Adjectival polarity and the processing of scalar inferences

In a seminal study, Bott & Noveck (2004) found that the computation of scalar inference ‘some’ implying ‘not all’ was associated with increased sentence verification times, suggesting processing cost. Recently, van Tiel and colleagues (2019b) hypothesised presence this cost critically depends on polarity word. We comprehensively evaluated hypothesis basis sentence-picture task in which we tested 16 types adjectival inferences. develop quantitative measure combines insights from linguistics psychology. line hypothesis, our reliably predicted or absence (i.e., an increase times). conclude alleged for inferencing tasks is not due to process drawing inference, but rather cognitive difficulty verifying negative information.