Cover not available
Part of
Pragmatic Development in First Language Acquisition
Edited by Danielle Matthews
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 10] 2014
► pp. 295–316

Children’s understanding of linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality

Informants are not always trustworthy or knowledgeable. Therefore, it is no surprise that every language has means to indicate how the speaker acquired a piece of information, as well as means to indicate how certain the speaker is about the information he is describing. The former are often called expressions of evidentiality and the latter are called expressions of certainty. Currently, however, little is known about how and when children acquire those expressions, and how acquisition of those expressions interacts with conceptual understanding of information source and trustworthiness of informants. The aim of this chapter is to shed some light on the issues by looking into cross-linguistic differences and similarities in acquisition of grammaticalized expressions of certainty and evidentiality.

Published online: 26 June 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.10.17mat
References
Aikhenvald, A.Y
2004  Evidentiality . Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Aijmer, K
1997 I think – an English modal particle. In T. Swan & O.J. Westvik (Eds.), Modality in the Germanic Languages (pp. 1–48). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aksu-Koc, A
1988  The Acquisition of Aspect and Modality: The Case of Past Reference in Turkish . Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aksu-Koc, A., Ogel-Balaban, H., & Alp, I.E
2009 Evidentials and source knowledge in Turkish. In S.A. Fitneva & T. Matsui (Eds.), 13–28.Google Scholar
Aydin, C., & Ceci, S.J
2009 Evidentiality and suggestibility: A new research venue. In S.A. ­Fitneva, & T. Matsui (Eds), 79–93.Google Scholar
Bartsch, K., & Wellman, H.M
1995  Children Talk About the Mind . Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Bascelli, E., & Barbieri, M.S
2002 Italian children’s understanding of the epistemic and deontic modal verbs dovere (must) and potere (may) . Journal of Child Language , 29, 87–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bassano, D
1983 Five-year-olds’ understanding of ‘savoir’ and ‘croire’. Journal of Child Language , 12, 621–641.Google Scholar
Bassano, D., Hickmann, M., & Champaud, C
1992 Epistemic modality in French children’s discourse: To be sure or not to be sure? Journal of Child Language , 19, 389–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, R
(Ed.) 2004  Language Development across Childhood and Adolescence . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ceci, S.J., & Bruck, M
1993 The suggestibility of children’s recollections: An historical review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin , 113, 403–439. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chafe, W
1986 Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In W. Chafe & J. Nichols (Eds), 261–272.Google Scholar
Chafe, W. & Nichols, J
(Eds.) 1986 Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology . ­Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Choi, S
1995 The development of epistemic sentence-ending modal forms and functions in Korean children. In J. Bybee & S. Fleischman (Eds.), Modality in Grammar and Discourse (pp. 165–204). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clancy, P
1985 The acquisition of Japanese. In D.I. Slobin (Ed.) The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition : Vol. 1, The data (pp. 373–524). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Courtney, E.H
2008 Child production of Quechua evidential morphemes in conversations and story retellings. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Davis, C., Potts, C., & Speas, M
2007 The pragmatic values of evidential sentences. In M. ­Gibson & T. Friedman (Eds.), Proceedings of SALT 17. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.Google Scholar
De Haan, F
1999 Evidentiality and epistemic modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics , 18, 83–101.Google Scholar
Dehe, N., & Kavalova, Y
(Eds.) 2007  Parentheticals . Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dendale, P., & Tasmowski, L
2001 Introduction: Evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics , 33, 339–348. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Villiers, J.G., Garfield, J., Garnet-Girard, H., Roeper, T., & Speas, M
2009 Evidentials in Tibetan: Acquisition, semantics, and cognitive development. In S.A. Fitneva & T. Matsui (Eds.), 29–47.Google Scholar
Diessel, H., & Tomasello, M
2001 The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English: A corpus-based analysis. Cognitive Linguistics , 12, 97–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Drummey, A.B., & Newcombe, N.S
2002 Developmental changes in source memory. Developmental Science , 5, 502–513. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Faller, M
2002  Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua . Unpublished PhD dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar
2007 The cusco quechua reportative evidential and rhetorical relations. Linguistische Berichte, Sonderheft , 14.Google Scholar
Fitneva, S.A
2001 Epistemic marking and reliability judgments: Evidence from Bulgarian. Journal of Pragmatics , 33, 401–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 The role of evidentiality in Bulgarian children’s reliability judgments. Journal of Child Language , 35, 845–868. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, A., & Graf, P
1988 Knowing how we know: Young children’s ability to identify and remember the sources of their beliefs. Child Development , 59, 1366–1371. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, P
2007 Trust. Developmental Science , 10, 135–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirst, W. & Weil, J
1982 Acquisition of epistemic and deontic meaning of modals. Journal of Child Language , 9, 659–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ifantidou, E
2005 Pragmatics, cognition and asymmetrically acquired evidentials. Pragmatics , 15, 369–394.Google Scholar
Itani, R
1998 A relevance-based analysis of hearsay particles – with special reference to Japanese sentence-final particle “tte”. In R. Carston & S. Uchida (Eds.), Relevance Theory: Applications and Implications . Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A
1979  A Functional Approach to Child Language: A Study of Determiners and Reference . Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Lee, T.H., & Law, A
2001 Epistemic modality and the acquisition of Cantonese finalparticles. In M. Nakayama (Ed.), Issues in East Asian Language Acquisition (pp. 67–128). Tokyo: Kuroshio.Google Scholar
Limber, J
