The Interpretation of Focus Ambiguity in Sentences with English Focus Particle only

Abstract

This study investigates how children and adults resolve focus ambiguity in sentences containing preverbal only with the help of contexts. The sentences with only were ambiguous between an NP scope analysis (focus assigned to the direct object) and a VP scope analysis (focus assigned to the verb phrase). Using a Truth Value Judgment task (Crain & Thornton 1998), they judged whether sentences with preverbal only were a true description of the event or not. A true/false distinction was determined depending on which scope analysis they adopt. The results showed that contextual support guided adults to access both scope analyses. It also helped children adopt the NP scope analysis that was dispreferred in previous study (Paterson et al. 2006). These results were discussed in relation to a processing account of focus interpretation (Crain et al. 1994) (University of Hawai`i at Manoa)