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Statistical Insensitivity in the Acquisition of TSEZ Noun Classes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Annie Gagliardi  and
Jeffrey Lidz
Annie Gagliardi*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Jeffrey Lidz*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
*
Department of Linguistics Harvard University Boylston Hall, 3rd Floor Cambridge, MA 02138 [gagliardi@fas.harvard.edu]
Department of Linguistics University of Maryland, College Park 1401 Marie Mount Hall University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742-7505 [jlidz@umd.edu]
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Abstract

This article examines the acquisition of noun classes in Tsez, looking in particular at the role of noun-internal distributional cues to class. We present a new corpus of child-directed Tsez speech, analyzing it to determine the proportion of nouns that children hear with this predictive information and how often this is heard in conjunction with overt information about noun class agreement. Additionally, we present an elicited production experiment that uncovers asymmetries in the classification of nouns with versus without predictive features and by children versus adults. We show that children use noun-internal distributional information as a cue to noun class out of proportion with its reliability. Children are biased to use phonological over semantic information, despite a statistical asymmetry in the other direction. We end with a discussion of where such a bias could come from.

Keywords

language acquisitionnoun classesTsezinputintake

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 58 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program and by NSF IGERT 0801465. We are grateful to Magomed I. Magomedov, Arsen Abdulaev, Patimat Abdulaeva, and Xayrat Gamzatova for assistance in Dagestan, and to Maria Polinsky, Colin Phillips, the UMD Project on Children's Language Learning, and the UMD Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory for assistance and helpful discussion.

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