Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Role of Executive Function and Lexical Abilities as Predictors of Implicature Generation in Bilingual Children

Languages vary in the interpretation of allowable quantities for words like "some." For example, in a hypothetical scenario like the following: four dogs want to cross a bridge and then four out of those four dogs cross it, some languages do not permit a logical interpretation that "some dogs crossed the bridge" is true, instead reserving a strict and informative meaning of "some but not all." In those languages the scenario would need to have at most three out of the four dogs cross in order to use the quantifier "some." This doctoral dissertation research project examines whether bilingual children are able to maintain this semantic distinction when input from their two languages differ on permissible interpretation. A secondary objective is to investigate what more general cognitive processes support these semantic distinctions. Previous research with monolingual children has shown that their vocabularies and their executive function abilities predict their semantic interpretations. However, less is known on whether the vocabulary of one language, the other, or a combination of both affects semantic interpretations during bilingual acquisition. The outcomes of this dissertation project can help inform theories on the structure of the bilingual mind. To investigate this topic, researchers use stop-motion video scenarios paired with sentences using quantifiers like "some" that are presented to bilingual child participants as descriptions of the video scenario. Participants complete vocabulary measures in each of their two languages along with a combined measure in order to analyze which measure leads to successful prediction of children's interpretations. Because quantifiers like "some" have two possible interpretations, children's executive function is also measured, since prior work with monolingual children has shown that executive function does affect a child’s ability to pay attention to the correct interpretation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.