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French children's ability to introduce referents in narratives as a function of mutual knowledge

Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, C. N. R. S., Paris

Maya Hickmann

Max-Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

This study examines referent introductions in narratives produced by French children of 6, 9, and 11 years in two situations where they either could or could not assume mutual knowledge. In one situation (MK) the children and their interlocutor were looking at a picture book together; in the other (NMK) the interlocutor was blindfolded. Children in all age groups used more indefinite determiners in Situation NMK than in MK. However, some clear developmental changes were also found: the 6-year-olds used both definite and indefinite determiners in NMK; the 9-year-olds selected indefinite determiners in NMK and definite ones in MK; the 11-year-olds produced indefinite determiners not only in NMK, but also in MK. These results show that children acquire the rules governing referent introductions in three steps: (a) they have no systematic rule in the absence of mutual knowledge; (b) they acquire a rule associating appropriately different linguistic devices with the presence versus absence of mutual knowledge; (c) they acquire an additional rule that generalizes indefinite forms to all narrative situations, regardless of mutual knowledge conditions.

First Language, Vol. 12, No. 34, 73-94 (1992)
DOI: 10.1177/014272379201203405


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