Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?

Amidon, Arlene

doi:10.1016/0022-0965(76)90106-5

Cited by 35 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Clark (1971) found that children comprehended before better than after and explained this by suggesting that semantic ϩ features are learned prior to -features; whereas before carries values ϩ time, -simultaneous and ϩ prior, after carries values ϩ time, -simultaneous and -prior, having one more negative component and thus making after more difficult to comprehend than before. However, whereas some have shown that children understand after better than before (Amidon, 1976;Feagans, 1980), others have observed no differences between the conjunctions (Amidon & Carey, 1972;French & Brown, 1977;Friedman & Seely, 1976;Johnson, 1975). Even though both clause orders have been used in some studies, either a main clause followed by subordinate clause or vice versa, what has not been considered is the placement of the conjunction as crucial for the final interpretation.…”

Section: Earlier Explanations For Children's Difficultiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children and situation models of multiple events.

Pyykkönen

Järvikivi

2012

Developmental Psychology

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The present study demonstrates that children experience difficulties reaching the correct situation model of multiple events described in temporal sentences if the sentences encode language-external events in reverse chronological order. Importantly, the timing of the cue of how to organize these events is crucial: When temporal subordinate conjunctions (before/after) or converb constructions that carry information of how to organize the events were given sentence-medially, children experienced severe difficulties in arriving at the correct interpretation of event order. When this information was provided sentenceinitially, children were better able to arrive at the correct situation model, even if it required them to decode the linguistic information reversely with respect to the actual language external events. This indicates that children even aged 8 -12 still experience difficulties in arriving at the correct interpretation of the event structure, if the cue of how to order the events is not given immediately when they start building the representation of the situation. This suggests that children's difficulties in comprehending sequential temporal events are caused by their inability to revise the representation of the current event structure at the level of the situation model.

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Section: Earlier Explanations For Children's Difficultiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children and situation models of multiple events.

Pyykkönen

Järvikivi

2012

Developmental Psychology

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“…Finally, six items examined the comprehension of temporal and spatial relations because the results of other studies indicated that these relations were not entirely understood by children 5 years old (Amidon, 1976;Amidon & Carey, 1972;E. Clark, 1971E.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Syntax in Reading Disability

Glass

Perna

1986

J Learn Disabil

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This study examined the hypothesis that poor readers are deficient in syntactic comprehension and this contributes to their reading comprehension deficit. A total of 95 fourth graders who were good readers and 27 fourth graders who were poor readers were given a test of syntactic competence, as well as a vocabulary test and tests of auditory and reading comprehension. Scores on the auditory and reading comprehension tests were significantly correlated. The poor readers performed significantly poorer on the syntactic test, though the difference was small. Furthermore, when vocabulary level was controlled, there was no correlation between syntactic competence and either reading or aural comprehension for good or poor readers. The results provided no evidence for the syntactic hypothesis.

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“…Production data demonstrated that at the age of 4:0 children hardly integrate their counterpart's state-of-knowledge (Champaud et al 1993). Studies of language comprehension have shown that at the age of 9:0 children still have problems to understand counterfactual sentences in an adult-like way (Amidon 1976).…”

Section: Verb-argument Constructions (Vacs)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Spatial, temporal and object permutations are cognitive prerequisites to further integrate the abstract notions of causality and counterfactuality (Piaget 1963). Preceding literature on language acquisition has shown that both production and comprehension are conditioned by maturation constraints (Amidon 1976, Bates 1976, Reilly 1982, Champaud et al 1993, Harris et al 1996. The properties operating at the level of VACs -e.g., agentivity, transitivity, affectedness-are thus likely to be at the center of the mental representations involving causality and thus, they are likely to belong to a deeper layer of language compared to lexical or grammatical realizations.…”

Section: Lack Of Significant Differences In the Dictummentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterfactual Conceptualizations in L2 French: From Cognitive Principles to Semantic and Lexical Realizations

Repiso

2017

SHS Web Conf.

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Abstract. This preliminary survey examines how 30 native speakers and 30 Spanish learners of French evoke counterfactual scenarios from a semantic and a lexical perspective. Counterfactual thinking is a universal cognitive process in which reality is confronted with an imagined view of what might have been (Kahneman & Tversky 1982). The world as we know it is based on a set of enabling conditions that can be mutated, i.e., modified in order to evoke counterfactual worlds. This can be done by modifying various elements in a sentence. For example, speakers might produce counterfactual scenarios by replacing an accusative (1) or by changing some attribute of the subject (2).(1) I should have had coffee at breakfast rather than tea.(2) If I were a man, my life would have been quite different. In each case, a specific language property is changed. Example (1) results from a modification operated on transitivity, and example (2) on affectedness. While counterfactual thinking is universal, its concrete form is only shaped in childhood together with the acquisition of the first language. Is this concrete form preserved or changed in second language acquisition? Earlier research has shown that speakers of different languages have different preferences to do that (Repiso 2013). This survey compares whether non-native speakers of French adopt the same preferences which native speakers have at the level of Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs).Résumé. Conceptualisations contrefactuelles en français L2: des principes cognitifs aux realisations sémantiques et lexicales. Cette étude préliminaire explore la façon dont 30 locuteurs natifs et 30 locuteurs hispanophones du français relate des scénarios contrefactuels dans une perspective sémantique et lexicale. La pensée contrefactuelle est un processus cognitif dans lequel la réalité est confrontée à une vision imaginaire de ce qui aurait pu se passer (Kahnenan & Tversky 1982). Le monde tel que nous le connaissons repose sur un ensemble de conditions de possibilité qui peuvent être changées, c'est-à-dire modifiées afin d'évoquer des mondes contrefactuels. Par exemple, les locuteurs peuvent produire des scénarios contrefactuels en remplaçant un complément d'objet par un autre (1) ou en changeant un attribut du sujet (2). (1) J'aurais dû avoir un café plutôt qu'un thé au petit déjeuner.(2) Si j'étais un homme, ma vie aurait été assez différente. A chaque fois, une propriété langagière spécifique est modifiée. L'exemple (1) témoigne d'une modification du ressort de la transitivité, et l'exemple (2) de l'ordre de l'affectedness. Alors que la pensée contrefactuelle est universelle, sa forme concrète est façonnée durant l'enfance lors de l'acquisition de la langue première. Cette forme concrète est-elle préservée ou changée dans l'acquisition de la langue seconde ? Des recherches antérieures ont montré que des locuteurs de langues différentes ont des préférences différentes pour le faire (Repiso 2013). Cette étude observe de façon contrastive si des locuteurs non natifs du français adopte...

show abstract

Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?

Cited by 35 publications

References 10 publications

Children and situation models of multiple events.

Children and situation models of multiple events.

The Role of Syntax in Reading Disability

Counterfactual Conceptualizations in L2 French: From Cognitive Principles to Semantic and Lexical Realizations

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