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Do children exploit the Maxim of Antecedent in order to interpret ambiguous descriptions?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Luca Surian
Luca Surian*
Affiliation:
University of Padova
*
MRC Cognitive Development Unit, 17 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AH, UK.
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Abstract

Twenty Italian six-year-olds and 20 eight-year-olds were asked to interpret eight ambiguous and eight clear definite descriptions. All ambiguous descriptions could refer to three drawings, one of which had been described by the subjects immediately before the comprehension task. In half of the trials with ambiguous messages the children's interlocutor was present while the children were describing the drawings; in the other half he was absent. In both conditions subjects showed a preference for the referents they had already described, indicating that they applied egocentrically a comprehension strategy based on the Maxim of Antecedent (Jackson & Jacobs, 1982). Children's failures to differentiate their responses in the two conditions are considered to be due to difficulties in taking account of the given-new distinction for relevant information.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 451 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by the Ministero Italiano della Pubblica Istruzione. The author is grateful to Robert Jarvella, Remo Job, Marc Marschark and two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier version of this paper. My thanks also to Stefano Boca, Anna Pigoni and Mado Proverbio for their help in collecting the data, and to the teachers and students of the elementary schools ‘Lambruschini’, Montà (Padova).

References

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