Are you asking me or telling me? Learning clause types and speech acts in English and Mandarin
Yu'an Yang
May 2023 

Languages tend to have three major clause types (declaratives, interrogatives, imperatives), dedicated to three main speech acts (assertions, questions, commands). However, the particular forms that these clause types take differ from language to language, and have to be learned. Previous experimental results suggest that by 18 months old, children differentiate these clause types and associate them with their canonical speech act. This dissertation investigates how children learn to identify different clause types and speech acts.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/006730 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Doctoral Dissertation, University of Maryland
keywords:	clause types, speech acts, prosody, language acquisition, cognitive modeling, semantics, syntax
previous versions:	v1 [July 2022]
Downloaded:	743 times

 

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