Donkey pronouns in child Mandarin: Insights into the ∃/∀ dichotomy

Abstract

Donkey pronouns and plural definites show similarities in their semantic interpretation. The parallels between the two elements seem to suggest a unified analysis. Studies of children’s understanding of plural definites show that children initially interpret plural definites existentially rather than universally. The findings invite us to ask whether children also exhibit a preference for interpreting donkey pronouns existentially. Two experiments were conducted to compare children’ and adults’ interpretation of donkey pronouns in conditional and relative- clause donkey sentences. The results of Experiment 1 show that children preferred the ∃-reading, whereas adults entertained the ∀-reading for both types of donkey sentences in upward- entailing contexts. Experiment 2 examined whether monotonicity influences the interpretation of donkey pronouns by creating a downward-entailing context. The findings were that in a downward-entailing context both children and adults preferred the ∃-reading. The findings led us to propose that the ∃-reading is perhaps the basic semantics of donkey pronouns while the ∀-reading is derived, and we suggest that the derivational path is bridged by free choice strengthening. The findings were then discussed in relation to the analysis of homogeneity and plural predication by Bar-Lev (2020).