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Title
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A new look at scalar implicatures under negation
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Author
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Abstract
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| In this paper, I give a novel analysis of negated scalar adjectives. Particular attention is devoted to three types: (1) ordinary negation with a less than-meaning (e.g. It is not warm meaning It is less than warm), (2) negation with negative strengthening (e.g. It is not good meaning It is bad), and (3) so-called metalinguistic negation (e.g. It is not good; it is excellent!). I argue that the meanings of (1) and (2) are constructional, and that they are grounded in Ducrots (1980b: 31) principle called the lowering law. On the basis of this analysis, I give an alternative explanation of why metalinguistic negations are intuitively exceptional: they violate principles of argumentation in language (Anscombre & Ducrot 1983), rather than that they violate principles of logic, as on the pragmatic account (cf. Horn 1989). This finding is crucial for the theory of scalar implicature, according to which It is good is said to implicate rather than entail It is not excellent. On my account, the exceptional character of metalinguistic negations and the default less than-meaning of negated scalar adjectives can no longer be used as arguments for viewing scalar implicatures as pragmatic rather than semantic. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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Studies van de BKL / Travaux du CBL / Papers of the LSB
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Publication
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2018
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Volume/pages
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12
(2018)
, p. 1-15
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Full text (open access)
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