Counting on Quantifiers: Specific Links between Linguistic Quantifiers and Number Acquisition

Knowledge of linguistic quantifiers (like all, many or some) correlates with number acquisition. However, it is unclear whether quantifier comprehension is exclusively related to exact number skills or whether the relationship also extends to approximate number skills. To find out, we tested German-speaking children on a quantifier comprehension task, two counting tasks (‘How-many task’, ‘Give-n task’) and a non-symbolic number comparison task (‘ANS task’). We further assessed differences between two types of quantifiers: ‘Exact’ quantifiers like both (denoting 2) vs. ‘non-exact’ quantifiers like some (denoting various setsizes). Overall, quantifier comprehension was found to correlate with counting skills, even when age was controlled for. A more detailed analysis revealed the correlation was restricted to exact quantifiers which also share more properties with cardinal numbers. In contrast, no ageindependent correlation between quantifier comprehension and approximate number skills was obtained. Our results therefore suggest specific links between exact quantifiers and exact number skills.