Scalar and ad-hoc pragmatic inferences in children: guess which one is easier
Several studies investigated preschoolers’ ability to compute scalar and ad-hoc implicatures, but only one compared children’s performance with both kinds of implicature with the same task, a picture selection task. In Experiment 1 (N = 58, age: 4;2-6;0), we first show that the truth value judgment task, traditionally employed to investigate children’s pragmatic ability, prompts a rate of pragmatic responses comparable to the picture selection task. In Experiment 2 (N = 141, age: 3;8-9;2) we used the picture selection task to compare scalar and ad-hoc implicatures and linked the ability to derive these implicatures to some cognitive and linguistic measures. We found that four- and five-year-olds children performed better on ad-hoc than on scalar implicatures. Furthermore, we found that morphosyntactic competence was associated with success in both kinds of implicatures, while performance on mental state reasoning was positively associated with success on scalar but not ad-hoc implicatures.
2021
2021-09-17 09:35:50
1033
acquisition of pragmatics, scalar implicatures, ad-hoc implicatures, experimental pragmatics
Francesca
Foppolo
70
Greta
Mazzaggio
70
Francesca
Panzeri
70
Luca
Surian
70
COBISS_ID
3
76768771
UDK
4
81
ISSN pri članku
9
0305-0009
DOI
15
10.1017/S030500092000032X
NUK URN
18
URN:SI:UNG:REP:EZUEK0OB
paper_full.pdf
1185985
Predstavitvena datoteka
2021-09-17 09:40:31