The Role of Iconicity and Givenness in the Acquisition of Mandarin Before- and After-Sentences.

The acquisition of temporal clauses involves complex relationships between linguistic structure and cognitive development. This study examines the roles of iconicity and information structure (givenness) in Mandarin-speaking children's comprehension of before- and after-sentences. Using a forced-choice picture-selection task and an act-out task, we tested 45 children aged 3-5 years and 15 adults. The results revealed a robust advantage for iconic structure across both experiments. Children consistently showed better comprehension of iconic after-sentences than non-iconic before-sentences, a pattern that challenges accounts based solely on semantic complexity. Evidence for the role of givenness was more limited. Although young children benefited from given-before-new ordering in some iconic conditions, the overall mixed-effects analyses did not reveal a significant Iconicity × Givenness interaction. The facilitative effect of givenness was most evident among the youngest children, suggesting that discourse-pragmatic cues may provide additional support under favorable processing conditions. We conclude that iconicity plays a central role in Mandarin-speaking children's comprehension of temporal clauses, whereas the contribution of givenness appears more modest and developmentally constrained. These findings underscore the role of structural iconicity in the acquisition of Mandarin temporal clauses while suggesting a more limited role for discourse-pragmatic factors.