Acquisition of epistemic and deontic meaning of modals

Abstract

ABSTRACT Modal auxiliaries have an epistemic and deontic sense and range in strength, e.g. must propositions are stronger than may propositions. Children (ages 3; 0–6; 6) heard two contradictory modal propositions of varying strength. In the epistemic condition, the propositions concerned the location of a peanut. In the deontic condition, they were commands by two teachers about what room a puppet should go to. The child was to indicate which command should be followed. The general acquisitional rule was: the greater the difference in the strength of the two modal propositions the earlier the difference was appreciated. Since the acquisitional history was similar across conditions, the two senses probably arose from a single lexical entry.

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