Abstract
The relationship between mental state verbs (MSVs) and sentential complements (S-comps) was investigated in language samples of 40 4-year-old children. MSVs were coded by function (cognitive, sensory, or pragmatic), complement (simple, simple+, or S-comp) and expression of certainty. Children produced an average of 14 total and 5 different MSVs; approximately equal numbers of MSVs had cognitive and pragmatic functions. MSVs referring to cognitive states were more likely to occur with S-comps than MSVs used as pragmatic markers; S-comps were more likely to occur with uncertain than certain MSVs. Utterances containing MSVs were longer than utterances with other matrix verbs, but MSVs and S-comps were strongly correlated after adjusting for utterance length. Finally, S-comps occurred more often with MSVs than with other matrix verbs after excluding the predominant MSV (want to) and the predominant other matrix verb (going to) from analysis. Implications for using MSVs to investigate the relationship among semantics, cognition and syntax are discussed.
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