Experimental Investigations into how Children and Adults Process the Implicature Associated with the Scalar Term Some

A scalar implicature is the use of a weak term from a scale to implicate that a stronger term in the scale is not the intended meaning. For example, some is often interpreted as meaning some but not all, whereas logically its meaning is at least one. It is only in recent years that scalar implicature has progressed from its role as an explanation for poor reasoning performance in adults to its current status as the subject of experimental investigation. As a result, relatively little is known about scalar implicature and the literature contains seemingly contradictory findings and untested assumptions. The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate the quantifier some in order to clarify and extend our existing knowledge of the scalar implicature associated with the term. In Chapter 1 the literature is reviewed and three research questions are identified in relation to the implicature: What is the developmental trajectory of sensitivity to the implicature? What contexts facilitate sensitivity to the implicature? And which contemporary theory best captures the processing of the scalar term? The experiments in Chapter 2 primarily examined how sensitivity to scalar implicature develops. The results revealed that contrary to assumptions in the literature, sensitivity does not develop linearly but in a U-shaped fashion. Consequently children can be more pragmatic than adults. In addition, sensitivity was seen in 3-year-old children, which is earlier than has previously been shown in the literature. Chapter 3 explored the role of context in facilitating sensitivity to scalar implicatures in children. It focused on Feeney, Scrafton, Duckworth and Handley’s (2004) claim that deception contexts help children to detect implicatures. The findings revealed that deception contexts can aid sensitivity but an important factor is the motivation behind the deception attempt. Thus, the highest rates of sensitivity to the implicature were observed in conditions where there was an obvious benefit to the speaker if her attempted deception was successful. Chapter 4 compared how some is processed by children and adults, and the experiments revealed that adults may be subject to processing difficulties that the children appear not to be. Sensitivity in adults was affected by a secondary task, their logical response times on infelicitous some trials were longer than on control trials and they appeared to experience difficulties in resolving response conflicts. Contrary to assumptions in the literature, a logical response in adults is not necessarily indicative of failure to detect an implicature but could represent either cancellation of the implicature or the detection of conflict between two possible interpretations. In all the experimental chapters, the findings are discussed in relation to theoretical accounts of scalar implicature, with the conclusion that no current theory in its present form fully captures the nature of the phenomenon. Overall, it is concluded that there are assumptions in the literature which appear to be incorrect and therefore future research must be mindful of using untested assumptions to interpret new results. In addition it is argued that theoretical explanations of scalar implicature need to be revised and should be used as a way of generating hypotheses rather than the tool by which results are interpreted. Some is interesting not only for what it can tell us about the interface between semantics and pragmatics but also for what it reveals about the relationship between inference and reasoning

Interview with Derek Scrafton

Don Dunstan Oral History Project interview transcripts. No conditions are imposed on the reuse of this transcript by the interviewee.Interview with Derek Scrafton conducted by Alan Hutchings on 24 September 2007. Derek was Director-General of Transport during Don Dunstan's government. In this interview, he discusses Don Dunstan's leadership style and transport

Coordinating vision and action in natural behaviour : differences in spatiotemporal coupling in everyday tasks

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Object Properties Influence Visual Guidance of Motor Actions

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Treatment of polymyalgia rheumatica: British Society for Rheumatology guideline scope

The last British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) guideline on PMR was published in 2009. The guideline needs to be updated to provide a summary of the current evidence for pharmacological and non-pharmacological management of adults with PMR. This guideline is aimed at healthcare professionals in the UK who directly care for people with PMR, including general practitioners, rheumatologists, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, psychologists and other health professionals. It will also be relevant to people living with PMR and organisations that support them in the public and third sector, including charities and informal patient support groups. This guideline will be developed using the methods and processes outlined in the BSR Guidelines Protocol. Here we provide a brief summary of the scope of the guideline update in development

Characterising the growth in palliative care prescribing 2011-2015: Analysis of national medical and non-medical activity

YesThe role of non-medical prescribers working in palliative care has been expanding in recent years and prescribers report improvements in patient care, patient safety, better use of health professionals’ skills and more flexible team working. Despite this, there is a lack of empirical evidence to demonstrate its clinical and economic impact, limiting our understanding of the future role of non-medical prescribers within a healthcare system serving an increasing number of people with palliative care needs. We developed a unique methodology to establish the level of non-medical prescribers’ activity in palliative care across England and consider the likely overall contribution these prescribers are making at a national level in this context in relation to medical prescribing. All prescriptions for 10 core palliative care drugs prescribed by general practitioners, nurses and pharmacists in England and dispensed in the community between April 2011 and April 2015 were extracted from the Prescribing Analysis Cost Tool system. The data were broken down by prescriber and basic descriptive analysis of prescription frequencies by opioid, non-opioids and total prescriptions by year were undertaken. To evaluate the yearly growth of non-medical prescribers, the total number of prescriptions was compared by year for each prescribing group. Non-medical prescribers issued prescriptions rose by 28% per year compared to 9% in those issued by medical prescribers. Despite this, the annual growth in non-medical prescribers prescriptions was less than 1% a year in relation to total community palliative care prescribing activity in England. Impact on medical prescribing is therefore minimal