mary hughes

Boston University, School of Education and Sargent College, Lecturer

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Na'ama Pat-El

The University of Texas at Austin

Michael Spivey

University of California, Merced

Michał B. Paradowski

University of Warsaw

Bert Vaux

University of Cambridge

Sonja Eisenbeiss

University of Cologne

Albert Bastardas-Boada

Universitat de Barcelona

Louis de Saussure

University of Neuchâtel

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Stephen Yablo

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Eitan Grossman

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Papers by mary hughes

Using corpora to examine discourse effects in syntax

Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 2008

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Competing motivations in children's omission of subjects? The interaction between verb finiteness and referent accessibility

Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage, 2014

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The incremental effect of discourse-pragmatic sensitivity on referential choice in the acquisition of a first language

Previous research has demonstrated that children as young as 2;0 are sensitive to discourse-pragm... more Previous research has demonstrated that children as young as 2;0 are sensitive to discourse-pragmatic context when selecting referring expressions. If a referent is present in the discourse context and/or jointly attended to by the listener, a child will be more likely to omit a referring expression or use a pronominal form. To date, most research has examined the effect of individual features in the discourse, whereas in reality the various features occur and work together. In this study, we explore children's sensitivity to the incremental effect of six discourse-pragmatic features. This stepwise approach is a more nuanced approach to measure the cumulative effect of accessibility on argument realization in order to reveal the predictive patterns of accessibility. Videotaped data from four monolingual English-speaking children in spontaneous interaction with their caregivers are analyzed at two ages: 2;0-2;7 and 3;0-3;1. Caregivers and children at both ages are sensitive to incremental effects of accessibility. Their selection of linguistic forms follows a cline such that low information forms are utilized for accessible referents. As referents become increasingly inaccessible, they are more likely to be realized as high information forms. These results indicate another important dimension of children's sensitivity to discoursepragmatics and have implications for assumptions about children's theory of mind.

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A discourse-pragmatic analysis of subject omission in child English

30th Annual Boston University Conference on …, 2006

Young children (approximately 1;6 to 4;0 years) acquiring a first language often omit arguments (... more

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The effect of individual discourse-pragmatic features on referential choice in child English

Journal of Pragmatics, 2013

Previous research has shown that children attend to discourse-pragmatics (e.g. newness, joint att... more Previous research has shown that children attend to discourse-pragmatics (e.g. newness, joint attention) when they produce referential forms in both languages that permit subject omission and those that do not. However, studies in languages that do not permit subject omission have been limited to only one or two discourse-pragmatic features, bilingual participants, and/or data taken from transcripts rather than videotapes. In the present study, we extend this work by investigating how English-speaking children attend to six discourse-pragmatic features, using videotaped data so that context for all features can be accurately assessed. We find that children as young as 2;0 are sensitive to these discourse-pragmatic features in selecting each of four referential forms: omitted subject, pronominal, demonstrative, and lexical noun phrase. PRIOR MENTION, PHYSICAL PRESENCE, and JOINT ATTENTION emerge as the most salient individual features, and children are sensitive to the features in combination.

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The role of cognitive accessibility in children’s referential choice

The Acquisition of Reference, 2015

1. Introduction: An overview of the acquisition of reference (by Serratrice, Ludovica) 2. The acq... more 1. Introduction: An overview of the acquisition of reference (by Serratrice, Ludovica) 2. The acquisition of nominal determiners: Evidence from cross-linguistic approaches (by Bassano, Dominique) 3. Mapping information structure and word order: The acquisition of object placement (by Bentzen, Kristine) 4. Children' use of intonation in reference and the role of input (by Chen, Aoju) 5. The role of gesture in referential communication: A developmental perspective (by Ng, Melvin Mai-Rong) 6. The role of cognitive accessibility in children's referential choice (by Allen, Shanley E.M.) 7. Acquisition and use of pronouns in a dialogic perspective (by Salazar Orvig, Anne) 8. From early to late mastery of reference: Multifunctionality and linguistic diversity (by Hickmann, Maya) 9. Online evidence for children's interpretation of personal pronouns (by Sekerina, Irina A.) 10. Children's sensitivity to caregiver cues and the role of adult feedback in the developmentof referential communication (by Ates Sen, Beyza) 11. The cognitive underpinnings of referential abilities (by De Cat, Cecile) 12. Production and comprehension of pronouns and reflexives in atypical populations (by Chondrogianni, Vicky) 13. Referential expressions in bilingual acquisition (by Serratrice, Ludovica) 14. Language index 15. Subject index