Scalar implicature and the child’s logic

Abstract

The acquisition of scalar implicature has been recurring theme among researchers interested in testing the limits between semantic and pragmatic comprehension of children. The subjects of our experiment were nine years olds acquiring Brazilian Portuguese. Analogous sentences containing weak scalar terms were read to them in lower-bound and upper-bound contexts, therefore we had the opportunity of testing the child’s capacity of interpreting scalar terms in a strictly semantic way (lower-bound) or as scalar implicature (upper-bound) depending solely of contextual influences. We identified contextual sensitivity on subjects, inasmuch as they showed semantic or scalar implicature interpretation depending on the given context. However, an unexpected difficulty was exhibited by subjects: since the stories elaborated as lower-bound contexts contained portions whose understanding required calculation of logical consequences, children were less successful in interpreting such portions. Thus, we find evidences of a well-developed inferential logic in children when facing challenges of linguistic interpretation, such as those of scalar implicature – shown from 4 years old, according to Papafragou and Tantalou (2004) –, and evidences of poor inferential skills when dealing with certain non-linguistic inferences, related to contextual objects or events, still exhibited by nine years old. We propose the exclusive component of linguistic inferences that justifies children’s success in its computation is mindreading, the ability of identifying others’ intentions. It is a proposal that finds support in the Relevance Theory’s hypothesis about the existence of a mindreading sub-module dedicated to linguistic inferences in human cognition.

Keywords

• Aquisição de linguagem
• Inferências linguísticas
• Implicatura escalar
• Teoria da Relevância