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ERIC Number: EJ1176574
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1048-9223
EISSN: N/A
Children's Interpretation of Disjunction in Negative Sentences: A Comparison of Turkish and German
Geçkin, Vasfiye; Thornton, Rosalind; Crain, Stephen
Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, v25 n2 p197-212 2018
This study investigates the interpretation of disjunction words (English or) in negative sentences by Turkish- and German-speaking children. Both children and adults were asked to judge Turkish/German sentences corresponding to the English sentence "This animal did not eat the carrot or the pepper." Children acquiring both languages consistently assigned the same interpretation, which can be paraphrased as "This animal did not eat either the carrot or the pepper." German-speaking adults also consistently assigned this interpretation, whereas Turkish-speaking adults assigned a different interpretation, which can be paraphrased as "It is the carrot or the pepper that this animal did not eat." The finding that children initially assign the same interpretation across languages, despite difference in the interpretations assigned by adults, is credited to a "subset" principle of language learnability.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany; Turkey
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A