Mitrovic and Sauerland (2014, 2016) claim that across languages
DP-conjunction decomposes into [XP1 MU] [J [XP2 MU]]]. Languages vary wrt.
which of the J or MU-particles are pronounced. Our study focuses on
Georgian, a language that shows triadic exponence of J and MU. The aim of
this work is to test Mitrovic and Sauerland’s (2014, 2016) account by
investing the comprehension of conjunctive expressions by Georgian-speaking
chidren (28 children; 3;9-5;10, M = 4;9). Our results show that (i) J-MU
expressions are more difficult to comprehend than J expressions, (ii) J-MU
expressions are more difficult to comprehend than MU expressions. (i) and
(ii) go against the account by Mitrovic and Sauerland (2014, 2016) which
predicted the opposite pattern. In contrast, (i) is in line with accounts
in which the underlying representation of J expressions only involves a J-
particle, unlike the underlying representation of J-MU expressions which
involve both J and MU-particles (Szabolcsi 2015,Brasoveanu and Szabolcsi
2013, a.o.). (ii) constitutes to our knowledge a challenge for all existing
accounts of J-MU expressions (including Szabolcsi 2015, and Brasoveanu and
Szabolcsi 2013) which posit a silent J- particle in MU expressions. We
propose an alternative account of conjunctive expressions that captures our
results.