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Sentences containing the scalar term “some”, such as “The pig carried some of his rocks”, are usually interpreted as conveying the scalar inference that the pig did not carry all of his rocks. Previous research has reported that when interpreting such sentences, children tend to derive fewer of these scalar inferences than adults ; Papafragou & Musolino ; Guasti et al., among others). One approach to explaining these results contends that children have difficulties accessing the alternative sentences involved in the (...) |
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Breheny et al. argue against the structural approach to alternatives. The empirical force of their argument comes mostly from challenges raised against Trinh and Haida. This paper aims to respond to these challenges, showing how they can be met by a natural refinement of Trinh and Haida’s proposal which turns out to capture additional facts previously not accounted for. Another aim of this paper is to recount the debate with enough precision and explicitness in order to enhance understanding and facilitate (...) |
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In recent work, Fox has argued, on the basis of both empirical and conceptual considerations, that relevance is closed under speaker belief: if $\phi $ is relevant, then it’s also relevant whether the speaker believes $\phi $. We provide a formally explicit implementation of this idea and explore its theoretical consequences and empirical predictions. As Fox already observes, one consequence is that ignorance inferences can only be derived in grammar, via a covert belief operator of the sort proposed by Meyer. (...) |
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Disjunctions in the scope of possibility modals give rise to a conjunctive inference, generally referred to as ‘free choice.’ For example, Emma can take Spanish or Calculus suggests that Emma can take Spanish and can take Calculus. This inference is not valid on standard semantics for modals in combination with a Boolean semantics for disjunction. Hence free choice has sparked a whole industry of theories in philosophy of language and semantics. This paper investigates free choice in sentences involving a non-monotonic (...) |
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We investigate the interactions between scalar implicatures and presuppositions in sentences containing both a scalar item and presupposition trigger. We first critically discuss Gajewski and Sharvit’s previous approach. We then closely examine two ways of integrating an exhaustivity-based theory of scalar implicatures with a trivalent approach to presuppositions. The empirical side of our discussion focuses on two novel observations: the interactions between prosody and monotonicity, and what we call presupposed ignorance. In order to account for these observations, our final proposal (...) |
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We offer a solution to a puzzle in the number interpretation of nominals in Buriat. Buriat has a two-way number opposition in morphology, but semantically, both forms may be number neutral. We show that even though the number neutrality of unmarked nominals is heavily restricted, it does not boil down to incorporation. Our proposal is that unmarked nominals can be either singular or numberless. In case they are singular, they are semantically strictly atomic, but when there are numberless they are (...) |