Topic: HUMAN SEMANTICS
Implicature Computation and Attitude Predicates
By Yurie Hara
The Handout (Source: The Semantics Archive)
The traditional view of Pragmatics:
Pragmatics is independent of syntax and semantics.
The output of syntactic and semantic computation is passed on to the pragmatic system.
Example: Scalar implicatures
Traditional view:
Implicatures are introduced after the whole computation of syntax and semantics is done.
Chierchia (2001):
Implicatures are generated locally and projected compositionally
Today's talk [see the link to the handout]:
mostly along with Chierchia. However, implicature computation takes place at where a proposition is combined with an attitude predicate.
The Article
Chierchia (2001) has proposed that implicatures are generated locally and projected compositionally. Implicatures induced by Japanese Contrastive Topic provide evidence for the local computation of implicature; however, their properties are not fully compatible with Chierchia's analysis. This paper shows that implicature computation should take place in a larger cycle than Chierchia's, namely at the position where a proposition is combined with an attitude predicate. The analysis mirrors Heim's (1992) theory on presupposition projection.
Japanese Contrastive Topics always induce implicatures. In other words, Contrastive Topic wa (as in (1)) is licensed under the situation where something else is implicated. The same implicature will arise when the sentence is not wa-marked (Nanninka-ga kita. `Some people-Nom came' will also implicates "Not everyone came." as a conversational scalar implicature). The difference between wa-marked and nonwa- marked is clearer in (2). The wa-induced implicature is conventional and hence obligatory (as in (2a)), whereas the non-wa-marked one is conversational and defeasible (as in (2b); see Hara (To appear) for the detailed discussion). Hara (2004) proposes that wa seeks for a stronger scalar alternative. This property is depicted as a presuppositional requirement ((3b); x is an attitude-bearer, B is a background and T is a topical element; see Hara (2004) for the comparison of this analysis with B?uring (1997)). For example, (1) implicates the speaker's uncertainty of the stronger (more informative) alternative, `Everyone came'. (2a) is infelicitous since the asserted proposition `Everyone came' is the strongest among the alternatives (`Some people came', `Most people came' etc.), and thus there is no room to implicate.
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Handout
Posted by Tony Marmo
at 01:01 BST
Updated: Monday, 30 August 2004 09:59 BST
