Séminaire SynSem avec Anouk Dieuleveut (University of Geneva)

Abstract: Human language allows us to talk about situations that are displaced from the actual world, going beyond the here and now. Modals are words, such as can and must, that express meanings of possibility and necessity. In this talk, I review key findings from recent work on how children acquire modal meanings, with a particular focus on how they learn modal force: the distinction between possibility (e.g., can) and necessity (e.g. must). I bring together evidence from production studies and comprehension experiments in English and French, which reveal a Necessity Gap: a delay in children’s mastery of necessity modals. In the second part of the talk, I discuss hypotheses that may explain this asymmetry and outline future research on how modal language and modal cognition develop together in childhood.