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Linguist and Philos (2012) 35:135169
DOI 10.1007/s10988-012-9114-0
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Chris Cummins Uli Sauerland Stephanie Solt
Published online: 18 July 2012 The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract It has been generally assumed that certain categories of numerical expressions, such as more than n, at least n, and fewer than n, systematically fail to give rise to scalar implicatures in unembedded declarative contexts. Various proposals have been developed to explain this perceived absence. In this paper, we consider the relevance of scale granularity to scalar implicature, and make two novel predictions: rst, that scalar implicatures are in fact available from these numerical expressions at the appropriate granularity level, and second, that these implicatures are attenuated if the numeral has been previously mentioned or is otherwise salient in the context. We present novel experimental data in support of both of these predictions, and discuss the implications of this for recent accounts of numerical quantier usage.
Keywords Granularity Implicature Quantiers Constraints Pragmatics Numerals Salience Relevance
1 Introduction
Modied numerals such as more than nine or at least ten typically seem to convey the impression that the speakers knowledge about the topic under
C. Cummins (&)
SFB 673, Alignment in Communication, Universitat Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
U. Sauerland S. Solt
Zentrum fr Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany
S. Solt
Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Granularity and scalar implicature in numerical expressions
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discussion is imprecise. By contrast, unmodied numerals such as ten convey precise knowledge. However, on closer inspection, this distinction is not as clear-cut as might be supposed: in particular, modied numerals appear to convey more information than their semantic analyses would suggest. This paper aims to characterise the meaning of these expressions more rigorously, and account for it in terms of semantic and pragmatic theory.
The standard account of unmodied and modied numeral meaning claims that unmodied numerals have an upper bound to their interpretation, while modied numerals such as more than n do not. So, while ten would establish that the cardinality in question is not greater than 10, more than nine and at least ten would not establish such an upper bound on the cardinality...