Project NEDIK
Discourse matters? The role of discourse relations and type of events in child production and comprehension of sentence negation
Children, like adults, often have difficulty processing linguistic negation. However, these difficulties can be reduced or even eliminated when negation is presented in an appropriate context. Our project therefore examines how different contextual factors affect children’s processing and production of negation, with the aim of identifying the specific factors that facilitate these processes.
This project is part of the CRC 1629 Negation in Language and Beyond and investigates the comprehension and production of negation in children. Previous research has shown that negated sentences are more difficult to process than affirmative sentences for both children and adults. However, it has also been demonstrated that an appropriate context can facilitate the processing of negation.
This project therefore focuses on the relationship between negation and the context in which it occurs. Specifically, it addresses the following questions: In what kinds of contexts do children begin to produce negation? Do certain connectives increase the likelihood that children produce negation? And what kinds of contexts facilitate the processing of negation? To answer these questions, the project employs a range of methods, including corpus analysis, sentence completion tasks, and eye-tracking. The findings will contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between negation and context, particularly in the context of language acquisition.
Selected Publications
- Eichler, E.; Mognon, I.; Grimm, A. & Torregrossa, J. (sub.) Negation in discourse: Effects of preceding negative sentences, discourse polarity, and connectors on the use of negative sentences.
- Mognon, I. & Torregrossa, J. The Role of Inhibitory Control in Implicit and Explicit Negation Processing: Shared or Distinct Mechanisms?. (in prep.)
- Portele, Y.; Boila, C.; Grimm, A.; Torregrossa, J.; Weicker, M. & Kaup, B. (2025). Pragmatic reasoning in context: Anticipating negation for adjectives. In: Longo, F.; Panizza, D. (Ed.): vol. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, pp. 1306-1317.
Funding
