Scalar Implicatures and Implicit Metalinguistic Negation

초록

The Neo-Gricean account of scalar implicatures is globalistic in that a scalar implicature of an utterance is derived by negating a stronger alternative as a whole. The account is problematic in dealing with scalar implicatures in complex sentences. Recently various localistic approaches have been proposed to solve the problems. In this paper, I show that scalar implicatures cannot be accounted for by strictly globalistic or strictly localistic approaches. Sentences with the same syntactic and semantic structures yield local scalar implicatures at some times and global scalar implicatures at others. I propose a more flexible approach in which the negation operator which negates a stronger alternative is assumed to be metalinguistic negation and that a set of scalar implicatures is obtained depending on which part is inappropriate to assert in the speaker's information state. More informative scalar implicatures are preferred unless they are incompatible with the context.

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