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Young Children Use the Discourse Marker "But" to Provide Clarifications in Everyday Conversations
Luis De la Viña1, Julia Chunxiao Hu2, Paul L Harris3
1Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada.
Journal of Child Language
|August 10, 2026
Summary
Children learn to use "but" to clarify information as they grow. By age three, they frequently use this contrastive marker to fill knowledge gaps for listeners, showing developing communication skills.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Linguistic Pragmatics
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Effective communication requires speakers to adapt utterances based on listener knowledge.
- The contrastive marker "but" is crucial for conveying information and managing conversational expectations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how young children (ages 2-5) utilize the contrastive marker "but" for message clarification in everyday conversations.
- To examine the developmental trajectory of using "but" to address listener knowledge gaps.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal analysis of conversational transcripts from seven children aged 2-5 years.
- Coding of 1,446 utterances to identify instances of "but" used for clarification of listener knowledge.
Main Results:
- Children's use of "but" for clarification was infrequent at age 2, with significant increases observed between ages 2 and 3.
- By age 3, children frequently employed "but" to provide information addressing adults' perceived knowledge deficits.
Conclusions:
- Children's use of "but" to bridge knowledge gaps develops significantly between ages 2 and 3.
- Conversational experience may play a key role in the development of children's theory of mind and communication abilities.
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