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Reasoning with epistemic adverbs in child Romanian: Insights from the Shadow Play Paradigm.

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Title: Reasoning with epistemic adverbs in child Romanian: Insights from the Shadow Play Paradigm.
Authors: Bleotu, Adina Camelia1,2,3 (AUTHOR) adina.bleotu@lls.unibuc.ro, Benz, Anton2 (AUTHOR), Gotzner, Nicole4 (AUTHOR)
Source: Language Acquisition. Apr-Jun2026, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p193-224. 32p.
Subject Terms: *Adverbs, *Language acquisition, Romanian language, Pragmatics, Interpretation (Philosophy), Linguistics, Epistemic logic
Abstract: Our study experimentally investigates the comprehension of epistemic adverbs (poate 'maybe', sigur 'certainly') in child Romanian, an important undertaking as previous experimental acquisition studies have focused on epistemic modal verbs, and rarely on Romanian. Children were found to be non-adult-like in comprehending epistemic modal verbs, but this could be due to struggles with modal verb meaning rather than due to failure with epistemic reasoning. Given that epistemic adverbs are produced earlier than modal verbs, they may provide better insight into children's development of epistemic modality. We employ a novel Shadow Play Paradigm, an improvement on the original Hidden Object Paradigm, to investigate Romanian five-year-olds' semantic and pragmatic interpretation of epistemic adverbs. Children are presented with story contexts where a dragon guesses in Romanian which animal is hiding behind a curtain based on visual and auditory cues (e.g. 'Maybe it's the red dog'). Children offer big apples for the best description and small apples otherwise. The results show that children handle the semantics of epistemic adverbs better in situations where the identity of the hidden animal is clear, but not in ambiguous contexts. In line with premature closure, children tend to accept as optimal overly strong false statements, where a certainty adverb is predicated in contexts that would be better described with a possibility adverb. We propose that children go through a two-stage process of reducing uncertainty to certainty: a logical step, where they infer that the situation involves two alternatives, and a subjective step, where they choose one of these based on their inclinations. Pragmatically, children derive fewer implicatures of the possible, not certain type than adults. Overall, our results suggest an asymmetry between comprehension and production: despite their ease in producing epistemic adverbs, five-year-old Romanian children are not fully adult-like in their semantic and pragmatic comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database: Education Research Complete
Description
Abstract:Our study experimentally investigates the comprehension of epistemic adverbs (poate 'maybe', sigur 'certainly') in child Romanian, an important undertaking as previous experimental acquisition studies have focused on epistemic modal verbs, and rarely on Romanian. Children were found to be non-adult-like in comprehending epistemic modal verbs, but this could be due to struggles with modal verb meaning rather than due to failure with epistemic reasoning. Given that epistemic adverbs are produced earlier than modal verbs, they may provide better insight into children's development of epistemic modality. We employ a novel Shadow Play Paradigm, an improvement on the original Hidden Object Paradigm, to investigate Romanian five-year-olds' semantic and pragmatic interpretation of epistemic adverbs. Children are presented with story contexts where a dragon guesses in Romanian which animal is hiding behind a curtain based on visual and auditory cues (e.g. 'Maybe it's the red dog'). Children offer big apples for the best description and small apples otherwise. The results show that children handle the semantics of epistemic adverbs better in situations where the identity of the hidden animal is clear, but not in ambiguous contexts. In line with premature closure, children tend to accept as optimal overly strong false statements, where a certainty adverb is predicated in contexts that would be better described with a possibility adverb. We propose that children go through a two-stage process of reducing uncertainty to certainty: a logical step, where they infer that the situation involves two alternatives, and a subjective step, where they choose one of these based on their inclinations. Pragmatically, children derive fewer implicatures of the possible, not certain type than adults. Overall, our results suggest an asymmetry between comprehension and production: despite their ease in producing epistemic adverbs, five-year-old Romanian children are not fully adult-like in their semantic and pragmatic comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:10489223
DOI:10.1080/10489223.2025.2470770