Quantification and definiteness in child grammar.
Item
-
Title
-
Quantification and definiteness in child grammar.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9605673
-
identifier
-
9605673
-
Creator
-
Utakis, Sharon Lee.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Robert Fiengo
-
Date
-
1995
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Language, Linguistics | Psychology, Developmental
-
Abstract
-
This study investigates children's understanding of definite pronouns in English. I propose that several well-known phenomena (and some interesting new ones) in children's grammars can be explained in terms of children's difficulty in determining which NPs in English can be (-definite). Children's apparent violations of Principle B of the binding theory, some interpretations of pronouns in VP ellipsis contexts, and an unbound distributive interpretation of the definite pronoun him can all be attributed to a misclassification of English definite pronouns as (-definite).;This can account for why some children accept apparent Principle B violations. If children allow definite pronouns to have an indefinite interpretation, then nothing prevents coreference in situations where coindexation is ruled out: "John hit someone" is not identical to "John hit himself", but someone may corefer with John. This extends to quantificational sentences: "Every boy hit someone" is consistent with a situation in which each boy hit himself. Therefore, this account of Principle B violations predicts no differences between quantified and non-quantified antecedents. Experimental evidence is provided to support this prediction.;Children give other evidence of treating pronouns as (-definite). Thornton & Wexler (1993) show that children who appear to violate Principle B of the binding theory in VP ellipsis constructions also accept sentences like (1) with the interpretation that different people were captured. (1) John captured him and Bill did too. This interpretation duplicates one possible adult interpretation of (2). (2) John captured someone and Bill did too.;I provide additional evidence that children will accept an unbound distributive interpretation of him (i.e., an interpretation in which him varies in reference when it is not a bound variable).;I also relate these results to quantifier spreading, and provide an analysis based on resumptive quantification and exhaustiveness. This also accounts for acceptance of a one-to-one mapping interpretation of sentences with two universal quantifiers.;Finally, some of the children who give evidence of (-definite) him and who quantifier spread accept quantifier spreading onto pronouns.;By providing new data and reinterpreting previous results, this thesis contributes to a greater understanding of the acquisition of the logical properties of pronouns.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
