The neural computation of scalar implicature

The neural computation of scalar implicature

Language comprehension involves not only constructing the literal meaning of a sentence but also going beyond the literal meaning to infer what was meant but not said. One widely-studied test case is scalar implicature: The inference that, e.g., Sally ate some of the cookies implies she did not eat all of them. Research is mixed on whether this is due to a rote, grammaticalized procedure or ins...

Scalar Implicature

Informativeness, Relevance and Scalar Implicature

1. Introduction The main topic of this paper is the phenomenon of scalar implicature. Typical examples are given in (1)-(4): (1) a. Bill has got some of Chomsky's papers. b. The speaker believes that Bill hasn't got all of Chomsky's papers. (2) a. There will be five of us for dinner tonight. b. There won't be more than five of us for dinner tonight. (3) a. X: I like Mary. She's intelligent and ...

Scalar Implicature and Local Pragmatics

The Gricean theory of conversational implicature has always been plagued by data suggesting that what would seem to be conversational inferences may occur within the scope of operators like believe, for example; which for bona fide implicatures should be an impossibility. Concentrating my attention on scalar implicatures, I argue that, for the most part, such observations can be accounted for w...

Determining the alternatives for scalar implicature

Successful communication regularly requires listeners to make pragmatic inferences — enrichments beyond the literal meaning of a speaker’s utterance. For example, when interpreting a sentence such as “Alice ate some of the cookies,” listeners routinely infer that Alice did not eat all of them. A Gricean account of this phenomenon assumes the presence of alternatives (like “all of the cookies”) ...