pronouns and imperatives

[Gary Palmer]

Celso,

In _The Cultural Origins Of Human Cognition_, Michael Tomasello argues
that children begin to understand other humans and themselves as
intentional beings from about the age of 2 years (I think, I don't have
the book at hand at the moment). They develop these understandings
gradually via a lot of listening and dialog in situations affording
joint attentional scenes. While this observation doesn't speak directly
to the question of when declaratives become (intentional) indirect
directives, it suggests that it could begin early and develop gradually.

Best,
Gary Palmer

Celso Alvarez Caccamo wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Margaret Field says,
>
> > In the past, linguists often counted "problem statements"
> > like "I'm hungry" or "it broke" as examples of indirect
> > directives as well, especially on the part of children, but
> > as Ervin-Tripp points out in a more recent paper (sorry I
> > don't have access to my references at the moment, but can
> > send them to interested parties later), this interpretation
> > perhaps attributes more intention than may
> > actually be there, much of the time).
>
> Sue (or whoever), I'm curious, at about what age does "more
> intention" start to enter such types of (indirect?)
> illocutionary acts (not only directives)? How did you come to
> conclude that? In any particular way different from any
> typical reconstruction of inferences in indirect acts in
> general?
>
> Thanks,
> -celso
>
> --
> Celso Alvarez Cáccamo              Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
> Linguística Geral, Faculdade de Filologia     FAX +34 981 167151
> Universidade da Corunha                          lxalvarz at udc.es
> 15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha)  http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac/
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