Does the word refer to a specific type of transport, to forms of transport generally, or to all things that move? Or is the adult actually referring to the people on board the train? The child is required to guess the answer in the absence of any overt explanation. For example, an adult may point to a train moving along the tracks and say the word “train” to a young child. When children encounter unknown words, they guess the scope of their meaning. Clearly there is a reluctance to explain the equilateral triangle in this way from the outset. So how is this problem handled when teaching elementary school children? A guide issued by one textbook publisher suggests “gradually focusing attention” on the idea that an equilateral triangle is a type of isosceles triangle, but not pursuing this to the point that children see the equilateral triangle as a distinctive type of isosceles triangle. Psycholinguists are doing research in many different languages, using all sorts of innovative methods, to determine how and at what stage children acquire this knowledge of scalar implicature.īias in guessing the meaning of unknown words
In other words, under the constraints of scalar implicature, saying that an equilateral triangle is a type of isosceles triangle doesn’t make sense. If we apply this to the case of the triangles mentioned above, the statement that “two sides are of the same length” functions to restrict the interpretation so that the possibility of three or more sides is excluded. The reason we share the understanding that we shouldn’t write three lines is because when expressing differences in scale, if we select an expression that denotes a certain size or quantity, the inclusion of anything larger than that is automatically negated. Sharing a variety of common understandings in the course of conversation with others is a kind of fundamental principle of communication that we acquire intuitively. One year there was a bold exam taker with the courage actually to write three or more lines, which caused a buzz. But another logical interpretation is that only two lines are not permitted, so it’s OK to write three or more. Take for example the instruction on an exam paper that says: “do not write two lines in a single line space on the answer sheet.” Readers are expected to interpret this to mean that they’re not permitted to write three lines or more, either. There is often a gap between interpretations based on what words mean in logical terms, and interpretations that derive the overall intended meaning of those words from information such as context and situation. Pragmatics explains those understandings. There are always some basic understandings that are shared by both speaker and listener, which enable them to exchange information that isn’t necessarily expressed in the actual words they are using. That argument is correct in terms of pragmatics. But even if that makes sense in logical terms, many people would argue that you don’t usually point at an equilateral triangle and say it is an isosceles triangle. If you think about it mathematically and logically, the number 3 includes 2, so an equilateral triangle, in which all three sides are of equal length, is a type of isosceles triangle, which contains two sides of equal length. We’re beginning to understand that the interpretation depends on the placement of inflection (prosodic information) on a certain portion of the phrase when spoken, and that its timing and orientation produces different results for adults and children. Conversely, a higher proportion of children interpret the phrase to mean that the cup is pink.
Eye-tracking experiments reveal that most adults interpret it as the butterflies are pink, which is explainable by reference to the advantage gained in being able to process meaning in the order that you hear the words. This phrase has an ambiguous structure: you can’t tell whether the butterflies are pink or the cup itself is pink.
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