Semantics Circle: Endless possibilities in child language

Abstract

Children have been shown to struggle with the force of modals: they tend to accept possibility modals in environments where adults prefer necessity modals, and necessity modals in environments where adults require possibility modals. In this talk, I present various studies which test the robustness of children’s modal difficulties, probe the potential linguistic and nonlinguistic sources of these difficulties, and point to how children eventually overcome them.

Zoom-Link for online participation: https://umd.zoom.us/j/5758248388?pwd=b1NYVmpxN1JrdE1INnhNdEJFeEYxQT09