This paper presents experimental results showing that 4-and 5-year-old children are capable of drawing free choice inferences from disjunctive statements and from statements containing free choice indefinites, despite not being able to compute inferences of exclusivity for disjunctive statements, or other scalar implicatures. The findings appear to challenge accounts that attempt to unify the two kinds of inferences (
When interpreting disjunctive sentences of the form 'A or B,' young children have been reported to differ from adults in two ways. First, children have been reported to interpret disjunction inclusively rather than exclusively, accepting 'A or B' in contexts in which both A and B are true (Gualmini, Crain, Meroni, Chierchia & Guasti 2001; Chierchia, Crain, Guasti & Thornton 2001). Second, some children have been reported to interpret disjunction conjunctively, rejecting 'A or B' in contexts in which only one of the disjuncts is true (
<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>This paper provides novel experimental evidence for a scalar implicature approach to the plurality inferences that are associated with English plural morphology (</span><span>Emily fed giraffes </span><span>-> </span><span>Emily fed more than one giraffe</span><span>). Using a Truth Value Judgment Task, we show that both adults and 4–5-year-old children compute more plurality inferences in upward-entailing than downward-entailing environments, but children compute fewer plurality inferences overall than adults do. These findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating children’s relative insensitivity to scalar implicatures. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of plurality inferences, and for the acquisition of scalar inferences more generally. </span></p></div></div></div>
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