Factivity

Viac o knihe

Challenging existing lexical-semantic accounts, this book presents a compositional approach to factivity and its acquisition. Factive sentences, such as 'John forgot that he bought wine,' presuppose the truth of the embedded complement. The author argues that a satisfactory characterization of factivity requires acknowledging its multiple dimensions. A thorough examination of empirical data reveals that factivity arises from the complex interaction of lexical-semantic, syntactic, and discourse-semantic factors, rather than being solely a property of the matrix predicate. Focusing on English, the predictions of this compositional approach are tested with production and comprehension data from children aged 2 to 8. After reviewing previous studies, the author presents two rigorously designed comprehension experiments and a detailed analysis of two longitudinal corpora. The child data convincingly shows that the multidimensionality of factivity is reflected in the acquisition process, with a stepwise mastery of its components. Children produce and correctly interpret factive structures around age 4, but certain syntactic and discourse-semantic properties are not fully learned until age 7. This work will interest advanced students and researchers in theoretical linguistics and language acquisition.