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Yoshiki Fujiwara; Hiroyuki Shimada – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2024
The goal of this paper is to tease apart two approaches to the source of children's consistent scope assignment in negative sentences containing logical connectives: the Semantic Subset Principle and the Semantic Subset Maxim. Previous developmental work has observed that four- to six-year-old children across languages have difficulty with…
Descriptors: Semantics, Language Acquisition, Form Classes (Languages), Morphemes
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Yacovone, Anthony; Rigby, Ian; Omaki, Akira – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2020
Children's sentence interpretations often lack flexibility. For example, when French-speaking adults and children hear ambiguous "wh"-questions like "Where did Annie explain that she rode her horse?", they preferentially associate the "wh"-phrase with the first verb and adopt the main clause interpretation (e.g.,…
Descriptors: French, Phrase Structure, Language Acquisition, Verbs
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Tagliani, Marta; Vender, Maria; Melloni, Chiara – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2021
Italian relative clauses like "Il bambino che bacia la mamma" 'the child that kisses the mom' are ambiguous between a subject reading and an object reading with postverbal subject. However, the latter is scarcely accessible for word order and theory-internal considerations. This study aims at investigating the role of semantic…
Descriptors: Italian, Language Acquisition, Knowledge Level, Phrase Structure
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Tieu, Lyn; Lidz, Jeffrey – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2016
This article presents a study of preschool-aged children's knowledge of the semantics of the negative polarity item (NPI) "any". NPIs like "any" differ in distribution from non-polarity-sensitive indefinites like "a": "Any" is restricted to downward-entailing linguistic environments (Fauconnier 1975, 1979;…
Descriptors: Semantics, Language Acquisition, Preschool Children, Comparative Analysis
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Morales-Reyes, Alexandra; Soler, Inmaculada Gómez – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2016
L2 learners' problems with English articles have been linked to learners' L1 and their access to universal semantic features (e.g., definiteness and specificity). Studies suggest that L2 adults rely on their L1 knowledge, while child L2 learners rely more on their access to semantic universals. The present study investigates whether child L2…
Descriptors: Transfer of Training, Semantics, Language Research, Form Classes (Languages)