10: Scalar Implicatures: Exhaustivity and Gricean Reasoning

By Benjamin Spector. 2007

108 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Chierchia (2002) presents a solution based on a recursive interpretation function which computes 'strengthened meanings' in tandem with the interpretation function that computes 'literal meanings. This chapter shows that both scalar implicatures and exhaustification of answers can be understood as the outcome of a pragmatic reasoning that is based on the Gricean maxims. It offers a precise formalization of the Gricean reasoning and shows that it is possible to predict the facts reviewed above by defining carefully what counts as an 'alternative answer' for a given answer to a certain question under discussion. The alternative set of any positive proposition is defined as the set of all positive propositions. The positive answers are predicted to be interpreted as exhaustive. The negative answers are not exhaustified, but nevertheless trigger some implieatures. The chapter concludes that that the facts regarding exhaustification can be directly derived from the Gricean reasoning. Keywords: Gricean reasoning; positive propositions; scalar implicatures

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Language and Linguistics, Philosophy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b82c6168ca5393c6c4e5660b430e3fc3c81fd198

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. Roni Katzir
2. Emmanuel Chemla
3. Benjamin Spector

In Language and Linguistics

1. Roni Katzir
2. Emmanuel Chemla
3. Benjamin Spector
4. Danny Fox
5. Jacopo Romoli
6. Florian Schwarz

In Philosophy

1. Roni Katzir
2. Emmanuel Chemla
3. Benjamin Spector
4. Danny Fox
5. Jacopo Romoli
6. Florian Schwarz

Citations in the corpus

• Children interpret disjunction as conjunction: Consequences for theories of implicature and child development (2016, unknown): “…there are arguments quite similar to the one we propose here that some apparently universal readings follow from strengthening of an existential (Spector 2007, Levin and Margulis 2013, Magri 2014). us make sense of evidence we present that there is a tendency for children to disambiguate in…”
• Global positive polarity items and obligatory exhaustivity (2014, background): “…(Chierchia, Fox & Spector 2012) which assume that exhaustification does not necessarily apply to full speech acts, but can apply to subsconstituents of sentences, and certain versions of globalist, neo-Gricean theories (such as Spector 2003, 2007, van Rooij & Schulz 2004, Schulz & van Rooij 2006).”
• Structurally-defined alternatives (2007, methodology): “This is the traditional (neo-)Gricean approach (see Horn 1972; Gazdar 1979; Atlas and Levinson 1981; as well as Sauerland 2004; Russell 2006; Spector 2007; Geurts 2007 for a recent defense of the global approach).”
• Universal Implicatures and Free Choice Effects: Experimental Data (2009, background): “Second, the predictions from a globalist or a localist application of O collapse for the negative universal version (15b) because there is no embedded scope site Spector (2007a) for a discussion of this type of iterative process in a neo-Gricean framework.”