Why Do Children Who Solve False Belief Tasks Begin to Find True Belief Control Tasks Difficult? A Test of Pragmatic Performance Factors in Theory of Mind Tasks

The litmus test for the development of a metarepresentational Theory of Mind is the false belief (FB) task in which children have to represent how another agent misrepresents the world. Children typically start mastering this task around age four. Recently, however, a puzzling finding has emerged: Once children master the FB task, they begin to fail true belief (TB) control tasks. Pragmatic accounts assume that the TB task is pragmatically confusing because it poses a trivial academic test question about a rational agent’s perspective; and we do not normally engage in such discourse about subjective mental perspectives unless there is at least the possibility of error or deviance. The lack of such an obvious possibility in the TB task implicates that there might be some hidden perspective difference and thus makes the task confusing. In the present study, we test the pragmatic account by administering to 3- to 6-year-olds (N = 88) TB and FB tasks and structurally analogous true and false sign (TS/FS) tasks. The belief and sign tasks are matched in terms of representational and metarepresentational complexity; the crucial difference is that TS tasks do not implicate an alternative non-mental perspective and should thus be less pragmatically confusing than TB tasks. The results show parallel and correlated development in FB and FS tasks, replicate the puzzling performance pattern in TB tasks, but show no trace of this in TS tasks. Taken together, these results speak in favor of the pragmatic performance account.

The interpretative options of anaphoric complex demonstratives

In this paper, we present experimental evidence from a ‘yes’/’no’ judgement task and twoacceptability rating studies (Experiments 1a-c) for the claim made in Hinterwimmer (2019) thatsentences with two anaphorically interpreted complex demonstratives are less acceptable thansentences with two anaphorically interpreted definite descriptions and sentences where one ofthe two previously introduced referents is picked up by a complex demonstrative, while the otherone is picked up by a definite description. The results of Experiment 1a and 1b are in principlecompatible with the account argued for in Hinterwimmer (2019), according to which the (potentiallyabstract) demonstrations presupposed by demonstratives may not have overlapping trajectories.However, sentences with two anaphorically interpreted complex demonstratives are not judgedas unacceptable as would be expected if they involved a presupposition violation. Therefore, wepropose an alternative, economy-based pragmatic account that builds on Ahn (2019) and Nowak(2019). The question of whether the observed pattern is more compatible with the accountproposed by Hinterwimmer (2019) or the alternative pragmatic account is directly addressed in afurther acceptability rating study (Experiment 1c). The design of that study is similar to that ofExperiment 1b, but it includes as fillers both sentences clearly violating a presupposition andsentences violating a pragmatic constraint. Since the ratings for sentences containing twoanaphorically interpreted complex demonstratives are closer to the ratings for sentences violatinga pragmatic constraint than for sentences violating a presupposition, we conclude that thealternative pragmatic account is preferable to the account by Hinterwimmer (2019).

Epistemic Circularity

<p>An instance of epistemically circular justification is one in which a justification source successfully justifies the claim that it is a justification source. It is generally thought that this is impossible. However, there is also reason to think that our fundamental evidential sources and theories of justification cannot be justified without circularity. In this thesis I investigate the problem of epistemic circularity in detail. First, I’ll examine a prominent argument for thinking that the justification of our fundamental evidential sources must be circular, and show that it is not decisive. My response employs a pragmatic account of justification, whereby your goals and preferences can make you justified in believing something even when you lack evidence for it. Second, I’ll offer a different argument for thinking that epistemically circular justification is possible.</p>

Epistemic Circularity

<p>An instance of epistemically circular justification is one in which a justification source successfully justifies the claim that it is a justification source. It is generally thought that this is impossible. However, there is also reason to think that our fundamental evidential sources and theories of justification cannot be justified without circularity. In this thesis I investigate the problem of epistemic circularity in detail. First, I’ll examine a prominent argument for thinking that the justification of our fundamental evidential sources must be circular, and show that it is not decisive. My response employs a pragmatic account of justification, whereby your goals and preferences can make you justified in believing something even when you lack evidence for it. Second, I’ll offer a different argument for thinking that epistemically circular justification is possible.</p>

Frozen by context: Pragmatic factors of syntactic freezing

Syntactic freezing has mainly been approached from a structural point of view, recently though, more cognitive approaches in terms of processing costs have been proposed. One such processing account is the additive account. According to this approach, the freezing effect is best explained as an additive effect of two syntactic processes coming together, rather than being a phenomenon on its own. Another processing account argues that the freezing effect is the result of a prosodic garden path according to which extraction can only take place from a prosodically focused constituent. The current study provides empirical evidence for a less discussed factor contributing to the freezing effect, namely a pragmatic one. The pragmatic account requires frozen sentences to have contextually given referents. If no such referent is present, the sentence becomes less acceptable. The need for such a referent comes from the non- default word order associated with frozen sentences, which often highlights/focuses a certain constituent. Several experiments were run to test the pragmatic account. Based on the results it was concluded that pragmatic factors play a significant role in explaining the apparent freezing effects. Other factors however, seem to contribute to this effect as well since this effect cannot be fully explained in terms of pragmatic factors solely.

THE ‘POLITE’ AORIST: TENSE OR ASPECT?

This article investigates the semantics and pragmatics of the ‘hortative’ aorist (the aorist indicative in questions with τί οὐ ‘why don't …’) and the ‘tragic’ or ‘performative’ aorist (for example ὤμοσα ‘I swear’). Lloyd argued in 1999 that the tragic aorist is a more polite alternative for the corresponding present (ὄμνυμι ‘I swear’). Recently, he has extended this view to the hortative aorist, suggesting that, for example, τί οὐκ ἐκαλέσαμεν; is a polite alternative for τί οὐ καλοῦμεν; Lloyd argues that the politeness value of the aorist derives from its being a past tense, comparing the so-called ‘attitudinal’ past (as in I wanted to ask you something instead of I want to ask you something). The present article, building on work by Colvin, Bary and Nijk, argues instead that the semantic value of the aorist is purely aspectual in these cases: the hortative and tragic aorists serve to construe the designated event as bounded, while the corresponding present forms serve to construe the designated event as unbounded. An extensive discussion of the evidence for the hortative aorist and present is presented, as well as a case study concerning the aspectual behaviour of the verb ὄμνυμι. Moreover, I argue that the proposed semantic account of the hortative and tragic aorists in terms of aspect can be unified with Lloyd's pragmatic account in terms of politeness: the difference in tone between the present and the aorist can be derived from their respective aspectual values, rather than from their temporal values.

The development of the Imperfect in Ancient Greek from simple past to imperfective as a blocking phenomenon

This article seeks to combine the viewpoints of formal semantics and pragmatics, typology, historical linguistics, and philology, in order to give a diachronic overview of the semantic and pragmatic changes observable for the Imperfect indicative within the recorded history Greek. Since its development does not adhere to typologically expected stages of semantic change, I provide a pragmatic account by taking into consideration not only the Imperfect but also the rest of the past-tense system of Greek, namely the Aorist and Perfect. With this holistic approach, I am able to motivate a development that is otherwise typologically anomalous.