How does cross-linguistic variation in linguistic structure affect children's acquisition of early number word meanings? We tested this question by investigating number word learning in two unrelated languages that feature a tripartite singular-dual-plural distinction: Slovenian and Saudi Arabic. We found that learning dual morphology affects children's acquisition of the number word two in both languages, relative to English. Children who knew the meaning of two were surprisingly frequent in the dual languages, relative to English. Furthermore, Slovenian children were faster to learn two than children learning English, despite being less-competent counters. Finally, in both Slovenian and Saudi Arabic, comprehension of the dual was correlated with knowledge of two and higher number words.counting | grammatical number H ow does the structure of language affect children's acquisition of early number word meanings? Humans have a unique ability to express an unbounded set of exact numerical concepts, like "eighty-two" (1), which emerges only after children have begun using language (2). Cross-cultural studies find that number knowledge is typically related to learning a verbal count list, and that groups who lack large number words also lack the ability to represent large numerosities precisely (3-5). Together, such observations suggest that, across most human cultures, natural language plays a central role in the acquisition and use of number words, the basic building blocks of early mathematical development. However, beyond the fact that number word learning typically begins with acquiring a count list, surprisingly little is known about how the particular language a child speaks affects their ability to acquire number word meanings. In this article we investigated this question by testing how cross-linguistic differences in grammatical structure affect the early stages of number word development. In particular, we tested number word learning in two languages, Slovenian and Saudi Arabic, which provide rich morphological cues to the very first number words children acquire in development.By some accounts, linguistic structure is important to the acquisition of number words chiefly because it provides a system of labels for expressing preexisting numerical concepts (6). By other accounts, language plays a stronger role by providing a system for combining content from diverse perceptual and conceptual systems, thus allowing humans to construct new concepts, such as the positive integers, which would otherwise not be possible (7). Each of these past accounts has focused on how language supports number word learning by allowing humans to express or combine concepts. Others, however, have argued that beyond merely expressing and combining content, language may also support number word learning by providing specific cues to meaning via its morphological and syntactic structures, in ways that vary from one language to another (8-12). Specifically, children might attend to how number words are used with linguistic structur...

We test the hypothesis that children acquire the successor function-a foundational principle stating that every natural number n has a successor n+1-by learning the productive linguistic rules that govern verbal counting. Previous studies report that speakers of languages with less complex count list morphology have greater counting and mathematical knowledge at earlier ages in comparison to speakers of more complex languages (e.g., Miller & Stigler, 1987). Here, we tested whether differences in count list transparency affected children's acquisition of the successor function in three languages with relatively transparent count lists (Cantonese, Slovenian, and English) and two languages with relatively opaque count lists (Hindi and Gujarati). We measured 3.5-to 6.5-year-old children's mastery of their count list's recursive structure with two tasks assessing productive counting, which we then related to a measure of successor function knowledge. While the more opaque languages were associated with lower counting proficiency and successor function task performance in comparison to the more transparent languages, a unique within-language analytic approach revealed a robust relationship between measures of productive counting and successor knowledge in almost every language. We conclude that learning productive rules of counting is a critical step in acquiring knowledge of recursive successor function across languages, and that the timeline for this learning varies as a function of counting transparency.

How does linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings? Previous studies have tested this question by comparing how children learning languages with different grammatical representations of number learn the meanings of labels for small numbers, like 1, 2, and 3. For example, children who acquire a language with singular-plural marking, like English, are faster to learn the word for 1 than children learning a language that lacks the singular-plural distinction, perhaps because the word for 1 is always used in singular contexts, highlighting its meaning. These studies are problematic, however, because reported differences in number word learning may be due to unmeasured cross-cultural differences rather than specific linguistic differences. To address this problem, we investigated number word learning in four groups of children from a single culture who spoke different dialects of the same language that differed chiefly with respect to how they grammatically mark number. We found that learning a dialect which features “dual” morphology (marking of pairs) accelerated children’s acquisition of the number word two relative to learning a “non-dual” dialect of the same language.

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We test the hypothesis that children acquire the successor function — a foundational principle stating that every natural number n has a successor n+1 — by learning the productive linguistic rules that govern verbal counting. Previous studies report that speakers of languages with less complex count list morphology have greater counting and mathematical knowledge at earlier ages in comparison to speakers of more complex languages (e.g., Miller & Stigler, 1987). Here, we tested whether differences in count list transparency affected children’s acquisition of the successor function in three languages with relatively transparent count lists (Cantonese, Slovenian, and English) and two languages with relatively opaque count lists (Hindi and Gujarati). We measured 3.5- to 6.5-year-old children’s mastery of their count list’s recursive structure with two tasks assessing productive counting, which we then related to a measure of successor function knowledge. While the more opaque languages were associated with lower counting proficiency and successor function task performance in comparison to the more transparent languages, a unique within-language analytic approach revealed a robust relationship between measures of productive counting and successor knowledge in almost every language. We conclude that learning productive rules of counting is a critical step in acquiring knowledge of recursive successor function across languages, and that the timeline for this learning varies as a function of counting transparency.