1973 The genesis of complex sentences. In T.E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (pp. 169–185). New York, NY: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsui, T
2000 Linguistic encoding and the guarantee of relevance: Japanese sentence-final particle yo . In G. Anderson & T. Fretheim (Eds.), Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude (pp. 145–172). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsui, T., Miura, Y., & McCagg, P
2006 Young children’s implicit and explicit understanding of speaker knowledge. In R. Sun (Ed.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Cognitive Science Society , 1789–1794. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsui, T., & Miura, Y
2009 Children’s understanding of certainty and evidentiality: Advantage of grammaticalized forms over lexical alternatives. In S. Fitneva & T. Matsui (Eds), 63–77.Google Scholar
Matsui, T., Yamamoto, T., & McCagg, P
2006 On the role of language in children’s early understanding of others as epistemic beings. Cognitive Development , 21, 158–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsui, T., & Yamamoto, T
2011 Developing sensitivity to the sources of knowledge: The use of the Japanese hearsay particle tte in mother-child conversation. Paper presented at the 12th International Pragmatics Conference, Manchester.
2013. Developing sensitivity to the sources of information: Early use of the Japanese quotative particles tte and to in mother-child conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 59, 5–25.
Moore, C., Bryant, D., & Furrow, D
1989 Mental terms and the development of certainty. Child Development , 60, 167–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moore, C., Pure, K., & Furrow, D
1990 Children’s understanding of the modal expression of speaker certainty and uncertainty and its relation to the development of a representational theory of mind. Child Development , 61, 722–730. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K
1989  Narratives from the Crib . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Noveck, I.A., Ho, S., & Sera, M
1996 Children’s understanding of epistemic modals. Journal of Child Language , 23, 621–643.Google Scholar
O’Neill, D.K., & Atance, C.M
2000 ‘Maybe my daddy gives me a big piano’: the development of children’s use of modals to express uncertainty. First Language , 20, 29–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Neill, D.K., & Gopnik, A
1991 Young children’s ability to identify the sources of their beliefs. Developmental Psychology , 27, 390–397. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palmer, F.R
1986  Mood and Modality . Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Papafragou, A
1998 The acquisition of modality: Implications for theories of semantic representation. Mind and Language , 13, 370–399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, A., & Li, P
2002 Evidential morphology and theory of mind in Proceedings of the 26th Annual BUCLD , 510–520.
Papafragou, A
2006 Epistemic modality and truth conditions. Lingua , 116, 1699–1702. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, A., Li, P., Choi, Y., & Han, C
2007 Evidentiality in language and cognition. Cognition , 103, 253–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pillow, B.H
1989 Early understanding of perception as a source of knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , 47, 116–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pillow, B.H., Hill, V., Boyce, A., & Stein, C
2000 Understanding inference as a source of knowledge: Children’s ability to evaluate the certainty of deduction, perception, and guessing. Developmental Psychology , 17, 263–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pratt, C., & Bryant, P
1990 Young children understand that looking leads to knowing (so long as they are looking into a single barrel). Child Development , 61, 973–982. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robinson, E.J., Mitchell, P., & Nye, R
1995 Young children’s treating of utterances as unreliable sources of knowledge. Journal of Child Language , 22, 663–685. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Robinson, E.J., & Whitcombe, E.L
2003 Children’s suggestibility in relation to their understanding of sources of knowledge. Child Development , 74, 48–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sabbagh, M.A. & Baldwin, D.A
2001 Learning words from knowledgeable versus ignorant speakers: Links between preschoolers’ theory of mind and semantic development. Child Development , 72, 1054–1070. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M., Wellman, H., & Silber, S
1983 The acquisition of mental terms: A systematic investigation of the first reference to mental states. Cognition , 14, 301–321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M., & Wilcox, S
1991 Constraints on the acquisition of English modals. In S. Gelman & J. Byrnes (Eds.), Perspectives on Language and Thought , 319–53. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shirai, J., Shirai, H., & Furuta, Y
1999 Acquisition of sentence-final particles in Japanese. In M. Perkins & S. Howard (Eds.), New Directions in Language Development and Disorders (pp. 243–250). New York, NY: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Sodian, B., & Wimmer, H
1987 Children’s understanding of inference as a source of knowledge. Child Development , 58, 424–433. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, S., & Mulac, A
1991 A quantitative perspective on the grammaticization of epistemic parentheticals in English. In E.C. Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to Grammaticalization , Vol. 2 (pp. 313–329). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Urmson, J
1963 Parenthetical verbs. In C. Caton (Ed.), Philosophy and Ordinary Language . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Whitcombe, E.L., & Robinson, E.J
2000 Children’s decisions about what to believe and their ability to report the source of their belief. Cognitive Development , 15, 329–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
2018. The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality, DOI logo
Pronina, Mariia, Iris Hübscher, Ingrid Vilà-Giménez & Pilar Prieto
2021. Bridging the Gap Between Prosody and Pragmatics: The Acquisition of Pragmatic Prosody in the Preschool Years and Its Relation With Theory of Mind. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Shiro, Martha, Maia Migdalek & Celia Rosemberg
2019. Stance-taking in Spanish-speaking Preschoolers’ Argumentative Interaction. Psychology of Language and Communication 23:1 ► pp. 184 ff. DOI logo
Ünal, Ercenur & Anna Papafragou
2020. Relations Between Language and Cognition: Evidentiality and Sources of Knowledge. Topics in Cognitive Science 12:1 ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.