Why is children’s interpretation of doubly quantified sentences non-isomorphic?

Abstract

The initial hypothesis examined in this paper is that Hungarian preschoolers assign to sentences containing two numerical quantifiers and a distributivity marker the same isomorphic distributive interpretation as Hungarian adults do. This hypothesis is partially refuted by Experiment 1, a truth value judgement task, and Experiment 2, a forced choice task, which show that children can access distributive readings, however, they tend to accept both isomorphic and inverse scope. Experiment 3, an act-out task, demonstrates that if there are no strong pragmatic cues to enforce a distributive interpretation, children’s primary interpretation is the collective reading. This leads us to the formulation of a new hypothesis: if the default reading of a doubly quantified sentence for preschoolers is the collective interpretation, in line with scope economy, then a distributive reading always represents the revision of the collective interpretation. This is confirmed by Experiment 4, showing that inverse answers have an increased reaction time. The new hypothesis can explain the lack of isomorphism in children’s interpretation of distributive scope as follows: since the distributive reading is dissociated from the linear flow of speech, the linear order of the two quantifiers does not necessarily determine scope order; children can base relative scope on the hierarchy of grammatical functions, on pragmatic cues, etc.

Linguistic pathway to multiplication

“…That 4-6-year-old preschoolers can passively understand the distributive interpretation of doubly quantified sentences has been shown by previous literature (Musolino 2009; É. Kiss et al 2013;É. Kiss & Zétényi 2017).…”

“…In a follow-up experiment, É. Kiss and Zétényi (2017) sought to answer the question of why Hungarian children's scope interpretation of doubly quantified sentences is not isomorphic, i.e., why they accept readings in which the scope order of quantifiers is the opposite of their linear order -even though non-isomorphic scope interpretation is absent from adult Hungarian. The results of an act-out task, as well as reaction time data indicated that the default reading of doubly quantified sentences for Hungarian preschoolers is the collective reading (also in the presence of the distributive clitic is), which they are willing to revise only under strong pragmatic pressure.…”

“…We regarded this necessary because a previous series of experiments (É. Kiss et al 2013;É. Kiss & Zétényi 2017) showed that children's primary, default interpretation of sentences containing two numerical quantifiers and the distributive particle is is the collective interpretation.…”