Research

Embedded scalar implicatures have been the topic of much of the work on implicature since Grice’s influential 1967 work on conversational implicature. Many people have seen issues surrounding these types of implicatures as reason to depart from the Gricean framework. Following Geurts & Pouscoulous (2009), we argue that this departure from the Gricean camp is premature, and that we should first try to gather empirical evidence for how people actually reason about utterances containing embedded scalar items before summarily dismissing Grice’s theory as having nothing to say about these type of implicatures. For this thesis we conducted an experimental study modeled on Geurts & Pouscoulous' 2009 study of embedded scalar implicatures; however, our study focuses on scalar implicatures in the antecedent of conditionals, which Geurts & Pouscoulous do not examine. Using the survey responses to our experimental prompts, we answer the following two questions:

a) Do scalar implicatures ever show up in the antecedent of conditionals?
b) Do scalar implicatures always show up in the antecedent of conditionals?

In addition, we use the think-aloud portion of the experiment to gather insight into how people actually reason about these types of utterances, in order to generate an account of the reasoning patterns subjects employ in interpreting scalar terms in the antecedent of conditionals.

Scalar Implicature in the Antecedent of Conditionals

Thesis Defense: January 4, 2011

Handout for Thesis Defense