Not two monolinguals in one mind: Bilingual logical representations are shared despite cross-linguistic differences
Mieke Sarah Slim, Napoleon Katsos · 2025
Do bilinguals share logical representations in processing both languages, even if those languages differ in their scope-taking biases? We tested cross-linguistic priming in the comprehension of scopally ambiguous "all...not" sentences in Estonian-English bilinguals. These sentences are interpreted differently in English and Estonian. Across three sentence-picture matching experiments, we observed that bilingual logical representations can be primed both within- and between-languages. Moreover, a control experiment ruled out an explanation in terms of visual priming. These findings indicate that bilinguals use shared logical representations in processing both languages, which do not specify language-specific biases in scope assignment. Additionally, our results showed that Estonian-English bilinguals learn L2-specific scope assignment biases, and that they encounter cross-linguistic influence in the construction logical representations. This latter finding suggests that bilinguals rely on integrated representations of implicit knowledge about scope assignment.