The many ways quantifiers count: Children's quantifier comprehension and cardinal number knowledge are not exclusively related

Children's comprehension of quantifiers (like all, many, some) correlates with their cardinal number knowledge. However, it is unclear whether children's quantifier comprehension is exclusively related to cardinal number knowledge or whether the relationship extends to approximate number skills. To find out, we tested German-speaking children in a quantifier comprehension task, a 'Give-n task', and a non-symbolic number comparison task ('ANS task'). While we observed a significant correlation between quantifier and number knowledge in German-speaking children (age- and IQ-controlled), quantifiers did not mediate the relationship between cardinal number knowledge and age. This result suggests that quantifiers do not support number acquisition, contrasting with previous findings in English. Our results also revealed links between quantifier knowledge and approximate number skills, suggesting that quantifier and cardinal number skills are not exclusively related. Rather, children's quantifier knowledge seems to be linked to number skills in a more general way, including approximate number skills.