Plurality and Implicature, SOAS, University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 09/03/2015

http://www.soas.ac.uk/linguistics/
This Linguistics seminar titled "Plurality and Implicature, On the parallels and differences between `at least’ and `more than'" was given by Clemens Mayr (ZAS Berlin)(joint work with Marie-Christine Meyer) at SOAS, University of London on 2 December 2014.

More about this event: http://bit.ly/1EKXItk
In this talk we show that both `at least n/at most n’ and `more than n/fewer than n’ can show uncertainty inferences under the right contextual conditions. Given this observation, we conclude that uncertainty inferences for modified numerals should not be encoded in the lexical semantics of the modifiers. Rather, we suggest that they are to be derived by general and independently motivated pragmatic processes.

Our central claim is that a simple degree-based semantics for both superlative and comparative numeral modifiers can be maintained, once we adopt a precise and independently motivated mechanism for deriving alternatives. We show that from this both obligatory uncertainty implicatures, and the unavailability of scalar implicatures in unembedded contexts follow straightforwardly, given a well-defined division of labor between semantics and pragmatics. The observed differences between superlative and comparative modifiers is argued to stem from independent conditions on alternative pruning and focus structure. Furthermore, we show that the account extends to embedded occurrences of superlative modifiers, where the choice between scalar vs. uncertainty implicatures we observe in other scalar expressions re-appears in most cases. To account for all the data, we adopt both an obligatory exhaustification mechanism and a decompositional analysis of downward-monotonic modified numerals.