Economy and embedded exhaustification

Natural Language Semantics 26 (1):1-50 (2018)
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Abstract

Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, this paper proposes a constraint on exhaustification which restricts the conditions under which an exhaustivity operator can be licensed. We show that this economy condition allows us to derive a number of generalizations, such as, in particular, the ‘Implicature Focus Generalization’: scalar implicatures can be embedded under a downward-entailing operator only if the scalar term bears pitch accent. Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions.

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Author's Profile

Benjamin Spector
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

References found in this work

A Natural History of Negation.Laurence R. Horn - 1989 - University of Chicago Press.
Quantity implicatures.Bart Geurts - 2010 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
A Natural History of Negation.Laurence R. Horn - 1989 - Philosophy and Rhetoric 24 (2):164-168.
A theory of focus interpretation.Mats Rooth - 1992 - Natural Language Semantics 1 (1):75-116.

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