pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...

, scalar implicature, or quantity implicature, is an

implicature In pragmatics, a subdiscipline of linguistics, an implicature is something the speaker suggests or implies with an utterance, even though it is not literally expressed. Implicatures can aid in communicating more efficiently than by explicitly sayi ...

that attributes an ''implicit'' meaning beyond the explicit or ''literal'' meaning of an

utterance In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written langu ...

, and which suggests that the utterer had a reason for not using a more informative or ''stronger'' term on the same scale. The choice of the weaker characterization suggests that, as far as the speaker knows, none of the stronger characterizations in the scale holds. This is commonly seen in the use of 'some' to suggest the meaning 'not all', even though 'some' is logically consistent with 'all'. If Bill says 'I have some of my money in cash', this utterance suggests to a hearer (though the sentence uttered does not logically imply it) that Bill does not have all his money in cash.

Origin

Scalar implicatures typically arise where the speaker qualifies or scales their statement with language that conveys to the listener an inference or implicature that indicates that the speaker had reasons not to use a stronger, more informative, term. For example, where a speaker uses the term "some" in the statement, "Some students can afford a new car.", the use of "some" gives rise to an inference or implicature that "Not all students can afford a new car." As with pragmatic inference generally, such inferences are defeasible or cancellable – the inferred meaning may not be true, even though the literal meaning is true. This distinguishes such inferences from

entailment Logical consequence (also entailment) is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one ...

. They are also non-detachable. A conversational implicature is said to be ''non-detachable'' when, after the replacement of what is said with another expression with the same literal meaning, the same conversational implicature remains. This distinguishes them from conventional implicatures. In a 2006 experiment with Greek-speaking five-year-olds' interpretation of aspectual expressions, the results revealed that children have limited success in deriving scalar implicatures from the use of aspectual verbs such as "start" (which implicates non-completion). However, the tested children succeed in deriving scalar implicatures with discrete degree modifiers such as "half" as in half finished. Their ability to spontaneously compute scalar implicatures was greater than their ability to judge the pragmatic appropriateness of scalar statements. In addition, the tested children were able to suspend scalar implicatures in environments where they were not supported. Griceans attempt to explain these implicatures in terms of the

maxim of quantity In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective conversational communication in common social situations—that is, how listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutual ...

, according to which one is to be just as informative as required. The idea is that if the speaker were in a position to make the stronger statement, they would have. Since (s)he did not, (s)he must believe that the stronger statement is not true.

Examples

Some examples of scalar implicaturetaken from Carston (p. 1) and Levinson (p. 136) are: :1a. Bill has got some of Chomsky's papers. :1b. The speaker believes that Bill hasn't got all of Chomsky's papers. :2a. There will be five of us for dinner tonight. :2b. There won't be more than five of us for dinner tonight. :3a. She won't necessarily get the job. :3b. She will possibly get the job. :4a. The Russians or the Americans have just landed on Mars. :4b. Not both of them have just landed on Mars. Uttering the sentence (a) in most cases will communicate the assumption in (b). This seems to be because the speaker did not use stronger terms such as 'there will be ''more'' than five people for dinner tonight' or 'she ''can't possibly'' get the job'. For example, if Bill really did have all of Chomsky's papers, the speaker would have said so. However, according to the maxim of quantity, a speaker will only be informative as is required, and will therefore not use any stronger terms unless required. The hearer, knowing this, will assume that the stronger term does not apply.

References

Robyn Carston Robyn Anne Carston, is a linguist and academic, who specialises in pragmatics, semantics, and the philosophy of language. Since 2005, she has been Professor of Linguistics at University College London. Early life and education Carston was born ...

, "Informativeness, Relevance and Scalar Implicature

* Chierchia G., Guasti M. T., Gualmini A., Meroni L., Crain S., Foppolo F. (2004). Semantic and pragmatic competence in children and adults comprehension of or. In Experimental Pragmatics, Eds. I. Noveck and D. Sperber, pag. 283-300, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. * Laurence Horn, Laurence R. Horn. 1984. "A new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature." In D. Schiffrin (ed.), Meaning, Form and Use in Context (GURT '84), 11-42. Washington: Georgetown University Press. * Laurence R. Horn, 'A natural history of negation', 1989, University of Chicago Press: Chicago. * Kepa Korta, 'Implicitures: Cancelability and Non-detachability'

* Angelika Kratzer, Scalar Implicatures: Are There Any? Workshop on Polarity, Scalar Phenomena, and Implicatures. University of Milan-Bicocca June 18, 200

* * Ira Noveck, "When children are more logical than adults : experimental investigations of scalar implicature", Cognition 2001, vol. 78, no2, pp. 165–188. * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article "Implicature

* Mante S. Nieuwland, Tali Ditman & Gina R. Kuperberg (2010). On the incrementality of pragmatic processing: An ERP investigation of informativeness and pragmatic abilities. Journal of Memory and Language 63 (2010) 324–346

*Zondervan, A. Meroni, L & Gualmini, A.(2010)Experiments on the role of the Question under Discussion for Ambiguity Resolution and Implicature Computation in Adults. In SALT 18.

Endnotes

{{Formal semantics Pragmatics Semantics Inference Formal semantics (natural language)

Origin

Examples

See also

References

Endnotes