Chapter 13
Deriving scalar implicatures with quantifiers by Romanian children
The present study looks at whether 7–9-year-old Romanian monolingual children generate fewer implicatures than adults (Noveck, 2001) when interpreting two existential plural quantifiers (unii ‘some1’ and cȃţiva ‘some2’). The results reveal that 7-year-olds derive scalar implicatures with existential quantifiers less frequently than 9-year-olds, who, in turn, derive them less frequently than adults. Moreover, subjects behaved the same with unii ‘some1’ and cȃţiva ‘some2’, i.e., the semantic differences between the two existential quantifiers seem to be immaterial to scalarity computation.
Article outline
- 1.Aim
- 2.Scalar implicatures in communication
- 2.1Inferring the unsaid
- 2.2Scalar implicatures in a nutshell
- 3.The acquisition of quantifiers and scalar implicatures
- 3.1A brief history
- 3.2Developmental accounts of scalar implicatures
- 4.Scalar implicatures in child Romanian: An experimental study
- 4.1Aim
- 4.2Existential quantifiers in Romanian: Predictions for acquisition
- 4.3Method
- 4.3.1Participants
- 4.3.2Materials
- 4.3.3Procedure
- 4.3.4Results
- 4.4Discussion
- 5.Conclusion
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Acknowledgments
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References
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Appendix
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Legend