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Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here, we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for "all," "none," "some," "some…not," and "most" in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-y-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that languageand learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation.language acquisition | universals | quantifiers | semantics | pragmatics N umber words and quantifiers are abstract words that denote properties of sets rather than individuals. Twoness and allness in "two/all of the black cats in the street" are not true of any individual cat, whereas blackness and catness are. Children display knowledge of number words and quantifiers around their second birthday, comparatively long after they have acquired concrete nouns (1, 2). As far as number words are concerned, a range of cognitive and perceptual systems supports their acquisition.These systems include an object-tracking system, which enables the precise representation of small quantities, and an analog magnitude system, which enables imprecise and approximate comparisons (1), SignificanceAlthough much research has been devoted to the acquisition of number words, relatively little is known about the acquisition of other expressions of quantity. We propose that the order of acquisition of quantifiers is related to features inherent to the meaning of each term. Four specific dimensions of the meaning and use of quantifiers are found to capture robust similarities in the order of acquisition of quantifiers in similar ways across 31 languages, representing 11 language types.

Medical students often lack key skills in academic writing, yet good academic writing is often a prerequisite for employment, promotion and enculturation into the profession. This article focuses on the rhetorical strategies used for the presentation of academic stance by student writers of dentistry research reports. Adopting a contrastive, corpus-based approach, we compare student writing with that of comparable professionally-written research reports for evidence of hedging, boosting, self-mention and attitude markers. Our findings indicate that professional reports exhibit a narrower set of linguistic devices than used by student writers, who tend to use a much wider range of the four stance feature types analysed for discussion of both others' and their own personal stance, both across whole texts and by section. We discuss pedagogical implications for ESP professionals working to more closely align student writing with that of professional norms.

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This study explores the longitudinal development of L2 academic 'stance' features resulting from instruction in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at a university in Hong Kong. We analysed the frequency and wordings of hedges, boosters, attitude markers and self-mention within a 205,682 word longitudinal corpus of essays and reports collected over a semester's instruction via pre-, mid-and post-instruction submissions, alongside data on submission grade. Data was analysed for frequency and wording differences alongside mixed-effect models to confirm the impact of instruction on the data. Results show significant longitudinal variation in the frequency of hedging, boosting, marking attitude and self-mention devices as the result of instruction, with a rise in the use of hedging and an overall reduction in the use of boosting and self-mention, serving to leave students with a more careful, narrower, less polarising and less personal range of expressions with which to convey their stance over time. We also present longitudinal genrespecific effects on stance features between essays and reports, and show how a longitudinal increase in hedges and boosters results in texts that receive a higher grade from teacher-raters. Our findings recommend explicit instruction of stance features as crucial in raising students' awareness of how to achieve persuasive academic writing.