Abstract
This paper investigates the interpretation that Italian-speaking children and adults assign to negative sentences with disjunction and negative sentences with conjunction. The aim of the study was to determine whether children and adults assign the same interpretation to these types of sentences. The Semantic Subset Principle (SSP) (Crain et al., in: Clifton, Frazer, Rayner (eds) Perspective on sentence processing, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillside, 1994) predicts that children’s initial scope assignment should correspond to the interpretation that makes sentences true in the narrowest range of circumstances, even when this is not the interpretation assigned by adults. This prediction was borne out in previous studies in Japanese, Mandarin and Turkish. As predicted by the SSP, the findings of the present study indicate that Italian-speaking children and adults assign the same interpretation to negative sentences with conjunction (conjunction takes scope over negation). By contrast, the study revealed that some children differed from adults in the interpretation they assigned to negative sentences with disjunction. Adults interpreted disjunction as taking scope over negation, whereas children were divided into two groups: one group interpreted disjunction as taking scope over negation as adults did; another group interpreted negation as taking scope over disjunction, as predicted by the SSP. To explain the findings, we propose that Italian-speaking children initially differ from adults as dictated by the SSP, but children converge on the adult grammar earlier than children acquiring other languages due to the negative concord status of Italian, including the application of negative concord to sentences with disjunction.
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Notes
Two potential misunderstandings are worth noting from the outset. First, it is important to note that expressions that are − PPI are not Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). Rather, they are interpreted in situ. It is worth noting, second, that De Morgan’s laws do not govern logical connectives that take scope over negation. So, languages in which disjunction or conjunction takes scope over negation do not violate De Morgan’s laws. If a logical connective takes scope over negation, it has the same truth conditions in negative sentences as it does in affirmative sentences.
There are exceptions to this generalization. One exception arises when negation appears outside the clause that contains either conjunction or disjunction. In sentences with this syntactic structure, the polarity sensitivity of conjunction or disjunction is lost, such that negation takes a wide scope. This is characteristic of Positive Polarity Items more generally (see Crain 2012). The present paper focuses on “simple” negative sentences, i.e., ones in which negation and either conjunction or disjunction resides in the same clause.
Children’s justifications for rejecting the puppet’s statement reinforced this analysis of the findings. For example, children justified their rejections to (7) by pointing out that the girl who stayed up late had received a jewel. This justification indicates that children interpreted negation as taking scope over disjunction in the test sentences (NEG > OR). This scope assignment is logically equivalent to a conjunction of two negated expressions: The girl who stayed up late will not get a dime and The girl who stayed up late will not get a jewel.
Geçkin et al. (2016) found similar results for ya… ya da and veya.
In Romance languages, Negative concord is always obligatory in sentences containing n-words. However, in Bavarian, West Flemish and some Dutch Negative concord varieties the negative marker may be absent in sentences containing an n-word (Zeijlstra 2004).
For negative concord languages that have the − PPI of the disjunction parameter, e.g. Romanian, the presence of an equivalent structure to the Italian né… né is irrelevant, as these children do not have to change the default value of the parameter. One may wonder why in those languages, OR is − PPI, as there is an alternative way to express the conjunction of two negated expressions. We do not have an answer to this question, which is outside the scope of this work. We merely state that our claim is that if OR is + PPI in a negative concord language, there is an expression which overtly informs the child of the lexical value of OR.
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Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge Robin Blumfield, Cory Bill, Nobuaki Agaki and Vasfiye Geçkin for providing critical support during the preparation of these studies. The pictures used in the experiments were created by Dorothy An and therefore the authors would like to thank her. The authors also wish to thank the children who participated in the study, their teachers and their parents. Finally, the authors are also grateful to two reviewers for their thorough comments.
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Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
EP and SC conceived the project, EP and SC designed experiment 1, EP and MTG conceived and designed experiment 2 and 3, EP collected the data, EP analyzed the data, EP wrote and revised the paper and MTG and SC commented on the various versions of the manuscript.
