Common Ground

Abstract

Where does common ground come from? When do infants and young children start to make use of common ground as they communicate? How do they assess what their interlocutor knows? And how do they mark information as given (in common ground) vs. new (to be added to common ground)? These are some of the questions addressed in the present chapter. Common ground, I suggest, originates in infants' everyday settings and routines where they can rely on caregivers' knowledge. Common ground depends from the first on joint attention, physical co-presence, and conversational co-presence, so it is intrinsic to communication from the start. But children have to learn how to indicate linguistically that information is given or new, how to assess what their addressees do and don't know on each occasion, and how to design utterances based on such assessments.

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