Cross-linguistic patterns in the acquisition of quantifiers.

Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here, we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier's specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for "all," "none," "some," "some…not," and "most" in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-y-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language- and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation.

Acquisition and use of linguistic knowledge: scrambling in child Japanese as a test case.

The current study investigates preschool-age children's comprehension of scrambled sentences in Japanese. While scrambling has been known to be challenging for children, biasing them to exhibit non-adult-like interpretations (e.g., Hayashibe in Descr Appl Linguist 8:1-18, 1975; Sano in Descr Appl Linguist 10:213-233, 1977; Suzuki in Jpn J Educ Psychol 25(3):56-61, 1977), children are able to interpret scrambled sentences in an adult-like way when the pragmatics is enriched in the experiments (Otsu in Acquisition studies in generative grammar, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp 253-264, 1994). These findings suggest that children's difficulty in comprehending scrambling may be due to processing difficulties (Suzuki in J Psycholinguist Res 42(2), 119-137, 2013), such as the Lexical-ordering Strategy bias (Bever in Cognition and language development, Wiley, New York, pp 279-352, 1970), rather than their lack of the linguistic knowledge of scrambling. The current study revealed that children are indeed able to utilize prosodic information to interpret scrambled sentences in an adult-like way. Our findings provide converging evidence in favor of the proposal that children's grammatical knowledge of scrambling is intact, although they are more vulnerable than adults to processing difficulties that hinder their ability to successfully interpret scrambled sentences.

Glycated albumin as an improved indicator of glycemic control in hemodialysis patients with type 2 diabetes based on fasting plasma glucose and oral glucose tolerance test.

AIMS: To compare glycated albumin (GA) with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) as an indicator of glycemic control in hemodialysis patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), based on relationships with plasma glucose (PG) after overnight fasting and during 75 g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). METHODS: GA, HbA1c, plasma glucose during 75 g OGTT, and serum pentosidine were determined in DM hemodialysis patients (n=23, male/female 9/14). RESULTS: Significant positive correlations were found for GA and HbA1c with fasting PG (GA, r=.660, p=0.0006; HbAlc r=0.665, p=0.0004), and with PG at 30, 60 and 120 min after initiation of 75 g OGTT (GA, r=0.584, p=0.0035; r=0.624, p=0.0015; r=0.510, p=0.0129, respectively; HbA1c, r=0.669, p=0.0004; r=0.624, p=0.0011; r=0.509, p=0.0112, respectively). The area under the curve for PG during 75 g OGTT showed strong correlations with GA (r=0.625, p=0.0008) and HbA1c (r=0.671, p=0.0003). GA and HbA1c also correlated positively with serum pentosidine, demonstrating that GA provides a no less significant assay than HbA1c as a reflection of glycemic control in DM hemodialysis patients. However, HbA1c was apparently reduced in DM hemodialysis patients, as reflected by an increase in the GA/HbA1c ratio to 3.58+/-0.62 (mean+/-SD), suggesting underestimation of glycemic control by HbA1c. CONCLUSION: GA and HbA1c exhibited similar correlations with PG during a 75 g OGTT. The dependence of GA, in contrast to HbA1c, on PG does not differ in DM hemodialysis patients from that reported for subjects with normal renal function, suggesting GA as a better marker of glycemic control in DM hemodialysis patients.

Significance of serum CrossLaps as a predictor of changes in bone mineral density during estrogen replacement therapy; comparison with serum carboxyterminal telopeptide of type I collagen and urinary deoxypyridinoline.

The newly developed Elecsys Beta-CrossLaps/serum assay measures C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen and has thus been proposed as a reliable serum marker for bone resorption. We investigated its usefulness for monitoring the therapeutic effect of estrogen replacement therapy on bone turnover and bone mineral density (BMD) in patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis. Serum Beta-CTx decreased by 43.2% +/- 9.2% (mean +/- SD), and 55.1% +/- 7.0% at 3 and 6 months, respectively, after initiation of estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), which was significantly greater than the respective value of urinary excretion of deoxypyridinoline (DPD) (27.8% +/- 4.1%, 34.1% +/- 4.9%, respectively) or pyridinoline cross-linked carboxyterminal telopeptide of type I collagen (ICTP) assay (14.5% +/- 4.1%, 13.1% +/- 5.0%, respectively). The percent reduction in serum Beta-CTx at 1, 3, and 6 months after initiation of ERT was significantly correlated in a negative manner with the percent increase in spinal BMD at 6 months. Further, ROC analysis to determine the significance of the percent change in bone resorption markers after 3 months of ERT in predicting the gain in spine BMD after 6 months suggested that serum Beta-CTx and urinary DPD might provide a more discriminating indicator than serum ICTP. In conclusion, the findings suggest that the Elecsys Beta-CrossLaps/serum assay provides a sensitive, and thus useful, tool for assessing bone resorption state in Japanese patients.

Increased arterial stiffening and thickening in the paretic lower limb in patients with hemiparesis.

Atherosclerosis has two key components, thickening and stiffening of arterial wall. These parameters are quantified ultrasonographically by IMT (intima-media thickness) and PWV (pulse wave velocity). In the present study, we determined the FA IMT (IMT of the bilateral femoral artery) and PWV of femoral-ankle (PWV fa) and brachial-ankle (PWV ba) segments in order to examine whether the degree of atherosclerosis is different between paretic and non-paretic lower limbs in 24 patients with hemiparesis. The values of PWV fa, PWV ba and FA IMT were all significantly greater on the paretic than the non-paretic side. Furthermore, significant decreases in masses of muscle, bone and fat, determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, were observed in paretic lower limbs compared with the non-paretic side. PWV fa correlated significantly and negatively with muscle mass ( r =-0.488, P =0.0004) and tended to correlate negatively with BMC (bone mineral content; r =-0.264, P =0.069) when statistical analyses were performed with the paretic and non-paretic sides together. Multiple regression analysis elucidated that the muscle mass was associated significantly with PWV fa and PWV ba, independent of age, duration after cerebrovascular accident, gender, bone and fat mass and FA IMT. The muscle mass was still associated with increased PWV fa and PWV ba when multivariate analysis was conducted independently in the paretic and non-paretic sides. In summary, our results indicated that arterial thickening and stiffening were greater on the paretic than the non-paretic side and suggested that a decrease of muscle mass might be associated with increased arterial stiffening in the paretic lower limb.