Reference-Set Computation in Children: Mandarin-Speaking Children’s Pronoun Interpretation in Avoid Pronoun Contexts

Abstract

Reinhart’s (2004, 2006) theory predicts that children should perform around chance on tasks involving reference-set computation due to their working memory limitations. The purpose of this article is to test her theory against acquisition data from a previously unexplored area of reference-set computation. We present an experiment designed to examine Mandarin-speaking children’s pronoun interpretation in contexts where the Avoid Pronoun Principle is operative. Since the computation of the Avoid Pronoun Principle requires reference-set computation, children are expected to show difficulty resolving pronouns in such contexts. This prediction was confirmed in our experiment, where otherwise linguistically competent 5-year-olds performed around chance when confronted with the need to compute the Avoid Pronoun Principle. Moreover, analysis of individual data suggests that their nonadultlike performance is due not to their lack of the relevant knowledge but to their lack of capacity to process the required computation.

Notes

1. ¹For another bypassing strategy that is claimed to be available in other areas of reference-set computation, see Reinhart (2004, 2006).

2. ²Several alternative analyses have been proposed to derive this principle from more general properties of language use (see, for example, Horn 1984; Levinson 1987; Y. Huang 1994), but the basic idea underlying all these proposals is that an optimal competitor is selected from a narrowly constructed set of alternative options.

3. ³It should be mentioned that the following example, where the pronoun is focused, is better than (5a).

(i)(Context: Zhangsan can sleep anytime anywhere with no difficulty.) Zhangsan₁jinzhang-de(lian)ta₁wanshangdoushuibuzhao. Zhangsannervous-DEevenhenightallcannot.sleep ‘Zhangsan was so nervous that even he couldn’t fall asleep at night.’

Note that like other transderivational constraints such as Rule I, the Avoid Pronoun effect is conditioned on the interpretive equivalence between two representations. In the case of this example, the use of a focused pronoun yields a reading that would not be obtained by the corresponding sentence with PRO (precisely because PRO cannot be focused), and this interpretive difference circumvents the Avoid Pronoun effect. The same holds for English, where the Avoid Pronoun effect can be bypassed with the use of a stressed pronoun. See Hicks (2009) for relevant examples.

4. ⁴We treat the phonetically null subject as PRO rather than pro since its reference is obligatorily controlled by the matrix subject. Note, though, that whether the embedded subject is PRO or generalized Pro in the sense of C.-T. J. Huang (1989) is not crucial, given that the Avoid Pronoun Principle applies to PRO and pro alike (Haegeman 1994).

5. ⁵The test sentences used in the diagnostic trials were V-de sentences with nonresultative interpretations (e.g., Xiaotuzi qie-de hen man ‘Little Rabbit cut it slowly’).

6. ⁶Needless to say, great care was taken in the experiment to ensure that the pronoun was not focused or rendered prominent in some other way.

7. ⁷Wilcoxon signed rank tests likewise indicated no significant differences between any pair of these conditions (all ps > .18).

8. ⁸This preference is independently confirmed by developmental studies such as C. Chomsky’s (1969) experiment (Table 4.6, p. 108).