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Naturalness of lexical alternatives predicts time course of scalar ... Some utterances are underinformative: The onset a
Naturalness of lexical alternatives predicts time course of scalar implicatures Judith Degen Michael K. Tanenhaus Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester

Abstract

Introduction

We provide evidence that the speed of computing a scalar implicature (from some to some but not all) depends on the naturalness of some and its lexical alternatives and the speed with which those alternatives become available. We argue that this evidence is inconsistent with the literal-first hypothesis (Huang & Snedeker, 2009).

Default or context-driven inferences? Conflicting evidence (Bott & Noveck, 2004, Huang & Snedeker, 2009, Grodner et al., 2010)

Scalar implicature Alex: Did you submit your paper? Thomas: Some of the sections are written. Not all of the sections are written.

Common problematic assumption: Alternatives to some are invariant over contexts. Hypothesis: Set of alternatives differs across contexts. Speed of implicature depends on 1. naturalness of some and lexical alternatives (given a particular set size)

Experiments 1 & 2

2. speed with which alternative lexical items become available (given a particular set size) We have shown this to be the case for response times (Degen & Tanenhaus, 2011).

Materials and procedure

Experiments: 1. Naturalness of some is low when used with unpartitioned set, where all is an alternative. It is also low in the subitizing range (where number terms are rapidly available) even when number terms are not among the experimental items.

Task: Rate naturalness of statement, given scene (7-point scale or FALSE) IVs: quantifier and set size in lower chamber

2. Adding number terms to the experimental items (i.e. explicitly introducing alternatives) decreases the naturalness of some only in the subitizing range.

Exp n Quantifiers Set sizes 1 120 some, all, none 0 - 13 2 240 some, all, none and 0 - 13 number terms one, two, three, . . ., twelve

3. In eye-tracking: availability effects for small sets and naturalness effects for big sets.

Experiments 3a & 3b Materials and Procedure (n=37)

Results Experiment 1 & 2 ●









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The naturalness of some is

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• lower for small sets (1-3) than in preferred range (4-7) (β=-0.79, SE=.13, p