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Appendices
Appendix A: Experimental Materials—Experiment 1
Training material | ||
|---|---|---|
Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward |
Rabbit | Both | Golden medal |
Bear | None | Sad face |
Zebra | One | Silver medal |
Test material | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Connectives | Animal | Vegetable eaten | Context | Sentence |
NEG–Or | Hippo | One | Silver medal | L’ippopotamo non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The hippo didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Cat | One | Silver medal | Il gattino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The cat didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Pig | None | Sad face | Il maialino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The pig didn’t eat the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Elephant | None | Sad face | L’elefantino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The elephant didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–And | Donkey | None | sad face | L’asinello non ha mangiato la carota e il peperone ‘The donkey didn’t eat both the carrot and the green pepper’ |
NEG–And | Mouse | None | Sad face | Il topolino non ha mangiato la carota e il peperone ‘The mouse didn’t eat both the carrot and the green pepper’ |
NEG–And | Frog | One | Silver medal | La rana non ha mangiato la carota e il peperone ‘The frog didn’t eat both the carrot and the green pepper’ |
NEG–And | Giraffe | One | Silver medal | La giraffa non ha mangiato la carota e il peperone ‘The giraffe didn’t eat both the carrot and the green pepper’ |
Filler material | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward | Sentence |
Lion | Both | Golden Medal | Il leone ha mangiato tutto ‘The lion ate everything’ |
Tiger | Both | Golden Medal | La tigre ha mangiato tutto ‘The tiger ate everything’ |
Monkey | Both | Golden Medal | La scimmietta non ha mangiato niente ‘The monkey didn’t eat anything’ |
Dog | Both | Golden Medal | Il cagnolino non ha mangiato niente ‘The dog didn’t eat anything’ |
Appendix B: Experimental Materials—Experiment 2
Training material | ||
|---|---|---|
Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward |
Rabbit | Both | Golden medal |
Bear | None | Sad face |
Zebra | One | Silver medal |
Test material | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Connectives | Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward | Sentence |
NEG–Or | Hippo | One | Silver Medal | L’ippopotamo non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The hippo didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Cat | One | Silver medal | Il gattino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The cat didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Frog | One | Silver medal | La rana non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The frog didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Giraffe | One | Silver medal | La giraffa non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The giraffe didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Pig | None | Sad face | Il maialino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The pig didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Elephant | None | Sad face | L’elefantino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The elephant didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Donkey | None | Sad face | L’asinello non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The donkey didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
NEG–Or | Mouse | None | Sad face | Il topolino non ha mangiato la carota o il peperone ‘The mouse didn’t eat either the carrot or the green pepper’ |
Filler material | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward | Sentence |
Lion | Both | Golden medal | Il leone ha mangiato tutto ‘The lion ate everything’ |
Tiger | Both | Golden medal | La tigre ha mangiato tutto ‘The tiger ate everything’ |
Monkey | Both | Golden medal | La scimmietta non ha mangiato niente ‘The monkey didn’t eat anything’ |
Dog | Both | Golden medal | Il cagnolino non ha mangiato niente ‘The dog didn’t eat anything’ |
Appendix C: Experimental Materials—Experiment 3
Training material | ||
|---|---|---|
Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward |
Rabbit | Both | Golden medal |
Bear | None | Sad face |
Zebra | One | Silver medal |
Test material | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Connectives | Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward | Sentence |
NEG–né… né | Hippo | One | Silver medal | L’ippopotamo non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The hippo ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Cat | One | Silver medal | Il gattino non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The cat ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Frog | One | Silver medal | La rana non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The frog ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Giraffe | One | Silver medal | La giraffa non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The giraffe ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Pig | None | Sad face | Il maialino non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The pig ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Elephant | None | Sad face | L’elefantino non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The elephant ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Donkey | None | Sad face | L’asinello non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The donkey ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
NEG–né… né | Mouse | None | Sad face | Il topolino non ha mangiato né la carota né il peperone ‘The mouse ate neither the carrot nor the green pepper’ |
Filler material | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Animal | Vegetable eaten | Reward | Sentence |
Lion | Both | Golden medal | Il leone ha mangiato tutto ‘The lion ate everything’ |
Tiger | Both | Golden medal | La tigre ha mangiato le due verdure ‘The tiger ate the two vegetables’ |
Monkey | Both | Golden medal | La scimmietta non ha mangiato nessuna verdura ‘The monkey didn’t eat any vegetables’ |
Dog | Both | Golden medal | Il cagnolino ha mangiato tutto ‘The dog ate everything’ |
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Pagliarini, E., Crain, S. & Guasti, M.T. The Compositionality of Logical Connectives in Child Italian. J Psycholinguist Res 47, 1243–1277 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9596-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9596-1