The use of the definite and indefinite articles by Italian preschool children

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn deciding whether to use a definite or indefinite referring expression a speaker must apply a pragmatic rule: the definite article is usually appropriate if the listener is already familiar with the referent, and the indefinite article if not. Several studies have investigated at what age this rule is mastered by children. The most satisfactory procedure so far adopted is a task in which the subject must narrate a pictorially-presented story to another child who cannot see the pictures. It has been found that 5-year-old children already follow the correct rule quite well, except that they make ‘egocentric errors’ (i.e. using the definite article when first mentioning a referent) in around 15–35% of instances. Experiment 1 here confirms that this pattern of results is also obtained using Italian children. A problem with this experimental design is then raised: it does not exclude the possibility that subjects might produce the correct response distribution by following a rule based on the SPEAKER'S familiarity with the referent, not the listener's. To check this possibility, a modified design was used (Experiment 2) in which the subject had to narrate the story to two listeners, one after the other. Significantly more egocentric errors were made on the second narration of the story than on the first narration.