Priming reveals similarities and differences between three purported cases of implicature: Some, number and free choice disjunctions

Abstract

Across a wide variety of semantically ambiguous sentences, implicature has been proposed as a single mechanism which can derive one reading from another in a systematic way. While a single formal mechanism for computing implicatures across disparate cases has an appealing parsimony, differences in behavioral and processing signatures between cases have created a debate about whether the same computation really is so widely shared. Building on previous work by Bott & Chemla (2016), three experiments use structural priming to test for shared computations across three purported cases of implicature: the quantifier some, number words, and Free Choice disjunctions. While we find evidence of a shared computation between the enriched readings of some and number words, we find no evidence that Free Choice readings involve any shared computation with either some or number. Along with evidence of a shared mechanism between some and number implicatures, we also find substantial differences between these two cases. We propose a way to reconcile these findings, as well as seemingly contradictory prior evidence, by understanding implicature as a sequence of separable sub-computations. This implies a spectrum of possibilities for which sub-computations might be shared or distinct between cases, instead of a a single implicature mechanism that can only be either present or absent.

Scalar alternative activation in implicature processing: A lexical decision study with antonyms and negation

“…Rees and Bott (2018) found that activating stronger alternative propositions in the minds of comprehenders made them more likely to endorse a scalar implicature. Bott and Frisson (2022) found that presenting stronger alternative propositions decreased response times when comprehenders were computing a scalar implicature (for more recent findings on scalar implicature priming, see Marty et al, 2024;Meyer & Feiman, 2021;Waldon & Degen, 2020) To directly test which alternatives are activated in the minds of comprehenders, recent lexical priming studies have examined scalar expressions. De Carvalho and colleagues (2016) showed that weaker scale-mates activated their strong terms more than the strong did the weak scalars.…”

Implicatures in Altfatah Nando’s Short Movie Terlanjur Mencinta

“…Implicature or implicit meaning can be identified in an utterance and is therefore a logical consequence of language use (Betti & Khalaf, 2021;Meyer & Feiman, 2021;Qin & van Compernolle, 2021;Sbisà, 2021;Terkourafi et al, 2021). Even implicit meaning has to be used in response to culture.…”

Priming enrichment in children

“…Priming provides a method of tapping into the underlying structure of language and has been influential in shaping our knowledge of adult and child language (for reviews see Branigan & Pickering, 2018). Bott and Chemla (2016; see also Meyer & Feiman, 2021) demonstrated that in adults, scalar and ad hoc implicatures can be primed so that there is a greater rate of implicatures when an implicature is presented in the preceding trial than when a literal meaning is presented in the preceding trial. Moreover, Rees and Bott showed that implicatures can be primed with the alternative in the same way.…”