Bassano D, Champaud C
J Child Lang. 1989 Oct;16(3):643-64. doi: 10.1017/s0305000900010771.
This study examines how children understand the argumentative function of the French connective même ('even'). Two completion tasks, related to the argumentative properties of the morpheme, were used: (1) to infer the conclusion of an 'even' sentence, and (2) to infer the argument position. Two main factors likely to influence the comprehension were investigated: the semantic context, and the syntactic form--affirmative vs negative. The argumentative function of même was globally mastered at the age of eight, but comprehension depends on semantic context. Performances were better for negative sentences, which suggests that negation plays a facilitating role; the specific properties of the negative expression pas même/même pas ('not even') in discourse are discussed.
本研究考察儿童如何理解法语连接词même（意为“甚至”）的论证功能。使用了两项与该语素论证属性相关的补全任务：（1）推断“even”句子的结论，以及（2）推断论证位置。研究了两个可能影响理解的主要因素：语义语境和句法形式——肯定与否定。même的论证功能在八岁时总体上已被掌握，但理解取决于语义语境。否定句的表现更好，这表明否定起到了促进作用；文中讨论了话语中否定表达pas même/même pas（“甚至不”）的具体属性。
