Economy and embedded exhaustification
Name
11050_2017_9139_ReferencePDF.pdf
Size
1.14 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
88f96e7647e2072837b667b3aa453533
Author(s)
Fox, Daniel
Spector, Benjamin
Date Issued
January 2018
Journal
Natural Language Semantics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Fox, Danny and Benjamin Spector. "Economy and embedded exhaustification." Natural Language Semantics 26, 1 (March 2018): 1–50 © 2018 Springer Science Business Media B.V.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Building on previous works which argued that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions, this paper proposes a constraint on exhaustification (an economy condition) 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 (relevant) scalar term bears pitch accent. Our economy condition also derives specific predictions regarding the licensing of so-called Hurford disjunctions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-017-9139-6
