The effect of context on children'S interpretations of universally quantified sentences

Abstract

This chapter investigates the effects of perceptual and discourse context on childrens Exhaustive Pairing interpretation of universally quantified sentences. Two experiments compared the predictions of two recent accounts of Exhaustive Pairing. In one account, Crain et al. (1996) argue that children make the Exhaustive Pairing error because the experiments used to elicit the error do not satisfy a felicity condition called the Condition of Plausible Dissent. In another account, Drozd (2001) argued that children adopt Exhaustive Pairing when they fail to evaluate the presuppositions adults normally use to constrain the interpretation of a universal quantifier. We argue that the results support Drozds account. © 2006 Springer.