The Acquisition of Scope Interpretation in Dative Constructions: Explaining children's non-targetlike performance

This dissertation investigates children’s acquisition of the restrictions on quantifier scope interaction which apply in double - object constructions . It mainly focuses on a specific non - targetlike performance pattern that children display under experimental conditions , a performance pattern which we name ‘ the Reverse - pattern ’ . This study presents a systematic experimental investigation into a variety of ( lexical ) factors which are hypothesized to cause the Reverse - pattern . We will show that children’s non - targetlike performance is in fact restricted to sentences containing distributive universal quantifiers and will subsequently present an account which attributes children’s non - targetlike performance to the specific verification strategies that children employ to evaluate sentences containing distributive universal quantifiers . This dissertation should be of interest to anyone working in the field of language acquisition , the semantics and syntax of quantification , language processing and pragmatics .