THE ORIGIN OF NUMERICAL CONCEPTS: EARLY MEANINGS OF 'ONE', 'TWO', AND 'THREE' AMONG BASQUE- AND SPANISH-SPEAKING CHILDREN

This study examines the conceptual origins of the meaning of the first number-words and what role language can play in developing the notion of number. The original hypothesis is related to the idea that the meaning of the number-words “one”, “two” and “three” is supported by the conceptual framework of grammatical numbers, rather than that of integers (Sarnecka, Kamenskaya, Yamana, Ogura & Yudovina, 2006). To that end the counting abilities of Spanish and Basque monolingual children and Spanish-Basque bilingual children are tested, because the Spanish and Basque languages express a grammatical number in different ways (Perea, Urkia, Davis, Agirre & Carreiras, 2006). On the one hand, the findings are in line with the initial hypothesis and with Sarnecka's work (Sarnecka et al., 2006), and on the other hand, with a growing body of evidence that shows that the meaning of the count list appears from mapping numerals onto numerical cognitive representations produced by early core systems of number (Le Corre & Carey, 2007; 2008).