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Coherent discourse solves the pronoun interpretation problem.
Jennifer Spenader1, Erik-Jan Smits, Petra Hendriks
1Artificial Intelligence, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. J.Spenader@ai.rug.nl
Children aged 4-6 struggle with object pronoun comprehension but excel at production. This study found that establishing pronouns as the topic resolves comprehension issues in Dutch children, suggesting strong pragmatic skills.
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Area of Science:
- Developmental linguistics
- Child language acquisition
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Children often misinterpret object pronouns, a phenomenon termed the 'Pronoun Interpretation Problem'.
- Previous research indicates a discrepancy between children's pronoun production (near-perfect) and comprehension (impaired).
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the pronoun production-comprehension asymmetry in Dutch children.
- To examine the influence of discourse coherence and topicality on pronoun interpretation and production.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a truth-value judgment task for comprehension assessment.
- Employed an elicited production task to evaluate pronoun usage.
- Tested 83 Dutch children aged 4 years 5 months to 6 years 6 months.
Main Results:
- Confirmed an asymmetry between pronoun production and comprehension in Dutch children.
- The 'Pronoun Interpretation Problem' disappeared when object pronouns were topicalized.
- Children demonstrated proficiency in using pragmatic cues for pronoun interpretation.
Conclusions:
- Dutch children, like English speakers, exhibit an asymmetry in pronoun processing.
- Topicality plays a crucial role in resolving pronoun comprehension difficulties.
- Contrary to prior claims, children possess advanced pragmatic abilities for language interpretation.