Children’s Computation of Scalar Implicatures Induced by Universal Quantifiers in Negative Sentences

This paper is concerned with children’s computation of scalar implicatures (SIs) induced byuniversal quantifiers in negative sentences. Based on the results of an experiment, Terunuma(2008) has claimed that Japanese-speaking children assign non-adultlike interpretation tonegative sentences containing a universal quantifier marked by the contrastive topic particlewa ‘CTop’ because they fail to compute SIs induced by universal quantifiers. Terunuma’s(2008) SI-based account, together with Chierchia et al.’s (2001) claim on the acquisition ofSIs, predicts that Japanese-speaking children would assign adult-like interpretation to thesentences in question when the processing load of computing SIs is small enough. Presentingthe results of a new experiment that investigates whether this prediction is borne out, thispaper shows that Terunuma’s (2008) SI-based account (and Chierchia et al.’s (2001) claim)can be maintained because 4- or 5-year-old children’s responses in the experiment do notcontradict Terunuma’s (2008) account