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Part of
Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In honor of Stephen Crain
Edited by Mineharu Nakayama, Yi-ching Su and Aijun Huang
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 60] 2017
► pp. 41–62

Chapter 2
Negation, uncertainty, and the Truth Value Judgment Task

| Tsuda University

This article discusses a variant of the Truth Value Judgment Task (TVJT), which I call the uncertainty mode. In a TVJT experiment conducted with children, a puppet manipulated by an experimenter presents the test sentences to the participant. In the uncertainty mode of TVJT, the crucial test sentences are presented as a guess regarding what has happened in an experimental story, rather than as a description or as a prediction. The crucial feature of this experimental design is that the experimental story employs a certain structure so that the puppet can access only incomplete information at the time when he provides the test sentence. This methodology allows the researcher to create a pragmatic context in which negation and uncertainty expressions, such as disjunction or indefinite pronouns, can be felicitously used. I will review the background from which the uncertainty mode emerged, as well as the advantages of this variant of the TVJT.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Negation and felicity
  • 3.Disjunction and felicity
  • 4.The uncertainty mode
  • 5.Extension: Uncertainty mode without negation
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.60.03gor
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