Open AccessChildren’s comprehension of pronouns and definites
Author(s) -
Saskia Brockmann,
Sara McConnell,
Valentine Hacquard,
Jeffrey Lidz
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.60.2018.466
Subject(s) - referent , pronoun , salience (neuroscience) , psychology , context (archaeology) , linguistics , definiteness , comprehension , cognitive psychology , philosophy , paleontology , biology
We present an experiment which tests children’s comprehension of the requirementsof use of pronouns and definites. An adult-like use of definites and pronouns imposes differentbut related requirements. In the case of definites, a unique referent is required in the context,whereas in the case of a pronoun, the referent in the context has to be salient. In this experiment,we use a novel word task to test three-year-olds’ sensitivity to these requirements. Ourresults show that children are adult-like in their sensitivity to salience in their comprehensionof pronouns, compared to definites. However, they failed to show sensitivity to the uniquenessrequirement on the use of definites.Keywords: pronouns, definiteness, language acquisition, salience, uniqueness, familiarity.