Picking up after sloppy children: What pronouns reveal about children’s analysis of English comparative constructions

We present the results of an experiment that reveals that while children are capable of assigning an interpretation to basic comparatives without coreferential pronouns in the elided material, they diverge from adults precisely in the assignment of reference to a pronoun appearing in the standard. This study therefore sheds new light on the components of children's linguistic representations and their developing interpretation of comparatives. We close by discussing possible account for this set of results appealing to binding principles and the representation of the elided pronoun