範域歧異性語意判斷的結構與情境效應

Structure and Context Effects in Scope Ambiguity Resolution

本研究以三個實驗的結果探討以台灣的國語為母語的兒童和成人對於賓語名詞含有數量詞的否定句（如The boy did not ride two cows「男孩沒有騎兩頭牛」）影響其範域歧異性語意判斷的因素。實驗一和二的結果與 Lidz & Musolino (2002) 研究英語和 Kannada 語的結果有兩點不同。首先，說英語和Kannada 語的成人對於此類句子所容許的兩種語意詮釋接受度都很高，但說國語的成人對數量詞窄域的接受度明顯比數量詞寬域高。其次，雖然說英語和 Kannada 語的兒童對數量詞窄域的接受度明顯較高，說國語的兒童卻對數量詞寬域的接受度較高。此外，實驗三的結果顯示兒童和成人的語意詮釋都會受到故事情境中事件發生次序先後的影響，兒童對數量詞窄域的接受度甚至會明顯提高。針對國語、英語和 Kannada 語兒童與成人在此類句子語意詮釋上的差別，本研究提出是由於個別語言含有數量詞的名詞組和否定句的結構不同的原因。

In this study we report data from three experiments designed to examine how Mandarin Chinese-speaking children and adults interpret scopally ambiguous sentences with negation and a numerically quantified object noun phrase similar to English sentences like “The boy did not ride two cows”. Our results from Experiments 1 and 2 differ from what Lidz & Musolino (2002) found in English and Kannada in two respects. First, English- and Kannada-speaking adults have easy access to both of the two interpretations of the sentences, but Mandarinspeaking adults have a strong preference to the narrow-scope reading of the numeral. Second, although English- and Kannada-speaking children prefer the narrow-scope reading of the numeral, which corresponds to the surface syntactic position, Mandarin-speaking children display a different pattern, i.e. they do not have problems accessing the wide-scope reading of the numeral. In addition, the results from Experiment 3 demonstrate that both children and adults are sensitive to the salience of the events in the context. Specifically, by manipulating the order of events in the stories, children are able to overcome their bias toward a preferred reading. Regarding the cross-linguistic differences on scope ambiguity resolution by children and adults between Mandarin and English/Kannada, it is argued that the discrepancy may arise due to the differences on the structure of quantified noun phrases and/or the structure of negative sentences among the languages.