Do non‐verbal number systems shape grammar? Numerical cognition and Number morphology compared

Franzon, Francesca; Zanini, Chiara; Rugani, Rosa

doi:10.1111/mila.12183

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 94 publications

(112 reference statements)

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“…When a morpheme is used as a default, it is, in principle, not interpretable at the semantic level. Number morphology is not an exception in this regard: the singular is generally the default value for uncountable references (whereas other Number values are more likely to be semantically interpretable; Franzon, Zanini & Rugani 2018;Arcara et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, a link has been outlined between this information and information encoded in morphology and morpho-syntax, suggesting that information processed by these systems would be sufficiently salient to have shaped the grammatical structure of language. In other words, information encoded in a core linguistic level, such as morphology, would stem from information coming from core knowledge processes (Bickel et al 2015;Franzon, Zanini & Rugani 2018;Strickland 2017;Zanini et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fact that Number morphology is so pervasive across languages may consistently mirror the salience of the information about numerosity at the extra-linguistic cognitive level. A further noteworthy contact point between core grammar and numerical cognition can be traced back to some similarities between the information encoded into morphological systems and what is processed in extra-linguistic numerical cognition: the values of morphological Number systems observed in typology closely resemble the information processed by the non-verbal systems dedicated to number and quantity processing (Franzon, Zanini & Rugani 2018). Most literature agrees on the fact that numerical reasoning is handled by two non-verbal numerical cognitive mechanisms: the Object File System (OFS) and the Analogue Magnitude System (AMS) (Feigenson, Dehaene & Spelke 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of animacy on the processing of morphological Number: a cognitive inheritance?

et al. 2020

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Language encodes into morphology part of the information present in the referential world. Some features are marked in the great majority of languages, such as the numerosity of the referents that is encoded in morphological Number. Other features do not surface as frequently in morphological markings, yet they are pervasive in natural languages. This is the case of animacy, that can ground Gender systems as well as constrain the surfacing of Number. The diffusion of numerosity and animacy could mirror their biological salience at the extra-linguistic cognitive level. Human extra-linguistic numerical abilities are phylogenetically ancient and are observed in non-human animal species, especially when counting salient animate entities such as social companions. Does the saliency of animacy influence the morphological encoding of Number in language processing? We designed an experiment to test the encoding of morphological Number in language processing in relation to animacy. In Italian, Gender and Number are mandatorily expressed in a fusional morpheme. In some nouns denoting animate referents, Gender encodes the sex of referents and is semantically interpretable. In some other animate nouns and in inanimate nouns, Gender is uninterpretable at the semantic level. We found that it is easier to inflect for Number nouns when the inflectional morpheme is interpretable with respect to a semantic feature related to animacy. We discuss the possibility that the primacy of animacy in counting is mirrored in morphological processing and that morphology is designed to easily express information that is salient from a cognitive point of view.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of animacy on the processing of morphological Number: a cognitive inheritance?

et al. 2020

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“…Eventually, Franzon et al (2019Franzon et al ( , 2020 argued that nonverbal numerical cognition also shapes grammatical number. The authors provided typological and neuropsychological evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the possible range of inflectional number values (as reflected, for example, in the inflection of nouns such as in apple vs. apples) parallels the numerosities processed by the non-verbal numerical core knowledge systems.…”

Section: The Signature Of Numerical Cognition In Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

On the Subitizing Effect in Language Contact

Gardani

Zanini

2022

Literacy Studies

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Numerical cognition is an essential component of our daily life. It is the ability to process numerical quantities. In language, symbolic representations of numerical quantities are encoded by numerals. In situations of language contact, numerals are often borrowed from one language into another (Haspelmath & Tadmor 2009), and it has been observed that high and more abstract numerals are more prone to borrowing than lower numerals (Matras 2009: 202). Linguists mainly explain the higher borrowability of high numerals in sociocultural terms, for example, because of "their association with formal contexts of use" and "through intensification of economic activity" (Matras 2009: 200). We propose an alternative explanation, informed by cognitive science, showing that low numerals are more resistant to borrowing than high numerals because they are more deeply anchored in cognition.

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“…This resonates with general typological trends whereby the feature of number is prioritized over the feature of gender. Indeed, grammatical gender is less widespread across languages (Corbett, 1991) and, as stated in Greenberg's Universal 34, in a language, the presence of number is a necessary condition for gender to surface (Greenberg, 1963) possibly, due to a preminence of the semantic information conveyed by number (Franzon et al, 2019(Franzon et al, , 2020. Thus, noun forms are less informative with respect to gender (and, to a lesser extent, number) since their main role is to distinguish classes of words mainly favoring discriminability between diverse forms as a whole rather than between gender and number values.…”

Section: Form-value Transparency In Nouns and Adjectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Form and Function: A Study on the Distribution of the Inflectional Endings in Italian Nouns and Adjectives

et al. 2021

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Inflectional values, such as singular and plural, sustain agreement relations between constituents in sentences, allowing sentence parsing and prediction in online processing. Ideally, these processes would be facilitated by a consistent and transparent correspondence between the inflectional values and their form: for example, the value of plural should always be expressed by the same ending, and that ending should only express plural. Experimental research reports higher processing costs in the presence of a non-transparent relation between forms and values. While this effect was found in several languages, and typological research shows that consistency is far from common in morphological paradigms, it is still somewhat difficult to precisely quantify the transparency degree of the inflected forms. Furthermore, to date, no accounts have quantified the transparency in inflection with regard to the declensional classes and the extent to which it is expressed across different parts of speech, depending on whether these act as controllers of the agreement (e.g., nouns) or as targets (e.g., adjectives). We present a case study on Italian, a language that marks gender and number features in nouns and adjectives. This work provides measures of the distribution of forms in the noun and adjective inflection in Italian, and quantifies the degree of form-value transparency with respect to inflectional endings and declensional classes. In order to obtain these measures, we built Flex It, a dedicated large-scale database of inflectional morphology of Italian, and made it available, in order to sustain further theoretical and empirical research.

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Do non‐verbal number systems shape grammar? Numerical cognition and Number morphology compared

Cited by 13 publications

References 94 publications

Effects of animacy on the processing of morphological Number: a cognitive inheritance?

Effects of animacy on the processing of morphological Number: a cognitive inheritance?

On the Subitizing Effect in Language Contact

Form and Function: A Study on the Distribution of the Inflectional Endings in Italian Nouns and Adjectives

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