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Description: When acquiring language, children must not only learn the meanings of words, but also how to interpret them in context. For example, children must learn both the logical semantics of the scalar quantifier some and its pragmatically enriched meaning: ‘some but not all’. Some studies have shown that this “scalar implicature” that some implies ‘some but not all’ poses a challenge even to nine-year-olds, while others find success by age three. We asked whether reports of children’s early successes might be due to the computation of exclusion inferences (like contrast or mutual exclusivity) rather than an ability to compute scalar implicatures. We found that young children (N=214; ages 4;0-7;11) sometimes prefer to compute symmetrical exclusion inferences rather than asymmetric scalar inferences when interpreting quantifiers. This suggests that some apparent successes in computing scalar implicature can actually be explained by less sophisticated exclusion inferences.