* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
LINGUIST List logo Eastern Michigan University Wayne State University *
* People & Organizations * Jobs * Calls & Conferences * Publications * Language Resources * Text & Computer Tools * Teaching & Learning * Mailing Lists * Search *
* *
LINGUIST List 16.2284

Thu Jul 28 2005

Sum: Cancelling Implicatures

Editor for this issue: Jessica Boynton <jessicalinguistlist.org>

To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html.
Directory
        1.    Emma Borg, Cancelling Implicatures
Message 1: Cancelling Implicatures
Date: 28-Jul-2005
From: Emma Borg <e.g.n.borgrdg.ac.uk>
Subject: Cancelling Implicatures


Regarding query: http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2044.html#2

Thanks to all who responded so quickly to my query for key texts on the
topic of cancelling Gricean implicatures in downward entailing contexts. I
haven't had time to look at everything yet, but here are the main results.

Napoleon Katsos suggested that the idea goes back to work by Ducrot and
Fauconnier, e.g.:

Fauconnier, Gilles: 1975, 'Pragmatic scales and logical structure',
Linguistic Inquiry 6, 353-375.

and to Larry Horn's PhD thesis:

Horn, Laurence: 1972, 'On the Semantic Properties of Logical Operators in
English', UCLA dissertation, distributed by Indiana University Linguistics
Club, 1976.

The issue is also discussed in:

Horn, Laurence: 1989, A Natural History of Negation. University of Chicago
Press, Chicago.

Martina Faller traced the suggestion that implictures are not cancelled in
DE contexts, but rather that the relevant scale is reversed, to three sources:

Gazdar, Gerald: 1979, Pragmatics, Academic Press, New York.

Atlas, Jay & Levinson, Stephen: 1981, ''It-Clefts, Informativeness and
Logical Form: an introduction to radically radical pragmatics'' in P. Cole
(ed.), RADICAL PRAGMATICS

Levinson, Stephen C.: 2000, Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of
Generalized Conversational Implicature, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Several respondents (Napoleon Katsos, Judith Pijnacker, Elissavet Koutoupi)
pointed me to recent work by Chierchia, where the parallel between npi
licensing and implicature suspension is explicitly drawn. For instance:

Chierchia, Gennaro: 2004, 'Scalar implicatures, polarity phenomena, and the
syntax/pragmatics interface.' In A. Belletti (ed.), Structures and Beyond.
Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Chierchia, Gennaro, Stephen Crain, Maria Teresa Guasti, Andrea Gualmini and
Luisa Meroni: 2001, 'The acquisition of disjunction: Evidence for a
grammatical view of scalar implicatures, BUCLD 25 Proceedings, 157-168,
Cascadilla, Somerville.

Larry Horn very helpfully sent me his forthcoming paper 'Border Wars'
(available on his web site) which gives a great summary of the issues here
and presents some worries for Chierchia's position.

Finally, Napoleon Katsos also pointed me to his own work on this topic
(from the field of experimental pragmatics), including:

'Interaction of Structural and Contextual Constraints During the On-line
Generation of Scalar Inferences', Proceedings of the Annual Cognitive
Science Meeting for 2005.

Elissavet Koutoupi pointed me to A. Gualmini's 'The unbearable lightness of
scalar implicatures' (http://web.mit.edu/gualmini/www/)

Sascha Michel pointed me to ''Implikaturen. Grammatische und pragmatische
Analysen'' edited by Frank Liedtke (1995) Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Thanks again to all.

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics

Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue



Please report any bad links or misclassified data

LINGUIST Homepage | Read LINGUIST | Contact us

NSF Logo

While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed
on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.