Is that true?

My research covers the following topics:

Aspect and Telicity

Why do adults and children sometimes disagree about sentences like “She ate the cookies” when not all cookies are fully eaten? We argue that developmental and cross-linguistic variability in telicity judgments arise not from differences in core aspectual meanings, but from how these meanings are pragmatically evaluated in context.

Presentations

  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2026). Learning telicity in context: Developmental evidence from Mandarin children. Oral presentation at 2026 LSA Annual Meeting, New Orleans.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2026). Beyond truth conditions: Context modulates telicity interpretation. Oral presentation at 2026 LSA Annual Meeting, New Orleans.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2024). Children do not have different verb representations from adults: Non-culminating incremental theme predicates in Mandarin-speaking children. Poster presentation at the 16th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (GALA 16). The NOVA University of Lisbon, Lisbon.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2024). Demonstratives but not verbs cause non-culmination in Mandarin incremental-theme predicates: Evidence from children and adults. Poster presentation at the 34th Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 34), University of Rochester, Rochester.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2024). Non-culmination in telic incremental theme predicates: An experimental study of Mandarin children and adults. Poster presentation at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS 60), University of Chicago, Chicago.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2024). Demonstratives but not verbs cause non-culmination in Mandarin incremental-theme predicates: Evidence from children and adults. Poster presentation at the 42nd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 42), Berkeley.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2024). How can Mandarin children and adults eat three cookies without ever finishing them? Oral presentation at the 48th annual Penn Linguistics Conference (PLC 48), Philadelphia.
  • Xu, Jingying (2023). How can you eat three cookies without ever finishing them? Oral presentation at Careers, Alumni and Linguistics at Michigan State (CALMS) 2023, East Lansing.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Cristina Schmitt. (2023). Tracing the trajectory of the telicity calculus in Mandarin-speaking children. Poster presentation at CreteLing 2023 Conference, Rethymnon, Crete.
  • Xu, Jingying. (2022). Telicity in Mandarin preschoolers. Oral presentation at the Graduate Linguistics Expo at Michigan State (GLEAMS) 2022, East Lansing.

Publications


Modeling Syntactic Parameter Setting

We propose an input-driven, hierarchical “Clustering Approach” to parameter setting that unifies strengths of direct parameter setting and grammar selection, resolves a key issue in prior hybrid models, and scales to larger parameter spaces.

Presentations

  • Ke, Alan Hezao, Jingying Xu, & Lijun Ding. (2023). The Clustering Approach: An Input-Driven Approach to Parameter Setting. Poster presentation at the 48th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 48), Boston.

Publications


Acquisition of Mandarin Control Structues

How do toddlers interpret who does the action in sentences like X xiang chi-fan ‘X wanted to eat’ and X jiao Y chi-fan ‘X asked Y to eat’? Using the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm (IPLP), we show that Mandarin-speaking two-year-olds already track subject control and distinguish it from object control, offerring early evidence on the knowledge of PRO and support continuity in language acquisition.

Presentations

  • Xu, Jingying, Xiaolu Yang, & Rushen Shi. (2020). Complement Control in Early Child Mandarin: Evidence from a Preferential Looking Experiment. Poster presentation at the 45th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 45), Boston.

Publications

  • Yang, Xiaolu, Xu, Jingying, & Shi, Rushen. (2025). Mandarin-speaking two-year-old children’ comprehension of complement control: Evidence from a preferential looking experiment. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics (IJChL)12(2).

  • Xu, Jingying, Xiaolu Yang, & Rushen Shi. (2021). Complement control in early child grammar: A study of Mandarin-speaking two-year-olds’ comprehension. In Daniell Dionne & Lee-Ann Vidal Covas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 45). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.

Unpublished MA thesis

  • An Experiment Study of Mandarin-Speaking Children’s Early Comprehension of Complement Control.


Mandarin Count-Mass Issue

Mandarin noun countability has been explained either by a syntactic account, where classifiers determine and specify countability, leaving bare nouns mass/underspecified, or by a semantic account, where nouns are lexically count vs. mass based on denotation or classifier-collocation constraints. In this project, we present experimental evidence that Mandarin nouns are underspecified for countability, and that size-/shape-denoting adjectives, analogous to classifiers, supply an individuation function that determines countability. Children acquire adjectival individuation slowly, in parallel with the protracted acquisition of classifier individuation.

Presentations

  • Xu, Jingying, & Aijun Huang. (2016). Adjectival Modification and Countability in Mandarin Chinese: A View from First Language Acquisition. Oral presentation at the 5th Syntax and Semantics in China (SSiC 2016), Shanghai.

Publications

  • Huang, Aijun, & Jingying Xu. (2021). Hanyu xingrongci xiushi he hanyu keshuxing wenti tanjiu: Yixiang ertong yuyan xide yanjiu (Adjectival modification and countability in Mandarin Chinese: An L1 acquisition study) (in Chinese). Linguistic Research.

Unpublished BA thesis

  • Adjectival Modification and Countability in Mandarin Chinese: A View from First Language Acquisition.


Non-Interrogative Use of Mandarin Negative Wh-Pronoun Construction mei…shenme ‘not…what’

In Mandarin, the mei…shenme (‘not…what’) construction supports a categorical None reading (e.g., Xiaozhu mei chi shenme dongxi. ‘Xiaozhu didn’t eat anything at all.’) and a scalar Insignificance reading (e.g., Xiaozhu mei chi shenme dongxi. ‘Xiaozhu ate very little.’). We find the L2 pattern mirrors L1: None before Insignificance, but on a more gradual curve. We consider linguistic and non-linguistic factors (e.g., input frequency, task and pragmatics factors) to account for similarities and differences across L1 and L2 acquisition.

Presentations

  • Huang, Aijun, Qian Wang, Jingying Xu, Hui Chang, Li Zeng & Nakayama Mineharu. (2021). The Acquisition of Chinese Negative Wh-Pronoun Constructions by Korean Speakers. Oral presentation presented at the 9th International Conference on Formal Linguistics (ICFL 9), Shanghai.
  • Xu, Jingying, & Aijun Huang. (2015). Development of Pragmatic Knowledge in L2 Learners of Mandarin Chinese. Oral presentation at the 4th Syntax and Semantics in China (SSiC 2015), Xi’an.

Publications

  • Huang, Aijun, Qian Wang, Jingying Xu, Hui Chang, Li Zeng & Nakayama Mineharu. (under review). Navigating Mandarin Subtleties: Korean Speakers’ Acquisition of Mandarin’s Negative wh-pronoun Construction