Scalar Implicature is Sensitive to Contextual Alternatives
Name
Cognitive Science - 2023 - Zhang - Scalar Implicature is Sensitive to Contextual Alternatives.pdf
Description
Published version
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643.2 KB
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Author(s)
Zhang, Zheng
Bergen, Leon
Paunov, Alexander
Ryskin, Rachel
Gibson, Edward
Date Issued
February 2023
Journal
Cognitive Science
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Zhang, Zheng, Bergen, Leon, Paunov, Alexander, Ryskin, Rachel and Gibson, Edward. 2023. "Scalar Implicature is Sensitive to Contextual Alternatives." Cognitive Science, 47 (2).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The quantifier "some" often elicits a scalar implicature during comprehension: "Some of today's letters have checks inside" is often interpreted to mean that not all of today's letters have checks inside. In previous work, Goodman and Stuhlmüller (G&S) proposed a model that predicts that this implicature should depend on the speaker's knowledgeability: If the speaker has only examined some of the available letters (e.g., two of three letters), people are less likely to infer that "some" implies "not all" than if the speaker has examined all of the available letters. G&S also provided behavioral evidence in support of their model. In this paper, we first show that a simple extension of G&S's model (1) predicts G&S's knowledgeability effects, and in addition, (2) predicts that the knowledgeability effect will be reduced when the speaker's usage indicates numeral alternatives are available. We tested the new model's predictions in four preregistered experiments. All experiments supported the first model prediction, replicating G&S's finding of a main effect of the speaker's knowledge. Further, Experiments 2 and 4 supported the second model prediction showing that the words that a speaker tends to use affect the strength of scalar implicature that comprehenders make. In particular, when the speaker has partial knowledge (e.g., has only examined two of three letters), comprehenders think that "some" is more likely to mean "not all" when the speaker also tends to produce number words in similar sentences (e.g., "2 of today's rooms have working smoke detectors."). These results have important ramifications for theories of meaning: the context beyond the sentence (e.g., the speaker's tendency to use particular words) affects the set of alternatives that comprehenders consider when inferring meaning.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13238
