Do children know whanything? 3-year-olds know the ambiguity of wh-phrases in Mandarin. (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yang, Yu'an; Goodhue, Daniel; Hacquard, Valentine; Lidz, Jeffrey
• Is Part Of: Language acquisition. Volume 29:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 296
• Page End: 326
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: Language acquisition -- Periodicals; 401.9305
• DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2021.2020275
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1048-9223

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Wh -phrases in Mandarin have an interrogative (like English what ) and an indefinite (like English a/some ) interpretation. Previous comprehension studies find that children can access both interpretations around 4.5 years old; studies with younger children focus on production and find that children between 2 and 4.5 do not reliably produce the indefinite interpretation in naturalistic speech or in elicited imitation tasks. In this article, we use comprehension tasks to examine 3-year-olds' interpretation of wh -phrases. We find that they have adult-like interpretations of wh -phrases in two different contexts: in dou -sentences (Experiment 1), where the indefinite interpretation is the only available interpretation and the whole sentence receives a universal reading (roughly equivalent to English any ), and in negated sentences (Experiment 2), where the interpretation of wh -phrases depends on prosodic prominence and the indefinite interpretation leads to an existential reading of the sentence.