This study examined whether singular/plural marking in a language helps children learn the meanings of the words 'one,' 'two,' and 'three.' First, CHILDES data in English, Russian (which marks singular/plural), and Japanese (which does not) were compared for frequency, variability, and contexts of number-word use. Then young children in the USA, Russia, and Japan were tested on Counting and Give-N tasks. More English and Russian learners knew the meaning of each number word than Japanese learners, regardless of whether singular/plural cues appeared in the task itself (e.g., "Give two apples" vs. "Give two"). These results suggest that the learning of "one," "two" and "three" is supported by the conceptual framework of grammatical number, rather than that of integers.

中文翻译：

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从语法数到精确数：英语、俄语和日语中“一”、“二”和“三”的早期含义

这项研究检验了语言中的单数/复数标记是否有助于儿童学习“一”、“二”和“三”等词的含义。首先，比较英语、俄语（标记单数/复数）和日语（不标记）的 CHILDES 数据的频率、可变性和数词使用的上下文。然后美国、俄罗斯和日本的幼儿接受了计数和 Give-N 任务的测试。与日本学习者相比，更多的英语和俄语学习者知道每个数字单词的含义，无论任务本身是否出现单数/复数提示（例如，“给两个苹果”与“给两个”）。这些结果表明，“一”、“二”和“三”的学习是由语法数的概念框架支持的，而不是整数的概念框架。