Problems With Pronoun Acquisition
Charlotte Koster · Psychology Press eBooks · 2018
In some experimental studies, children seem to be interpreting pronouns as if they were reflexives, and this is the one error that they should not be making. Children&s;s performance on anaphora tasks is more of a mixed success than had been predicted. The fact that pragmatic rules are brought into play for pronominals and not for reflexives could result in an imbalance between children&s;s success with reflexives and pronouns. For the pronoun her to be interpreted as a variable bound by the quantified expression every woman, the two must be coindexed. If a reformulation of the Binding Theory were the correct route to take, the problematic experimental acquisition results with pronouns could become more understandable. According to the reformulated Principle B based on the bound variable interpretation of pronouns, children know that grammatical binding of a pronominal and a quantified antecedent cannot occur in the local domain.