Interpretation of relative clauses by young children: another look.
Interpretation of relative clauses sentences was investigated by having sixteen children between the ages of 3;5 and 4;6 act out sentences within four conditions that varied the number of potential referents for each noun within the sentence. No difference in interpretation accuracy was found between felicitous and infelicitous conditions or between biased and neutral conditions. This result raises problems for the view that children of this age know the pragmatic principles for interpreting relative clauses.
Eisenberg
Sarita
S
Montclair State University, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, 1 Normal Avenue, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, USA. eisenbergs@mail.montclair.edu
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception