Humans routinely reason about the origin of their beliefs, for example, whether they found out about something through direct perception, communication or inference. Languages vary in the means they use to encode information sources. Some languages use lexical means (e.g., "I heard/figured out that John went to the concert") while other languages use grammatical markers. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Papafragou will examine how children learning different languages acquire evidentiality, the linguistic encoding of information sources, and how the acquisition of evidentiality relates to non-linguistic reasoning about the origins and reliability of information. Another goal of the research project is to investigate whether cross-linguistic differences in the way evidentiality is encoded influence the non-linguistic representation of information sources. By comparing performance on linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks by speakers of different languages and across various child and adult groups, this research could reveal whether the way information sources are encoded in language affects nonlinguistic thinking. A unique feature of this research lies in the innovative and systematic comparison between aspects of linguistic and non-linguistic knowledge within a single domain. Early career researchers will get training in interdisciplinary research, including international data collection.
