How to cancel an implicature

Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicature in general, and scalar implicatures in particular. Despite this fact, cancelability itself is a phenomenon rarely looked at. This paper presents an account of when the cancellation of a scalar implicature is an acceptable...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Mayol, Laia, Castroviejo, Elena
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión enviada para evaluación y publicación
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/34187
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/34187
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.02.002
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Conversational implicatures
Scalar implicatures
Cancellation
Question under discussion
Projective meaning
Experimental pragmatics
Descripción
Sumario:Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicature in general, and scalar implicatures in particular. Despite this fact, cancelability itself is a phenomenon rarely looked at. This paper presents an account of when the cancellation of a scalar implicature is an acceptable discourse move and provides experimental evidence to support our proposal. Our main claim is that the felicity of a scalar implicature cancellation depends on the discourse structure. More speci cally, cancellation is acceptable only if it addresses a Question Under Discussion that di ers from the previous one. As will be shown, this proposal has the additional bene t of permitting us to tease apart cancellations from self-repairs.