Restrictions on addition
- Children up to school age have been reported to perform poorly when interpreting sentences containing restrictive and additive focus particles by treating sentences with a focus particle in the same way as sentences without it. Careful comparisons between results of previous studies indicate that this phenomenon is less pronounced for restrictive than for additive particles. We argue that this asymmetry is an effect of the presuppositional status of the proposition triggered by the additive particle. We tested this in two experiments with German-learning three-and four-year-olds using a method that made the exploitation of the information provided by the particles highly relevant for completing the task. Three-year-olds already performed remarkably well with sentences both with auch 'also' and with nur 'only'. Thus, children can consider the presuppositional contribution of the additive particle in their sentence interpretation and can exploit the restrictive particle as a marker of exhaustivity.
Author details: | Frauke Berger, Barbara HöhleORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000911000122 |
ISSN: | 0305-0009 |
Title of parent work (English): | Journal of child language |
Subtitle (English): | children’s interpretation of the focus particles auch ‘ also ’ and nur ‘ only ’ in German |
Publisher: | Cambridge Univ. Press |
Place of publishing: | New York |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2012 |
Publication year: | 2012 |
Release date: | 2017/03/26 |
Volume: | 39 |
Issue: | 2 |
Number of pages: | 28 |
First page: | 383 |
Last Page: | 410 |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
DDC classification: | 1 Philosophie und Psychologie / 15 Psychologie / 150 Psychologie |
4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache | |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Institution name at the time of the publication: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Linguistik / Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft |
License (German): | Keine öffentliche Lizenz: Unter Urheberrechtsschutz |
External remark: | Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 509 |