CHILDREN'S KNOWLEDGE OF NON-TRUTH-CONDITIONAL CONVENTIONAL MEANING:
EVIDENCE FROM THE CONTRASTIVE ELEMENT OF AVAL ('BUT')
Abstract
Proceedings of IATL 17
Six adults and twenty children participated in a study in progress into
adult and child knowledge of the non-truth-conditional contrastive meaning
associated with aval (Hebrew, 'but'). As predicted, children approached
adult-like performance on truth-conditional tasks, rejecting a puppet's
false description of pictures using coordinated sentences. However, when
the children were presented pictures described by true, non-contrastive
sentences coordinated by aval, they accepted these descriptions.
The adults consistently rejected true non-contrastive descriptions using
aval.
These results support the theoretical distincion between truth-conditional
and non-truth-conditional meaning. The early knowledge of truth-conditional
meaning suggests that this knowledge is part of Universal Grammar. The
later development of the non-truth-conditional meaning is explained as
a result of non-linguistic factors, either pragmatic factors within the
language apparatus but outside the grammar, or general cognitive capacities
outside the language apparatus. These explanations relate back directly
to theoretical analyses of the truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional
meaning components of aval.
[full paper] [back
to Table of Contents]