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)

Language has a rich typology of inferential types. It was recently shown that subjects are able to divide the informational content of new visual stimuli among the various slots of the inferential typology: when gestures or visual animations are used in lieu of specific words in a sentence, they can trigger the very same inferential types as language alone (Tieu et al., 2019 ). How general are the relevant triggering algorithms? We show that they extend to the auditory modality and (...) to music cognition. We tested whether pro-speech musical gestures, i.e. musical excerpts that replace words in sentences, can give rise to the same inferences. We show that it is possible to replicate the same typology of inferences using pro-speech music. Minimal and complex musical excerpts can behave just like language, gestures, and visual animations with respect to the logical behavior of their content when embedded in sentences. Specifically, we found that pro-speech music can generate scalar implicatures, presuppositions, supplements, and homogeneity inferences. (shrink)

Disjunctions in the scope of possibility modals give rise to a conjunctive inference, generally referred to as ‘free choice.’ For example, Emma can take Spanish or Calculus suggests that Emma can take Spanish and can take Calculus. This inference is not valid on standard semantics for modals in combination with a Boolean semantics for disjunction. Hence free choice has sparked a whole industry of theories in philosophy of language and semantics. This paper investigates free choice in sentences involving a non-monotonic (...) modified numeral, under which we embed a possibility modal scoping over disjunction. One example is Exactly one student can take Spanish or Calculus. As we point out, the presence of certain readings of these sentences is a key test for a prominent approach, which analyzes free choice as a kind of scalar implicature. We report on two experiments investigating the readings of such sentences, using an inferential task. Our results are challenging for the implicature approach. We sketch two possible solutions within this approach, either adopting a different recent implicature algorithm, or exploring a different meaning for modified numerals with exactly. Both of them suffer from a variety of problems. We then discuss a third solution, which exploits a recent account of free choice based on homogeneity. This approach can account for our results, in combination with plausible assumptions about homogeneity projection, though it too has open issues with related cases. Regardless of which solution is chosen, non-monotonic contexts turn out to be an important test case for theories of free choice, implicature, and modified numerals. (shrink)

We propose a modification of the exhaustivity operator from Fox Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 71–120, 2007. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230210752_4) that on top of negating all the Innocently Excludable alternatives affirms all the ‘Innocently Includable’ ones. The main result of supplementing the notion of Innocent Exclusion with that of Innocent Inclusion is that it allows the exhaustivity operator to identify cells in the partition induced by the set of alternatives whenever possible. We argue for this property of (...) ‘cell identification’ based on the simplification of disjunctive antecedents and the effects on free choice that arise as the result of the introduction of universal quantifiers. We further argue for our proposal based on the interaction of only with free choice disjunction. (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)

Modified numerals, such as at least three and more than five, are known to sometimes give rise to ignorance inferences. However, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the nature of these inferences, their context dependence, and differences between at least and more than. We present a series of experiments which sheds new light on these issues. Our results show that the ignorance inferences of at least are more robust than those of more than, the presence and strength of the (...) ignorance inferences triggered by both at least and more than depends on the question under discussion, and whether ignorance inferences are detected in a given experimental setting depends partly on the task that participants are asked to perform. We offer an Optimality Theoretic account of these findings. In particular, the task effect is captured by assuming that in performing an acceptability task, participants take the speaker’s perspective in order to determine whether an expression is optimal given a certain epistemic state, while in performing an inference task they take the addressee’s perspective in order to determine what the most likely epistemic state of the speaker is given a certain expression. To execute the latter task in a fully rational manner, participants have to perform higher-order reasoning about alternative expressions the speaker could have used. Under the assumption that participants do not always perform such higher-order reasoning but also often resort to so-called unidirectional optimization, the task effect finds a natural explanation. This also allows us to relate our finding to asymmetries between comprehension and production that have been found in language acquisition. (shrink)

During communication, the interpretation of utterances is sensitive to a listener's probabilistic prior beliefs. In this paper, we focus on the influence of prior beliefs on so‐called exhaustivity interpretations, whereby a sentence such as Mary came is understood to mean that only Mary came. Two theoretical origins for exhaustivity effects have been proposed in the previous literature. On the one hand are perspectives that view these inferences as the result of a purely pragmatic process (as in the classical Gricean view, (...) and more recent Bayesian approaches); on the other hand are proposals that treat them as the result of an encapsulated semantic mechanism (Chierchia, Fox & Spector 2012). We gain traction on adjudicating between these two approaches with new theoretical and experimental evidence, focusing on the behavior of different models for exhaustivity effects, all of which fit under the Rational Speech Act modeling framework (RSA, Frank & Goodman, 2012). Some (but not all!) of these models include an encapsulated semantic mechanism. Theoretically, we demonstrate that many RSA models predict not only exhaustivity, but also anti‐exhaustivity, whereby “Mary came” would convey that Mary and someone else came. We evaluate these models against data obtained in a new study which tested the effects of prior beliefs on both production and comprehension, improving on previous empirical work. We find that the models which have the best fit to human behavior include an encapsulated exhaustivity mechanism. We conclude that, on the one hand, in the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics, semantics plays a larger role than is often thought, but, on the other hand, the tradeoff between informativity and cost which characterizes all RSA models does play a central role for genuine pragmatic effects. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.