Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The development of the causal connectives and of causality: some previous studies
- 3 Elicited production studies
- 4 The empirical mode
- 5 The intentional mode
- 6 The deductive mode
- 7 General discussion
- Appendices
- 1 Details of procedures for elicited production experiments
- 2 Sequences and items for Experiment 4
- 3 Stories and items used in Experiment 5
- 4 Materials used in Experiment 6 (Deductive/Empirical)
- 5 Acceptability judgement questionnaire based on Experiment 6
- 6 Materials used in Experiment 7 (Deductive Marking)
- Notes
- References
- Index
6 - The deductive mode
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The development of the causal connectives and of causality: some previous studies
- 3 Elicited production studies
- 4 The empirical mode
- 5 The intentional mode
- 6 The deductive mode
- 7 General discussion
- Appendices
- 1 Details of procedures for elicited production experiments
- 2 Sequences and items for Experiment 4
- 3 Stories and items used in Experiment 5
- 4 Materials used in Experiment 6 (Deductive/Empirical)
- 5 Acceptability judgement questionnaire based on Experiment 6
- 6 Materials used in Experiment 7 (Deductive Marking)
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Explanations in the deductive mode
In the deductive mode, a judgement or conclusion is explained or justified in terms of some form of evidence. The evidence may be observable, or it may take the form of a rule or of a ‘given’ fact. The role of the causal connectives in deductive sentences is to make explicit the links in the deductive process, rather than the causal relations between events. However, a deductive explanation may draw on the speaker's knowledge of the types of causal relations between events which are made explicit in empirical explanations. For example, the deductive explanation expressed by the sentence:
(6.1) We can tell that John has a broken leg because it is in plaster
presupposes the physical relation which is made explicit in the sentence:
(6.2) John's leg is in plaster because it is broken.
Similarly, the deductive sentence:
(6.3) We can tell that Mary is sad because she is crying
presupposes the psychological relation expressed by:
(6.4) Mary is crying because she is sad.
Thus, deductive explanations may have physical content (as in (6.1)) or psychological content (as in (6.3)). Alternatively, they may have logical content, as in:
(6.5) We can tell that half nine is not four because four and four make eight.
Most of the previous research on children's understanding of the causal connectives has either been based solely on the empirical mode or has compared empirical sentences to deductive sentences with logical content.
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- Information
- Children's ExplanationsA Psycholinguistic Study, pp. 104 - 135Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986