Volume 10 (2016)

Timothy Colleman & Dario Rens

Frauke D’hoedt & Hubert Cuyckens

Sara Jonkers
Modal verbs are polysemous: they express epistemic and several non- epistemic meanings, differing in modal force (necessity versus possibility) and modal source (dynamic, deontic, and situational). In the acquisition of language, it has been claimed that dynamic modality (e.g., volition, ability) occurs before deontic (e.g., permission, obligation). However, this claim has not been supported by much (comprehension) data, nor has the role of modal force been studied. I conducted a truth-value-judgment task in which 67 Dutch speaking children and 18 adult controls assessed correct and incorrect interpretations of moeten (‘must’) and kunnen (‘can’) in different modal source and modal force conditions. The results show that the children performed non-adult-like in all conditions and that performance increases with age. Children have a more liberal interpretation of the modals, especially moeten (‘must’): not only correct, but also incorrect meanings were accepted. Kunnen (‘can’), too, was interpreted non-adult-like by the children, but in a more ambivalent way. The results also show an influence of modal force (in contrast to modal source): possibility is interpreted less adult-like than necessity. Preschoolers are thus still in the process of acquiring the differences between various non-epistemic meanings. I argue that moeten (‘must’) is ‘semantically underspecified’, merely indicating some general notion of modality. The development into a more restricted interpretation may be triggered by a changing sensitivity to the semantic nuances of modal verbs in the input. The more adult-like interpretation of necessity than possibility can be explained through developing cognitive abilities of children: possibility is cognitively more complex than necessity. This role of modal force has already been suggested to explain acquisitional differences in the domain of epistemic modality. However, the importance of modal force – in contrast to modal source – in the acquisition of non-epistemic modality has not been established before.

Sandra Lhafi

Marie Steffens

Alma Veenstra & Daniel J. Acheson
Subject-verb agreement is influenced by both notional and grammatical number. Yet, the extent to which these two factors are independent remains unclear. Research manipulating the notional number of subject phrases has shown that notional number mismatches are mediated by grammatical number mismatches (i.e., attraction) in some studies, whereas in other studies they appear to be independent. The current study tested the independence of notional and grammatical effects on subject-verb agreement by manipulating the notional number through semantic integration in Dutch.
The participants completed auditorily presented subject phrases by selecting plural or singular verbs. Subject phrases were semantically integrated or unintegrated (the notional number manipulation) and had singular or plural local nouns (the grammatical number manipulation, e.g., De kom met de stre(e)p(en)/lepel(s), “The bowl with the stripe(s)/spoon(s)”). To make the notional number more salient, pictures of the subject phrase were presented to half of the participants. The results showed no interactions between notional and grammatical number mismatches. Moreover, picture presence enhanced the notional integration effect, but not the grammatical attraction effect. These results suggest that in agreement production conceptual and grammatical factors can work independently.

Martin Verbeke