(4): 667–710. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feeney, A., Scarfton, S., Duckworth, A. & Handley, S.J. 2004. The story of some: Everyday pragmatic inference by children and adults. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 58(2): 121–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goro, T. & Minai, U. 2011. Conjunction, disjunction and negation in second language acquisition: A study of L2 English and Japanese. Poster presented at the Thirty-sixth Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Grice, P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge MA: Harvard University of Press.Google Scholar
Grodner, D.J., Klein, N.M., Carbary, K.M. & Tanenhaus, M.K. 2010. ’Some’, and possibly all, scalar inferences are not delayed: Evidence for immediate pragmatic enrichment. Cognition 116(1): 42–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guasti, M.T., Chierchia, G., Crain, S., Foppolo, F., Gualmini, A. & Meroni, L. 2005. Why children and adults sometimes (but not always) compute implicatures. Language and Cognitive Processes 20(5): 667–696. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hagstrom, P.A. 1998. Decomposing Questions. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Hara, Y. 2006. Grammar of Knowledge Representation: Japanese Discourse Items at Interfaces. PhD dissertation, University of Delaware.Google Scholar
Horn, L.R. 1972. On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in English. PhD dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Huang, Y.T. & Snedeker, J. 2009. Online interpretation of scalar quantifiers: Insight into the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognitive Psychology 58(3): 376–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011. Logic and conversation revisited: Evidence for a division between semantic and pragmatic content in real-time language comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes 26(8): 1161–1172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hunt III, L., Politzer-Ahles, S., Gibson, L., Minai, U. & Fiorentino, R. 2013. Pragmatic inferences modulate N400 during sentence comprehension: Evidence from picture-sentence verification. Neuroscience Letters 534: 246–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katsos, N. & Cummins, C. 2010. Pragmatics: From theory to experiment and back again. Language and Linguistics Compass 4(5): 282–295. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katsos, N., Roqueta, C.A., Estevan, R.A. & Cummins, C. 2011. Are children with Specific Language Impairment competent with the pragmatics and logic of quantification? Cognition 119(1): 43–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kim, S.W. 1991. Chain Scope and Quantification Structure. PhD dissertation, Brandeis University.Google Scholar
Kuroda, S.-Y. 1965. Generative Grammatical Studies in the Japanese Language. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. 2000. Presumptive Meanings. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Y. 1993. Japanese numeral classifiers: A study of semantic categories and lexical organization. Language 31(4): 667–713.Google Scholar
Minai, U. & Takami, N. 2012. Semantic and pragmatic meaning of the existential quantifier some in second language acquisition. In Proceedings of the 36th Boston University Conference on Language Development, A.K. Biller, E.Y. Chung & A.E. Kimball (eds), 349–360. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Musolino, J. & Lidz, J. 2002. Preschool logic: Truth and felicity in the acquisition of quantification. In Proceedings of the 26th Boston University Conference on Language Development, B. Skarabela, S. Fish & A. H.-J. Do (eds), 406–416. Somerville MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Noveck, I. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition 78(2):165–188. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Noveck, I. & Sperber, D. 2007. The why and how of experimental pragmatics: The case of ‘scalar inferences’. In Pragmatics [Palgrave Advances in Language and Linguistics], N. Burton-Roberts (ed), 184–212. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Papafragou, A. & Musolino, J. 2003. Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognition 86(3): 253–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, A. & Tantalou, N. 2004. Children’s computation of implicatures. Language Acquisition 12(1): 71–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Politzer-Ahles, S., Fiorentino, R., Jiang, X. & Zhou, X. 2013. Distinct neural correlates for pragmatic and semantic meaning processing: An event-related potential investigation of scalar implicature processing using picture-sentence verification. Brain Research 1490: 134–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shimoyama, J. 2006. Indeterminate phrase quantification in Japanese. Natural Language Semantics 14(2): 139–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slabakova, R. 2010. Scalar implicatures in second language acquisition. Lingua 120(10): 2444–2462. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. 1986/1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Takami, N. 2011. Acquisition of Semantic and Pragmatic Meaning of the Quantifier nanko-ka by Adult Learners of Japanese. MA thesis, University of Kansas.Google Scholar
White, L. & Juffs, A. 1998. Constraints on wh-movement in two different contexts of nonnative language acquisition: Competence and processing. In The Generative Study of Second Language Acquisition, S. Flynn, G. Marthohardjono & W.A. O’Neil (eds), 111–129. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Yatsushiro, K. 2009. The distribution of quantificational suffixes in Japanese. Natural Language Semantics 17(2): 141–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar