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Encoding inferential evidence for events in language: evidence from Turkish speaking children and adults
Avcılar, Gökçen; Ünal, Ercenur; Ünal, Ercenur; Açık, Alper; Uzundağ, B. A.; Department of Psychology; Avcılar, Gökçen
Learning and communicating about events are fundamental aspects of an individual’s life. Yet, how people learn about events often vary with some events perceived in their entirety and others are inferred based on available evidence. Here we investigate how children and adults linguistically encode the sources of their event knowledge. We focus on Turkish – a language that obligatorily encodes sources of information for past events using two evidentiality markers. Children (4- to 5-year-olds and 6- to 7-year-olds) and adults watched and described events that they directly saw or inferred based on visual cues. The indirectness of the visual evidence giving rise to an inference was also manipulated. The results revealed that participants modified the evidential marking in their descriptions depending on (a) whether they saw or inferred the event and (b) the indirectness of the visual cues giving rise to an inference. There were no differences across age groups. These findings suggest that Turkishspeaking children and adults’ use of evidentiality markers in language are sensitive to the indirectness of the inferential evidence.