%0 Journal Article %A Bogaerds-Hazenberg, Suzanne T.M. %A Hendriks, Petra %T Complex language, complex thought?: The relation between children’s production of double embeddings and Theory of Mind %D 2016 %J Linguistics in the Netherlands %V 33 %N 1 %P 28-40 %@ 0929-7332 %R https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.33.03bog %K Theory of Mind %K sentence embedding %K Language acquisition %K false-belief task %I John Benjamins %X It has been argued (e.g., by De Villiers and colleagues) that the acquisition of sentence embedding is necessary for the development of first-order Theory of Mind (ToM): the ability to attribute beliefs to others. This raises the question whether the acquisition of double embedded sentences is related to, and perhaps even necessary for, the development of second-order ToM: the ability to attribute beliefs about beliefs to others. This study tested 55 children (aged 7-10) on their ToM understanding in a false-belief task and on their elicited production of sentence embeddings. We found that second-order ToM passers produced mainly double embeddings, whereas first-order ToM passers produced mainly single embeddings. Furthermore, a better performance on second-order ToM predicted a higher rate of double embeddings and a lower rate of single embeddings in the production task. We conclude that children’s ability to produce double embeddings is related to their development of second-order ToM. %U https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/avt.33.03bog