How do 3-year-olds use relevance inferencing to interpret indirect speech?

If a child asks friend to play football and the replies, ‘I have cough’, requesting must make ‘relevance inference’ determine communicative intent. Relevance inferencing is key component of pragmatics, that is, ability integrate social context into language interpretation use. We tested which cognitive skills relate relevance inferencing. In addition, we asked whether children’s lab-based pragmatic performance relates parent-assessed skills. 3.5- 4-year-old speakers British English (Study 1: N = 40, Study 2: 32). Children were presented with video-recorded vignettes ending an utterance requiring inference, for children made forced choice. 1 measured Theory Mind, their sentence comprehension real-world knowledge found only retained significance in regression analysis as outcome variable. 2 then manipulated world-knowledge through priming but this did not improve on task. did, however, reveal significant correlation between measure morpho-syntactic production. both studies parents rated usage daily life, was our This set first empirically demonstrate measures are reflective abilities ‘in wild’. There no clear association Mind. mixed evidence role formal language, should be further investigated. Finally, indeed associated future experimental work required test causal relations.