...I Made Sena Darmasetiyawan; Ben Ambridge; Dermot Lynott Semantics-based approaches to syntax hold that the basic units of language are constructions: form-meaning pairings that have meanings in and of themselves. The aim of the present study was to test this claim using a previously-unstudied...

... understand the basic truth-conditional semantics of disjunction. Children did not interpret “ or ” as “ and ”, supporting studies that argue conjunctive interpretations are due to task demands. In addition, even though our forced-choice tasks suggest children interpreted disjunction as inclusive, spontaneous...

..., 1988 ). There is widespread agreement that semantic factors play an important role (e.g., Ambridge et al., 2008 ; Fisher, Gleitman & Gleitman, 1991 ; Goldberg, 1995 ; Pinker, 1989 ). For example, the ground-locative construction is more acceptable for verbs like cover that are construed...