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Interpretation of relative clauses by young children: another look

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2002

SARITA EISENBERG
SARITA EISENBERG
Affiliation:
Montclair State University
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Abstract

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.

Type
Note
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 2002 , pp. 177 - 188
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Melanie Schuele for her comments on an earlier version of this paper. My thanks to the children and to their parents for their participation and to the directors at the Lakeland Hills YMCA and Hollingworth Preschool for their assistance in carrying out this project.