2018 Alternates 6596

2018 Alternates | Saturday, November 3, 2018 | Poster Session II, Metcalf Small | 3:15pm

Children’s task-related comprehension of or
S. Tal, I. Arnon, M. Ariel

According to traditional linguistic theory, while adults interpret or sentences predominantly exclusively (only one of the alternatives is true [1]), young children interpret or inclusively (either one or both of the alternatives are true, [2,3]) or conjunctively (both alternatives are true [4,5]). How are we to reconcile these contradictory findings? A recent theory [6] suggests that ‘inclusivity’ is not an actual or reading, so an inclusive pattern only emerges when both options are true and the participant is asked to provide a truth evaluation. Under this account, children’s increased inclusive responses were driven by the nature of the task (truth judgment [2-5]) and the visual stimuli (presenting both options together [2- 5]). We test these predictions in three experiments: Experiment 1 tests children’s interpretation of a frequent or-construction to show that they are capable of interpreting or exclusively in certain uses. Experiment 2 uses the same or-construction used in the literature, but with an interpretation task instead of a truth-judgment one. Experiment 3 uses the same construction as in Experiment 2, but options are presented in separate pictures. The results show that when asking for interpretation and when presenting options separately, children interpret or exclusively.

In Experiment 1, we tested 3-4 year-olds (N=28) on their interpretation of choice constructions. Children saw pictures and heard a description of them (e.g., ‘He is holding stickers and colors’). They were then asked a choice question: ‘Would you like stickers or colors?’. As predicted, children picked one option in almost all trials (95%), undermining the claim that they cannot interpret or exclusively (t(27)=39.1, p<0.0001). In Experiment 2 we tested 5-7 year-olds (N=26), the age range for which there are contradicting findings [2-5]. We used a picture-matching task where children heard sentences and had to choose the picture that best matched them. Children heard 14 or sentences and 7 and sentences (e.g. ‘He ate cake or/and ice cream’) and saw three pictures: 1. One option (cake), 2. Both options (cake and ice cream), 3. Other (balloon). As predicted, children chose ‘both’ significantly less for or than for and sentences (55% vs. 91%, β=-3.33±0.38, p<0.0001). However, they preferred ‘both’ over ‘one option’ for or sentences (55% vs. 42%, χ2(df=2)=31.86, p<0.0001). Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 2 (age 5- 7, N=24), but instead of having a ‘both’ picture, there were two pictures, each depicting one object, and the child could choose more than one picture. Again, children chose ‘both’ significantly less for or than for and sentences (34% vs. 77%, β=-3.78±0.42, p<0.0001). Importantly, children now preferred the ‘one option’ over ‘both’ for the or sentences (63% vs. 34%, χ2(df=2)=52.14, p<0.0001).

Taken together, the results show that when children are presented with a frequent or construction (Experiment 1) or asked to interpret sentences rather than generate truth-judgments (Experiment 2), they are far less conjunctive. Furthermore, when the objects are visually separate (Experiment 3), children interpret or constructions exclusively. These findings challenge prior findings by showing that more ecologically valid tasks and constructions prompt children to interpret or like adults.

References

  1. Grice, H. Paul. 1989. Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
  2. Chierchia, G., Crain, S., Guasti, M. T., Gualmini, A., & Meroni, L. (2001). The acquisition of disjunction: Evidence for a grammatical view of scalar implicatures. In Proceedings of the 25th Boston University conference on language development (pp. 157–168). Cascadilla Press Somerville,
  3. Crain, S. (2012). The emergence of meaning. Cambridge University
  4. Tieu, L., Yatsushiro, K., Cremers, A., Romoli, J., Sauerland, U., & Chemla, E. (2017). On the role of alternatives in the acquisition of simple and complex disjunctions in french and japanese. Journal of Semantics, 34(1),
  5. Singh, R., Wexler, K., Astle-Rahim, A., Kamawar, D., & Fox, D. (2016). Children interpret disjunction as conjunction: Consequences for theories of implicature and child development. Natural Language Semantics, 24(4), 305–
  6. Ariel, Mira and Caterina Mauri. in press. Why use or?