Some knowledge children dont lack

Experimental studies on children's understanding of indefinite NPs and negation report a systematic non-adult interpretation of sentences like The detective didn't find some guys (see Musolino 1998). In this article, we question whether these findings require a grammatical explanation. We draw upon the observation that negative statements are generally used to point out discrepancies between the facts and the listener's expectations, and that this felicity condition was not satisfied in previous studies. The findings of a truth value judgment task show that children's interpretation of indefinites in negative sentences is adultlike, when the felicity conditions associated with negative statements are satisfied.