ABSTRACT
The last two chapters described various studies showing children’s adult-like knowledge of polarity phenomena. Our discussion began with some findings from previous research, reviewed in Chapter 2. The discussion has so far ignored other findings, however. In particular, we have not followed up on Musolino’s discovery concerning children’s non-adult interpretation of the positive polarity item some. As the reader may recall, Musolino (1998) found that English-speaking children, unlike adults, tend to interpret object noun phrases containing some within the scope of negation. This discovery is surprising, in light of our investigations of children’s knowledge of downward entailment. Focusing on the interpretation of indefinites, the experimental evidence leads to an impasse. Children’s comprehension and production of the negative polarity item any appears to conform to the target grammar from the earliest stages of language development. However, the same does not hold for children’s production and understanding of some, the positive counterpart of any. This chapter returns to this piece of the puzzle.
