LingLunch : Lyn Tieu

Lyn Tieu (Jean Nicod)
Simple and complex disjunctions in child language
Abstract: In this talk, I will present a set of experiments designed to test children’s comprehension of simple and complex disjunctions in French and Japanese. First, consistent with previous literature, we found that both groups of children computed fewer ‘not-both’ exclusivity inferences than adults. Second, we found clear evidence for conjunctive interpretations of disjunction across both kinds of disjunction, in both language groups. Finally, we found little evidence that children distinguish the two types of disjunctions in comprehension. We provide an explanation of our findings, tying them to recent discussions about the acquisition of disjunction and scalar implicatures.