Scalar Implicatures: The psychological reality of scales
Résumé
Scalar implicatures, the phenomena where a sentence like “The pianist played some Mozart
sonatas” is interpreted as “The pianist did not play all Mozart sonatas” have been given two
different analyses. Neo-Griceans claim that this interpretation is based on lexical scales (e.g.
), where the stronger term (e.g. all) implies the weaker term (e.g. some), but the
weaker term (e.g., some) implicates the negation of the stronger term (i.e., some = not all).
Post-Griceans deny that this is the case and offer a context-based inferential account for scalar
implicatures. While scalar implicatures have been extensively investigated, with results
apparently in favor of post-Gricean accounts, the psychological reality of lexical scales has
not been put to the test. This is what we have done in the present experiment, with a lexical
decision task using lexical scales in a masked priming paradigm. While Post-Gricean
accounts do not attribute any role for lexical scales in the computation of scalar implicatures,
Neo-Gricean accounts suggest that lexical scales are the core mechanism behind the
computation of scalar implicatures, and predict that weaker terms in a scale should prime
stronger terms more than the reverse because stronger words are necessary to the
interpretation of weaker words, while stronger words can be interpreted independently of
weaker words. Our results provided evidence in favor of the psychological existence of
scales, leading to the first clear experimental support for the Neo-Gricean account.
Key-words: lexical scales, masked priming, lexical decision task, scalar implicature,
implication, experimental pragmatics, psycholinguistics
Domaines
Linguistique
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
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