The argumentative connectivemêmein French: an experimental study in eight- to ten-year-old children

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study examines how children understand the argumentative function of the French connectivemême(‘even’). Two completion tasks, related to the argumentative properties of the morpheme, were used: (1) to infer the conclusion of an ‘even’ sentence, and (2) to infer the argument position. Two main factors likely to influence the comprehension were investigated: the semantic context, and the syntactic form – affirmative vs negative. The argumentative function ofmêmewas globally mastered at the age of eight, but comprehension depends on semantic context. Performances were better for negative sentences, which suggests that negation plays a facilitating role; the specific properties of the negative expressionpas même/même pas(‘not even’) in discourse are discussed.