This paper discusses a set of observations, many of which are novel, concerning differences between the adjectival modals _certain_ and _possible_ and their adverbial counterparts _certainly_ and _possibly_. It argues that the observations can be derived from a standard interpretation of _certain_/_certainly_ as universal and _possible_/_possibly_ as existential quantifiers over possible worlds, in conjunction with the hypothesis that the adjectives quantify over knowledge and the adverbs quantify over belief. The claims on which the argument relies include the following: (i) knowledge (...) implies belief, (ii) agents have epistemic access to their belief, (iii) relevance is closed under speakers’ belief, and (iv) commitment is pragmatically inconsistent with explicit denial of belief. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea that scalar implicatures are computed with respect todiscourse referents. Given the general consensus that a proper account of pronominal anaphora in natural language requires discourse referents separately from the truth-conditional meaning, it is naturally expected that the anaphoric information that discourse referents carry play a role in the computation of scalar implicatures, but the literature has so far mostly exclusively focused on the truth-conditional dimension of meaning. This paper offers a formal theory of scalar implicatures (...) with discourse referents couched in dynamic semantics, and demonstrates its usefulness through a case study on the plurality inferences of plural nouns in English. (shrink)

A disjunctive sentence like Olivia took Logic or Algebra conveys that Olivia didn’t take both classes and that the speaker doesn’t know which of the two classes she took. The corresponding sentence with a possibility modal, Olivia can take Logic or Algebra, conveys instead that she can take Logic and that she can take Algebra. These exclusivity, ignorance and free choice inferences are argued by many to be scalar implicatures. Recent work has looked at cases in which exclusivity and ignorance (...) appear to be computed instead at the presupposition level, independently from the assertion. On the basis of those data, Spector and Sudo :473–517, 2017) have argued for a hybrid account relying on a pragmatic principle for deriving implicatures in the presupposition. In this paper, we observe that a sentence like Noah is unaware that Olivia can take Logic or Algebra has a reading on which free choice appears in the presupposition, but not in the assertion, and we show that deriving this reading is challenging on Spector and Sudo’s hybrid account. Following the dialectic in Fox, we argue against a pragmatic approach to presupposition-based implicatures on the ground that it is not able to account for presupposed free choice. In addition, we raise a novel challenge for Spector and Sudo’s account coming from the conflicting presupposed ignorance triggered by sentences like #Noah is unaware that I have a son or a daughter, which is infelicitous even if it’s not common knowledge whether the speaker has a son or a daughter. More generally, our data reveals a systematic parallelism between the assertion and presupposition levels in terms of exclusivity, ignorance, and free choice. We argue that such parallels call for a unified analysis and we sketch how a grammatical theory of implicatures where meaning strengthening operates in a similar way at both levels :31–57, 2012; Magri in A theory of individual-level predicates based on blind mandatory scalar implicatures, MIT dissertation, 2009; Marty in Implicatures in the DP domain, MIT dissertation, 2017) can account for such parallels. (shrink)

I provide arguments in favor of an implicature approach to Homogeneity where the basic meaning of the kids laughed is some of the kids laughed, and its strengthened meaning is all of the kids laughed. The arguments come from asymmetries between positive and negatives sentences containing definite plurals with respect to children’s behavior, the availability of Non-maximal readings, and the robustness of neither-true-nor-false judgments :205–248, 2015). I propose to avoid some problems of Magri’s analysis by modeling the Implicature account of (...) Homogeneity after the Implicature account of Free Choice, based on a hitherto unnoticed analogy between the two phenomena. The approach that emerges has the advantages of Magri’s implicature account of Homogeneity, while at the same time bears a close resemblance to recent approaches to Non-maximality :1–58. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.5.3, 2012; Križ and Spector in Interpreting plural predication: homogeneity and non-maximality, Ms., Institut Jean Nicod, 2017), which enables restating their account of Non-maximality as following from the context-sensitivity of implicature calculation. (shrink)

The acceptability of _any_-DPs in existential modal sentences presents a challenge for theories of NPI licensing: existential modal sentences appear to differ substantially from other environments in which _any_-DPs are acceptable (in particular, they lack a downward-entailing operator). One approach to this challenge has been to, first, take _any_-DPs to be subject to an environment-based downward-entailingness condition—they have to occur in an environment that is Strawson downward-entailing with respect to their domain (cf. Kadmon and Landman 1993 )—and, second, to derive (...) such an environment in existential modal sentences by means of exhaustification (e.g., Fox 2007 ). This note presents new evidence for such a two-layered approach (cf. Crnič 2017, 2019 ). The evidence comes from a striking contrast in the behavior of singular vs. plural _any_-DPs in existential modal sentences. The paper concludes by charting some relations between _any_-DPs and other polarity items. (shrink)