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

Counterfactuals and Undefinedness: Homogeneity vs. Supervaluations

Theories of counterfactuals agree on appealing to a relation of comparative similarity, but disagree on the quantificational force of counterfactuals. We report on two experiments testing the predictions of three main approaches: universal theories, homogeneity theories, and single-world selection theories (plus supervaluations over selection functions). The critical cases in our experiment were constructed so as to discriminate between the three theories. Our results provide empirical support for the selectional theories, while challenging the other two approaches

On the force of V2 declaratives

This paper discusses a variant of German V2 declaratives sharing properties with both subordinate relative clauses and main clauses. I argue that modal subordination failure helps decide between two rivaling accounts for this construction. Thus, a hypotactic analysis involving syntactic variable sharing must be preferred over parataxis plus anaphora resolution. The scopal behavior of the construction will be derived from its 'proto-assertional force,' which it shares with similar 'embedded root' constructions

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

Polarity sensitivity of question embedding: experimental evidence

Attitude predicates can be classified by the kinds of complements they can embed: declaratives, interrogatives or both. However, several authors have claimed that predicates like be certain can only embed interrogatives in specific environments. According to Mayr, these are exactly the environments that license negative polarity items (NPIs). In his analysis, both NPIs and embedded interrogatives are licensed by the same semantic strengthening procedure. If this is right, one would expect a correlation between acceptability of be certain whether and NPIs. The analysis also predicts a contrast between antecedents vs. consequents of conditionals and restrictors vs. scopes of universal quantifiers. This paper tests these predictions experimentally through an acceptability judgment task. We find that judgments for be certain whether do not correlate with judgments on NPIs, which suggests that be certain whether and NPIs are in fact licensed by different mechanisms

Universal force from exhaustification: Farsi hame -i DPs

Polarity items have been analyzed as existential DPs that introduce into the semantic derivation two types of alternatives: domain alternatives (corresponding to possible restrictions of the domain of quantification) and scalar alternatives  (corresponding to stronger quantificational forces.) This approach has led to the development of a typology of polarity items that is based on the types of alternatives that these items introduce (Chierchia 2013). What are the possible dimensions of variation? Bar-Lev & Margulis (2014) argue that the Hebrew determiner kol introduces domain, but not scalar alternatives. This paper shows that a class of Farsi DPs, which we call ‘hame -i DPs’, do too

Expressivism, Inferentialism and the Theory of Meaning

One’s account of the meaning of ethical sentences should fit – roughly, as part to whole – with one’s account of the meaning of sentences in general. When we ask, though, where one widely discussed account of the meaning of ethical sentences fits with more general accounts of meaning, the answer is frustratingly unclear. The account I have in mind is the sort of metaethical expressivism inspired by Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare, and defended and worked out in more detail recently by Blackburn, Gibbard, and others. So, my first aim (§1) in this paper is to pose this question about expressivism’s commitments in the theory of meaning and to characterize the answer I think is most natural, given the place expressivist accounts attempt to occupy metaethics. This involves appeal to an ideationalist account of meaning. Unfortunately for the expressivist, however, this answer generates a problem; it’s my second aim (§2) to articulate this problem. Then, my third aim (§3) is to argue that this problem doesn’t extend to the sort of account of the meaning of ethical claims that I favor, which is like expressivism in rejecting a representationalist order of semantic explanation but unlike expressivism in basing an alternative order of semantic explanation on inferential role rather than expressive function

Neutralizing Free Choice Items via Maximal Domain Restriction: Farsi -i Indefinites

This paper identifies two types of free choice items (FCIs) in Farsi: yek-i DPs and har -i DPs. Their distribution and interpretation pose a puzzle: yek -i DPs pattern with other existential FCIs, and har -i DPs with other universal FCIs, but both items lose their prototypical FCI behavior when they combine with the accusative marker -ro. The paper shows that the loss of FCI behavior follows from an alternative-based analysis of FCIs (Chierchia 2013) under some assumptions about the semantic effect of -ro. The analysis parallels the explanation for the loss of FCI status of Spanish algunos presented in Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito 2011 in that it also relies on the derivation of alternatives that are equivalent to the assertion, hence not excludable