The effect of negative polarity items on inference verification

The scalar approach to negative polarity item (NPI) licensing assumes that NPIs are allowable in contexts in which the introduction of the NPI leads to proposition strengthening (e.g., Kadmon & Landman 1993, Krifka 1995, Lahiri 1997, Chierchia 2006). A straightforward processing prediction from such a theory is that NPI’s facilitate inference verification from sets to subsets. Three experiments are reported that test this proposal. In each experiment, participants evaluated whether inferences from sets to subsets were valid. Crucially, we manipulated whether the premises contained an NPI. In Experiment 1, participants completed a metalinguistic reasoning task, and Experiments 2 and 3 tested reading times using a self-paced reading task. Contrary to expectations, no facilitation was observed when the NPI was present in the premise compared to when it was absent. In fact, the NPI significantly slowed down reading times in the inference region. Our results therefore favor those scalar theories that predict that the NPI is costly to process (Chierchia 2006), or other, nonscalar theories (Giannakidou 1998, Ladusaw 1992, Postal 2005, Szabolcsi 2004) that likewise predict NPI processing cost but, unlike Chierchia (2006), expect the magnitude of the processing cost to vary with the actual pragmatics of the NPI

Implicatures and Discourse Structure

International audienceOne of the characteristic marks of Gricean implicatures in general, and scalar implicatures in particular, examples of which are given in (1), is that they are the result of a defeasible inference. (1a) John had some of the cookies (1b)John had some of the cookies. In fact he had them all. (1a) invites the inference that John didn't have all the cookies,an inference that can be defeated by additional information, as in (1b). Scalar inferences like that in (1a) thus depend upon some sort of nonmonotonic reasoning over semantic contents. They share this characteristic of defeasiblility with inferences that result in the presence of discourse relations that link discourse segments together into a discourse structure for a coherent text or dialogue---call these inferences discourse or D inferences. I have studied these inferences about discourse structure, their effects on content and how they are computed in the theory known as Segmented Discourse Representation Theory or SDRT. In this paper I investigate how the tools used to infer discourse relations apply to what Griceans and others call scalar or quantity implicatures. The benefits of this investigation are three fold: at the theoretical level, we have a unified and relatively simple framework for computing defeasible inferences both of the quantity and discourse structure varieties; further, we can capture what ' s right about the intuitions of so called "localist" views about scalar implicatures; finally, this framework permits us to investigate how D-inferences and scalar inferences might interact, in particular how discourse structure might trigger scalar inferences, thus explaining the variability(Chemla, 2008) or even non-existence of embedded implicatures noted recently (e.g., Geurts and Pouscoulous, 2009), and their occasional noncancellability. The view of scalar inferences that emerges from this study is also rather different from the way both localists and Neo- Griceans conceive of them. Both localists and Neo-Griceans view implicatures as emerging from pragmatic reasoning processes that are strictly separated from the calculation of semantic values; where they differ is at what level the pragmatic implicatures are calculated. Localists take them to be calculated in parallel with semantic composition, whereas Neo-Griceans take them to have as input the complete semantic content of the assertion. My view is that scalar inferences depend on discourse structure and large view of semantic content in which semantics and pragmatics interact in a complex way to produce an interpretation of an utterance or a discourse

Scalar implicatures with discourse referents: a case study on plurality inferences

This paper explores the idea that scalar implicatures are computed with respect to discourse referents. Given the general consensus that a proper account of pronominal anaphora in natural language requires discourse referents separately from the truth-conditional meaning, it is naturally expected that the anaphoric information that discourse referents carry play a role in the computation of scalar implicatures, but the literature has so far mostly exclusively focused on the truth-conditional dimension of meaning. This paper offers a formal theory of scalar implicatures with discourse referents couched in dynamic semantics, and demonstrates its usefulness through a case study on the plurality inferences of plural nouns in English

Scalar Implicature: Gricean Reasoning and Local Enrichment

This thesis investigates the cognitive underpinnings of Scalar Implicature phenomenon. Here I present a series of experiments in three domains of research for scalars: (i) scalar diversity phenomenon, (ii) implicature priming and (iii) the time course of access to pragmatic enrichments. I adopt a broadly Gricean theoretical approach with local pragmatic enrichment to the design of the studies and argue that this approach can shed light on the phenomena. The results of the experiments also lend support to the theoretical perspective taken. This thesis introduces a new perspective to interpret scalar diversity phenomenon. Given the observation that different scalar terms give rise to unembedded scalar implicatures at different rates, experiments presented in Chapter 2 and 3 suggest that one source of scalar diversity is the strength of association between a scalar term and its upper-bounding local enrichment. It provides indirect evidence that local enrichment impacts on the interpretation of unembedded scalars. More direct evidence of an effect of local enrichment in unembedded scalars is found in implicature priming. Experiments presented in Chapter 4 find unembedded and embedded scalar enrichments could prime each other, indicating local pragmatic enrichment as a shared mechanism involved in both. In addition, this thesis presents research on the time course of access to local pragmatic enrichment of 'some', which reveals no delay in pragmatic enrichment vis a vis semantic interpretation. Overall, this thesis argues for an integrated Gricean system that allows for scalar phenomena to be explained by two mechanisms, a global inference mechanism and a local enrichment mechanism

Psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic investigations of scalar implicature

The present study examines the representation and composition of meaning in scalar implicatures. Scalar implicature is the phenomenon whereby the use of a less informative term (e.g., some) is inferred to mean the negation of a more informative term (e.g., to mean not all). The experiments reported here investigate how the processing of the implicature-based aspect of meaning (e.g., the interpretation of some as meaning not all) differs from other types of meaning processing, and how that aspect of meaning is initially realized. The first three experiments measure event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine whether inferential pragmatic aspects of meaning are processed using different mechanisms than lexical or combinatorial semantic aspects of meaning, and whether inferential aspects of meaning can be realized rapidly. Participants read infelicitous quantifiers for which the semantic meaning (at least one of) was correct with respect to the context but the pragmatic meaning (not all of) was not, compared to quantifiers for which the semantic meaning was inconsistent with the context and no additional pragmatic meaning is available. Across experiments, quantifiers that were pragmatically inconsistent but not semantically inconsistent with the context elicited a broadly distributed, sustained negative component. This sustained negativity contrasts with the N400 effect typically elicited by nouns that are incongruent with their context, suggesting that the recognition of scalar implicature errors elicits a qualitatively different ERP signature than the recognition of lexico-semantic errors. The effect was also distinct from the ERP response elicited by quantifiers that were semantically inconsistent with a context. The sustained negativity may reflect cancellation of the pragmatic inference and retrieval of the semantic meaning. This process was also found to be independent from lexico-semantic processing: the N400 elicited by lexico-semantic violations was not modulated by the presence of a pragmatic inconsistency. These findings suggest there is a dissociation between the mechanisms for processing combinatorial semantic meaning and those for inference-based pragmatic meaning, that inferential pragmatic meaning can be realized rapidly, and that the computation of meaning involves continuous negotiation between different aspects of meaning. The next set of experiments examined how scalar implicature-based meanings are realized initially. Default processing accounts assume that the interpretation of some of as meaning not all of is realized easily and automatically (regardless of context), whereas context-driven processing accounts assume that it is realized effortfully and only in certain contexts. In two experiments, participants' self-paced reading times were recorded as they read vignettes in which the context did or did not bias the participants to make a scalar inference (to interpret some of as meaning not all of). The reading times in the first experiment suggested that the realization of the inference was influenced by the context: reading times to a target word later in the vignette were facilitated in contexts in which the scalar inference should be realized but not in contexts where it should not be realized. Importantly, however, reading times did not provide evidence for processing cost at the time the inference is realized, contrary to the predictions of context-driven processing accounts. The results raise the question of why inferencing occurs only in certain contexts if it does not involve extra processing effort. In the subsequent experiment, reading times suggested that the inference may not have been realized when participants engaged in a secondary task that increased processing load. These results, together with the results of other recent experiments, suggest that inferencing may be effortless in certain contexts but effortful with other contexts, and not computed at all in still other contexts, depending on the strength of the bias created by the context. These findings may all be accountable for under a recently-proposed constraint-based processing model of scalar implicature

Scope, scalarity, and polarity in aspectual marking : the case of English 'until' and Spanish 'hasta'

This dissertation explores how languages express durations of time and the significant cross-linguistic variation displayed in words describing temporal duration with otherwise quite similar meanings. Specially, I examine 'until'-like phrases that bound events in time. These phrases are puzzling because across languages they typically only modify atelic predicates and not telic predicates. Yet they are acceptable with telic predicates if the predicate is negated, and in that case they furthermore generate a factive inference that the event described by the predicate must come about at a future time. Additionally, some languages, like Greek, use two distinct lexical words, one for atelic predicates and one for telic predicates. Three major prior proposals have been posited: (i) a lexical ambiguity account wherein there is a positive 'until' and a negative 'until', (ii) a monosemy account wherein 'until' is a type of universal quantifier over times that interacts scopally with negation, and (iii) a monosemy account wherein 'until' is a type of measure phrase over an existentially-quantified event. However, each approach fails to generalize appropriately. I revisit these three theories by examining the behavior of English "until"-phrases vis-à-vis durative "for"-adverbials, as well as 'until' counterparts in languages that acquire a superset or a subset of the interpretations of English "until", such as Spanish "hasta" and Greek "mehri". I propose a monosemy account that draws on insights from all three prior analyses. The key insight is that there is parameterization in the quantification that 'until' words in different languages exhibit. English "until" is universal in nature subject to a scope economy constraint. Spanish "hasta" is existential in nature subject to a plurality constraint in positive environments. Both universal and existential 'until' allow for negated telic predicates but the latter admits a wider set of readings and also permits lexical specialization of 'until' under negation, as found in Greek. Ultimately, irrespective of their quantification, English "until" and Spanish "hasta" activate temporal scalar alternatives that I argue derive factive inferences as an epiphenomenon of independent scopal interactions between the alternatives, polarity, and covert exhaustification-based operators of the inferential mechanism.Linguistic