Number Words, Quantifiers, and Principles of Word Learning

How do children learn the meanings of words like many and five? Althoughmuch is known about the mechanisms that underlie children’s acquisition ofnouns and verbs, considerably less is understood of how children begin tolearn the meanings of words that refer to sets (e.g., number words andquantifiers). Here we argue that children’s acquisition of quantityexpressions relies on learning mechanisms typically associated withlearning content words. In particular, we argue that the Whole ObjectAssumption and the Principle of Contrast are special cases of more generalprinciples that guide not just the acquisition of nouns and verbs, but alsothe acquisition and interpretation of number words and quantifiers.