Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Significance
1.3 Key Concepts
1.3.1 Conjunctive entailments
1.3.2 Conjunctive (free choice) inferences
1.3.3 Scope assignments
1.3.4 Internal versus external negation
1.4 Structure of the Dissertation
Chapter 2 When OR is Assigned a Conjunctive Inference in Child Language
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Acquisition Background
2.2.1 Evidence that children license conjunctive inferences
2.2.2 Evidence that children accept disjunctive statements when only one disjunct is true
2.2.3 Children's computation of Free Choice Inferences
2.2.4 Reconciling the conflicting findings of previous research
2.3 The Present Study
2.4 Experiments
2.4.1 Experiment 1
2.4.2 Experiment 2
2.4.3 Experiment 3
2.5 General Discussion and Conclusion
Chapter 3 Negation and Free Choice Inference in Child Mandarin
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Preliminaries: Internal versus External Negation
3.3 Free Choice Inferences
3.4 Child Language
3.4.1 Children's computation of Free Choice Inferences
3.4.2 Children's understanding of sentences with negation
3.5 Experiments
3.5.1 Experiment 1
3.5.2 Experiment 2
3.5.3 Experiment 3
3.5.4 Experiment 4
3.6 General Discussion and Conclusion
Chapter 4 Wh-Questions, Universal Statements and Free Choice Inferences in Child Mandarin
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Theoretical Literature
4.2.1 Wh-words as existential expressions
4.2.2 Dou as a universal adverbial quantifier
4.2.3 Universal statements and universal free choice inference
4.2.4 Universal statements and exhaustive wh-questions
4.3 Previous Studies on Child Language
4.3.1 Universal statements in child Mandarin
4.3.2 Universal Free Choice Inferences in child Mandarin
4.4 Experiments
4.4.1 Experiment 1
4.4.2 Experiment 2
4.4.3 Experiment 3
4.5 General Discussion
4.6 Conclusion
Chapter 5 Conclusions
5.1 A Revisit of the Research Questions and the Relevant Theories
5.2 The Main Findings
5.2.1 When OR is assigned a conjunctive inference in child language (Chapter 2)
5.2.2 Negation and Free Choice Inference in child Mandarin (Chapter 3)
5.2.3 Wh-questions, universal statements and Free Choice Inferences in child Mandarin (Chapter 4)
5.3 Implications
5.4 Future Directions
Appendices: Test Stimuli of the Experiments
Appendix A Test Stimuli for the Experiments in Chapter 2
Appendix B Test Stimuli for the Experiments in Chapter 3
Appendix C Test Stimuli for the Experiments in Chapter 4
References