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Acquisition of epistemic and deontic meaning of modals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

William Hirst  and
Joyce Weil
William Hirst
Affiliation:
The Rockefeller University/Princeton University
Joyce Weil
Affiliation:
Yeshiva University/The Rockefeller University
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Abstract

Modal auxiliaries have an epistemic and deontic sense and range in strength, e.g. must propositions are stronger than may propositions. Children (ages 3; 0–6; 6) heard two contradictory modal propositions of varying strength. In the epistemic condition, the propositions concerned the location of a peanut. In the deontic condition, they were commands by two teachers about what room a puppet should go to. The child was to indicate which command should be followed. The general acquisitional rule was: the greater the difference in the strength of the two modal propositions the earlier the difference was appreciated. Since the acquisitional history was similar across conditions, the two senses probably arose from a single lexical entry.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , October 1982 , pp. 659 - 666
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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Footnotes

[*]

Both authors made equal contributions to the work described herein. We thank Mary Jo Altom for her assistance and George Miller for his guidance. Support from a Junior Faculty Award to Joyce Weil from Yeshiva University and from NSF grant BNS77–16612 to the Rockefeller University is gratefully acknowledged. Address for correspondence: William Hirst, Dept. of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544.

References

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