Andrea Gualmini

The Role of Partitivity in Child Language

In this squib, we investigate the nature of the phenomenon of isomorphism, which expresses the observation that young children, unlike adults, display a strong preference for the interpretation of sentences containing negation and quantified noun phrase (NPs) that corresponds to the surface syntactic position of these scopetaking operators (Gualmini (2003), Lidz and Musolino (2002), Musolino (1998), Musolino, Crain, and Thornton (2000)). Here we focus on sentences containing negation and indefinite objects, as in The Smurf didn’t catch two birds or The detective didn’t find some guys. Based on the intuition that indefinites can give rise to what has been called either a “presuppositional/quantificational” or a “cardinal” interpretation (Diesing (1992), drawing on Milsark (1977)), we propose that isomorphism, as it pertains to indefinite objects, arises when children fail to select the so-called presuppositional interpretation of the NP and its associated logical representation.1 This account predicts that when plain NPs like some Ns and two Ns are replaced by inherently presuppositional ones, such as partitives (e.g., two of the Ns and some of the Ns), children should be more likely to access the nonisomorphic, wide-scope interpretation of the indefinite objects with respect to negation. This prediction is tested and verified in two experiments designed to assess young children’s interpretation of sentences containing negation and partitive NPs in object position. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, 12(1), 97–107 Copyright

Semantic and Pragmatic Competence in Children's and Adults' Comprehension of Or

The interpretation of language is a complex phenomenon. One of the best established models maintains that language interpretation arises from the interaction of two major components. On the one hand, sentences are assigned truth conditions, which provide a characterization of propositional content and constitute the domain of semantics. On the other hand, use of propositional content (i.e., truth conditions) in concrete communication is governed by pragmatic norms. In speaking, not only do we pay attention to truth conditional content, we also aim at being cooperative and at saying something relevant to the situation. One way to study this intricate interplay between semantics and pragmatics is by looking at the way adults and children interpret logical words, for example, connectives and quantifiers. In particular, we would like to concentrate on Scalar Implicatures, inferences that we draw when we interpret sentences including certain logical words and that allow one to go beyond what is literally said in the sentence. For example, following Grice and much literature inspired by him, it can be argued that if a speaker says ‘Some students passed the exam’ the hearer is likely to assume that the speaker intended to convey that ‘Some students passed the exam, but not all did’. The addition of ‘but not all did’ is not, however, part of the truth conditions, but an implicature that arises from the way we use language.

Solving Learnability Problems in the Acquisition of Semantics

This paper proposes solutions to two semantic learnability problems that have featured prominently in the literature on language acquisition. Both problems have often been deemed unsolvable for language learners as a matter of logic, and they have accordingly been taken to motivate principles making sure they will not actually arise in the course of language acquisition. One problem concerns the acquisition of ambiguous sentences whose readings are related by entailment. Crain et al.’s (1994) Semantic Subset Principle is intended to preempt the problem by preventing acquisition of the weaker reading before the stronger reading has been acquired. In contrast, we demonstrate that this very order of acquisition becomes feasible in principle if children can exploit non-truth-conditional evidence of various kinds or evidence from sentences containing downward entailing operators. The other learnability problem concerns the potential need for expunction of certain readings of ambiguous sentences from a child’s grammar. It has often been assumed that, in the absence of negative evidence, such expunction is impossible, and Wexler and Manzini (1987) posit a Subset Principle to preempt the problematic learning scenario. We argue, however, that if the evidence available to the child includes dialogues, and if listeners are expected to interpret speakers’ utterances charitably, then expunction of unavailable readings is possible in principle.

Acquiring the Scope of Disjunction and Negation in L2: A Bidirectional Study of Learners of Japanese and English

While L1 transfer and L2 learnability have been studied extensively in the domain of syntax and the syntax/semantics interface, purely semantic phenomena have received little attention in the L2 literature. This paper presents two experiments examining the relative scope assigned to disjunction and negation by English-speaking learners of Japanese (Experiment 1) and Japanese-speaking learners of English (Experiment 2). Previous evidence from L1 acquisition shows a protracted initial default for the interpretation of the relative scope of disjunction and negation. Our results show no such default in L2 acquisition, contra the predictions of Epstein et al. (1996). Instead, we find evidence of L1 transfer, suggesting ‘Full Transfer’ at the L2 initial state extends to the domain of semantics. Results also show uneven success in the two L2 groups, which is explained through the different learnability scenarios that arise as a result of transfer and the availability of positive evidence in the L2 input.

Some Facts About Quantification and Negation One Simply Cannot Deny: A Reply to Gennari and MacDonald

Research on language acquisition has recently focused on the interaction between quantifiers and negation. One generalization presented in the literature is the so called Observation of Isomorphism, the observation that childrens semantic scope coincides with syntactic scope (see Musolino (1998)). The most recent con tribution to the debate on scope resolution is due to Gennari and MacDonald (2005/2006) (G&M henceforth). Their proposal attempts to derive the Observa tion of Isomorphism from the distributional properties of the input to which chil dren are exposed. The article presented here evaluates the proposal by G&M. First, we review the existing findings on childrens interpretation of negative quantified sentences. The findings show that the generalization presented by Musolino (1998) is incor rect, thereby calling into question any attempt to derive that generalization. Sec ond, we highlight childrens ability to go beyond the input, an issue that must be addressed by G&M if they want to derive any generalization about child language from the properties of the input.

Children's Interpretation of Indefinites in Sentences Containing Negation: A Reassessment of the Cross-linguistic Picture

Previous research suggests that childrens behavior with respect to the interpretation of indefinite objects in negative sentences may differ depending on the target language: whereas young English-speaking children tend to select a surface scope interpretation (e.g., Musolino (1998)), young Dutch-speaking children consistently prefer an inverse scope interpretation (e.g., Kämer (2000)). In this article, we suggest that these data are not as puzzling as they first appear. Extending a proposal put forward by Hulsey, Hacquard, Fox, and Gualmini (2004), we show that both English- and Dutch-speaking childrens behavior can be explained in the same way: children select the interpretation that answers the contextually relevant question.

On that one poverty of the stimulus argument

This paper examines the logical problem of language acquisition drawing upon an experimental study on children’s knowledge of anaphoric one by Lidz, Waxman and Freedman (2003). The finding was that, upon being presented with the instruction “ Look! A yellow bottle. Do you see another one? ”, 18-month-old children prefer to look at a yellow bottle rather than to a bottle of a different color. According to Lidz et al. (2003), the results that children cannot interpret one as anaphoric to head nouns. We point out that the experimental findings are not explained under the hypothesis offered by the authors of that study. Secondly, we consider whether, under current assumptions, children’s knowledge of anaphoric one can be inferred from the properties of the final state. Thirdly, we reaffirm the validity of the Poverty of the Stimulus argument, despite the challenge posed by the learning model proposed by Regier and Gahl (2004). Finally, we draw upon recent psycholinguistic work to propose an explanation for the findings documented by Lidz et al. (2003) that is independent from – though consistent with – their knowledge of the constraint on anaphoric one .