Children's comprehension of pronouns and definites

Authors

  • Saskia Brockmann
  • Sara McConnell
  • Valentine Hacquard
  • Jeffrey Lidz

Abstract

We present an experiment which tests children’s comprehension of the requirements of use of pronouns and definites. An adult-like use of definites and pronouns imposes different but related requirements. In the case of definites, a unique referent is required in the context, whereas in the case of a pronoun, the referent in the context has to be salient. In this experiment, we use a novel word task to test three-year-olds’ sensitivity to these requirements. Our results show that children are adult-like in their sensitivity to salience in their comprehension of pronouns, compared to definites. However, they failed to show sensitivity to the uniqueness requirement on the use of definites.

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Published

2019-05-15

How to Cite

Brockmann, S., McConnell, S., Hacquard, V., & Lidz, J. (2019). Children’s comprehension of pronouns and definites. Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung, 22(1), 259–276. Retrieved from https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/90