In order to avoid potential intervening factors, we conducted research in which children with the same cultural background were compared. We compared Slovenian kids growing up in areas with different dialects where dialects differed in the presence of dual. Concretely we compared two groups from dual dialects (Ljubljana and Slovenska Bistrica) with two groups from non-dual dialects (Nova Gorica and Metlika). The results confirmed our earlier findings that the presence of dual helps children learn the meaning of number words 'one' and 'two'.
COBISS.SI-ID: 4474107
To answer the question how does crosslinguistic variation in linguistic structure affect children’s acquisition of early number word meanings, we investigated number word learning in two unrelated languages that feature a tripartite singulardualplural 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 lesscompetent counters. Finally, in both Slovenian and Saudi Arabic, comprehension of the dual was correlated with knowledge of 'two' and higher number words.
COBISS.SI-ID: 2935803