Everything is not equal in adult and child Dutch

Abstract

An investigation into the production of universal quantifiers with negation in the CHILDES database of Dutch shows several scopal properties that have not been discussed before. First, it shows a crucial distinction between child and adult Dutch. A universal quantifier with scope over negation has an isomorphic interpretation in adult Dutch, but an inverse scope interpretation in child Dutch. This raises the question why children do not adopt the surface scope interpretation. Second, it indicates a possible answer to the puzzle why languages often avoid a universal quantifier under the scope of negation. I will discuss the idea that the explanation may lie in the type of reading of a quantifier, collective/distributive and specific/non-specific. It might also explain why no language has a lexicalized negated universal pronoun *neverything.