Structurally-defined alternatives

Scalar implicatures depend on alternatives in order to avoid the symmetry problem. I argue for a structure-sensitive characterization of these alternatives: the alternatives for a structure are all those structures that are at most as complex as the original one. There have been claims in the literature that complexity is irrelevant for implicatures and that the relevant condition is the semantic notion of monotonicity. I provide new data that pose a challenge to the use of monotonicity and that support the structure-sensitive definition. I show that what appeared to be a problem for the complexity approach is overcome once an appropriate notion of complexity is adopted, and that upon closer inspection, the argument in favor of monotonicity turns out to be an argument against it and in favor of the complexity approach.

[1]  Laurence R. Horn.  From if to iff: Conditional perfection as pragmatic strengthening , 2000 .

[2]  Prashant Parikh.  Communication, Meaning, and Interpretation , 2000 .

[3]  Gerald Gazdar,et al.  A solution to the projection problem , 1979 .

[4]  Alec Marantz,et al.  No escape from syntax: Don't try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon , 1997 .

[5]  Yo Matsumoto.  The conversational condition on horn scales , 1995 .

[6]  Laurence R. Horn,et al.  On the semantic properties of logical operators in english' reproduced by the indiana university lin , 1972 .

[7]  D. Fox.  Free Choice and the Theory of Scalar Implicatures , 2007 .

[8]  Morris Halle,et al.  Distributed morphology and the pieces of inflection , 1993 .

[9]  Gerald Gazdar,et al.  Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition, and Logical Form , 1978 .

[10]  James D. McCawley,et al.  Conversational Implicature and the Lexicon , 1978 .

[11]  Laurence R. Horn.  A Natural History of Negation , 1989 .

[12]  Julia Hirschberg,et al.  A theory of scalar implicature , 1985 .

[13]  J. Atlas,et al.  It-clefts, informativeness and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised standard version) , 1981 .

[14]  L. T. F. Gamut.  Logic, language, and meaning , 1991 .

[15]  George Kingsley Zipf,et al.  Human Behaviour and the Principle of Least Effort: an Introduction to Human Ecology , 2012 .

[16]  Uli Sauerland,et al.  Scalar Implicatures in Complex Sentences , 2004 .

[17]  William J. Poser,et al.  Blocking of Phrasal Constructions by Lexical Items , 2007 .

[18]  Benjamin Spector.  Scalar Implicatures: Exhaustivity and Gricean Reasoning , 2004 .

[19]  Katrin Schulz,et al.  Exhaustive Interpretation of Complex Sentences , 2004, J. Log. Lang. Inf..

[20]  Reinhard Blutner,et al.  Some Aspects of Optimality in Natural Language Interpretation , 2000, J. Semant..

[21]  Fred Landman,et al.  Events and Plurality: The Jerusalem Lectures , 2001 .

[22]  Benjamin Russell,et al.  Against Grammatical Computation of Scalar Implicatures , 2006, J. Semant..

[23]  Benjamin Spector.  10: Scalar Implicatures: Exhaustivity and Gricean Reasoning , 2007 .

[24]  D. Over,et al.  Studies in the Way of Words. , 1989 .

[25]  Bart Geurts,et al.  Scalar implicature and local pragmatics. , 2009 .

[26]  Robert van Rooy,et al.  SIGNALLING GAMES SELECT HORN STRATEGIES , 2004 .

[27]  Adriana Belletti,et al.  Structures and beyond , 2004 .