Interpreting resultative sentences in German
- This article presents the results of a study on the interpretation and acceptance of adjectival resultatives of German children between 6 and 9 years of age and adults. These results brought to light significant differences, due to age, in the interpretation and acceptance of these resultatives, that is to say, sentences with an adjective in the final position. The youngest participants were prone to accept ungrammatical sentences by assigning a resultative meaning. The ungrammaticality of the sentences in question was not due to semantic inconsistencies but to violations of the selectional properties of verbs, as for instance in *die Kinder erschrecken die Katze ängstlich ‘the children frighten the cat scared’. In contrast, the adults rejected or amended those sentences. The conclusion is (a) that the children seemed to rely on the sentence structure as a primary cue to compute the meaning of an utterance and (b) that, in contrast with adults, the youngest children in particular had not yet learned the relevant semantic properties ofThis article presents the results of a study on the interpretation and acceptance of adjectival resultatives of German children between 6 and 9 years of age and adults. These results brought to light significant differences, due to age, in the interpretation and acceptance of these resultatives, that is to say, sentences with an adjective in the final position. The youngest participants were prone to accept ungrammatical sentences by assigning a resultative meaning. The ungrammaticality of the sentences in question was not due to semantic inconsistencies but to violations of the selectional properties of verbs, as for instance in *die Kinder erschrecken die Katze ängstlich ‘the children frighten the cat scared’. In contrast, the adults rejected or amended those sentences. The conclusion is (a) that the children seemed to rely on the sentence structure as a primary cue to compute the meaning of an utterance and (b) that, in contrast with adults, the youngest children in particular had not yet learned the relevant semantic properties of verbs that determine the selectional restrictions and thus the syntactic options of verbs. This means that differences in interpretation and acceptance of sentences are due to differences in knowledge of semantic verb properties between adults and children. The relevant semantic knowledge increases in gradual stages during language acquisition.…
Author details: | Michael Richter, Roeland van Hout |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-93974 |
ISSN: | 1866-8380 |
Title of parent work (German): | Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Philosophische Reihe |
Subtitle (English): | stages in L1 acquisition |
Publication series (Volume number): | Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Philosophische Reihe (111) |
Publication type: | Postprint |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2016/08/05 |
Publication year: | 2013 |
Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
Release date: | 2016/08/05 |
Tag: | first language acquisition; frame compliance; grammatical judgments; resultative sentences; verb classes |
Issue: | 111 |
Number of pages: | 28 |
Source: | Linguistics 51 (2013), 1, S. 117–144 DOI 10.1515/ling-2013-0004 |
Organizational units: | Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Germanistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access |
License (German): | Keine öffentliche Lizenz: Unter Urheberrechtsschutz |
External remark: | Bibliographieeintrag der Originalveröffentlichung/Quelle |