Counterfactual Reasoning Development in Different Languages

Counterfactual reasoning is the ability to reason about how the world might have been if past events or states had been different. It is helpful for making sense of past experiences to create future blueprints. Languages like English apply subjunctive forms to directly mark counterfactual premises. In contrast, Chinese does not apply subjunctive forms and conveys counterfactuality by contextual and semantic cues. These differences in expressing counterfactual premises may influence how children interpret and reason from counterfactual premises, affecting their performance on counterfactual reasoning tasks. In this article, I review both studies of children speaking Chinese, which does not apply subjunctive forms, and studies of children speaking languages that do apply subjunctive forms (e.g., English). In doing so, I suggest how and why the development of counterfactual reasoning may differ across languages. I also make suggestions for studying cross-linguistic variations.