The logic of natural language negation (e.g. no) is prima facie at odds with an exclusively CLASSICAL LOGIC based on SET THEORY. The negation of classical logic obeys the LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION (according to which an element cannot be both in and not in a set) and the LAW OF EXCLUDED MIDDLE (according to which an element either is or is not in a set). In contrast, natural language negation tolerates APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS (as in, Do you like your supper?---Yes and no) and UNEXCLUDED MIDDLES (as in, Do you love your supper?--- No; Do you hate your supper?---No). These prima facie non-classical phenomena relate to non-set theoretic INTERPRETIVE STRUCTURES, particularly OBJECT STRUCTURE, i.e. that objects may possess properties in part but not in whole (e.g. one might love one part of a supper but hate another), and PREDICATE DIMENSIONALITY , i.e. that properties may have mid-range values (e.g. one might evaluate the supper as a whole as an average between the two extremes). I describe several experiments exploring adults' and children's grasp of object structure and predicate dimensionality and their relation to natural language negation, using two different reasoning tasks: the ability to resolve apparent contradictions and the ability to draw inferences about unexcluded middles. Results suggest that even the negation of children as young as age three is not exclusively classical and set theoretic, but rather reflects a principled grasp of object structure and predicate dimensionality. I argue that children's grasp of natural language negation is guided by sophisticated LOGICAL RESOURCES that relate to the NATURAL LOGIC of common objects and their properties, particularly object structure and predicate dimensionality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.35408 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Sharpe, Dean. |
| Contributors | Genesee, Fred (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001618619, proquestno: NQ44581, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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