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IntroductionThe psycholinguistic debate

Putting scalar implicatures in the grammarA model of scalar implicature processing

Scalar implicatures - a view from processing

Judith Degen

University of Rochester

September 18, 2009

Judith Degen Scalar Implicatures



1 Introduction

2 The psycholinguistic debateRecent pastPresent

3 Putting scalar implicatures in the grammar

4 A model of scalar implicature processing




Scalar implicatures

(1) Peter: Did all of your guests stay until midnight?Mary: Some of them did. It’s not the case that all of them did.Scale: 〈all, some〉

(2) Peter: Who is in that room?Mary: John or Bill. It’s not the case that both John and Bill are.Scale: 〈and, or〉




The (neo-)Gricean explanation

Grice’s conversational maxims:

Quantity-1: Make your contribution as informative as is required(for the current purpose of the exchange).Truthfulness: Do not say what you believe to be false.

Hearer’s reasoning about speaker S:

S uttered the statement with some instead of all, which wouldhave also been relevant

the all statement entails the some statement

if S knew that the all statement holds, she would have utteredit

S is well-informed

thus, it is not the case that the all statement holds

[Grice (1975), Horn (1984), Levinson (2000)]




Cancelability

(3) Explicit

a. Some of the guests stayed until midnight. In fact, theyall did.# Some, but not all of the guests stayed untilmidnight.

(4) Implicit

a. If some of the guests stayed until midnight, it musthave been a good party.# If they all stayed, it wasn’t.




The Relevance Theory explanation

“post-Gricean”

no more maxims

trade-off between cognitive effects and processing effort

the implicature is computed only if the interpretation arrivedat via the basic meaning of the scalar term does not satisfythe hearer’s expectations of relevance

[Sperber and Wilson (1995), Carston (1998)]




Recent pastPresent

Relevance Theory vs. Neo-Griceanism

Framing the empirical question

Are scalar implicatures computed by default or as part of aneffortful, context-driven process?

Default model

Pragmatic meaning (SI) is the default, cancellation is effortful

Context-driven model

Basic meaning is the default, SI derivation is effortful

Theory Empirical model

Neo-Griceanism DefaultRelevance Theory Context-driven




Recent pastPresent

Relevance Theory vs. Neo-Griceanism

Framing the empirical question

Are scalar implicatures computed by default or as part of aneffortful, context-driven process?

Default model

Pragmatic meaning (SI) is the default, cancellation is effortful

Context-driven model

Basic meaning is the default, SI derivation is effortful

Theory Empirical model

Neo-Griceanism DefaultRelevance Theory Context-driven




Recent pastPresent

Scalar implicatures: default or not?

answer: it’s not that simple

evidence supporting the Context-driven model: Noveck &Posada (2003) and Bott & Noveck (2004) - reaction times ina sentence verification task, Breheny et al. (2006) - readingtimes, Huang & Snedeker (2009) - eye movements

evidence supporting the Default model: Grodner et al. (2007)- eye movements




Recent pastPresent

Scalar implicatures: default or not?

answer: it’s not that simple

evidence supporting the Context-driven model: Noveck &Posada (2003) and Bott & Noveck (2004) - reaction times ina sentence verification task, Breheny et al. (2006) - readingtimes, Huang & Snedeker (2009) - eye movements

evidence supporting the Default model: Grodner et al. (2007)- eye movements




Recent pastPresent

Noveck & Posada (2003)

sentence verification task on three kinds of sentences:underinformative: Some elephants have trunks.patently true: Some houses have bricks.patently false: Some crows have radios.

for underinformative utterances, the ‘semantic’ interpretationleads to a TRUE response, the ‘pragmatic’ interpretation to aFALSE response

predictions:default: semantic responses slower than pragmatic responsescontext-driven: pragmatic responses slower than semanticresponses

results:63% pragmatic responsesanalysis of reaction times of pragmatic vs. semantic responses:pragmatic responses are slower




Recent pastPresent

Grodner et al.

eye-tracking study in the visual world paradigm

(A)

(B)

Figure 1: The displays for (A) the Early-Summa, Alla, and Nunna conditions, and (B) the

Late-Summa condition

Click on the girl with someof the balls/all of theballoons.

default prediction:pragmatic interpretation of“some” should lead to earlydisambiguation

results: early increase infixations to the target inboth conditions (200-300 msafter quantifier onset)




Recent pastPresent

Interpreting the Grodner results

not exclusively support for the Default view

alternative: pragmatic constraints strongly affect earlieststages of interpretation

seemingly slow interpretations may result from integration ofresultant interpretation with relevant contextual information

computation vs. verification processes requiring additionalprocessing effort

constraints on both complement sets for pragmaticinterpretation, only on one for semantic interpretation




Recent pastPresent

Things get tricky

2 problems with getting at the question of Relevance Theoryvs. Neo-Griceanism via the question of Default:

1 mapping of theories to empirical predictions

2 the empirical data




Recent pastPresent

Problem 1 - from theory to processing claim

the claim that Neo-Griceanism as a whole should endorse theDefault model is not justified

ambiguity of the term ”default”

applies to output (e.g. Grice) - the mechanism may be quitecomplex/require lots of processing effortapplies to processing mechanism (Levinson)

conclusion: the question of Default is not a fruitful way ofresolving the debate between Relevance Theory andNeo-Griceanism




Recent pastPresent

Problem 2 - divergent data. . . why?

shift from the question of Default to the question of whatfactors influence implicature processing

to whether or not the implicature arisesto what influences processing, and how




Recent pastPresent

Brief pause

3 questions

1 Does integration of pragmatic information occur at theearliest stages of language processing?

2 What are the factors that influence whether or not theimplicature arises?

3 How do these factors influence the processing mechanismitself?




Recent pastPresent

Brief pause

3 questions

1 Does integration of pragmatic information occur at theearliest stages of language processing?

2 What are the factors that influence whether or not theimplicature arises?





Recent pastPresent

Question 1 - evidence from the gumball paradigm

participants: 28 paid undergraduates from the University ofRochester

procedure:1 display 1 (2s)

2 “KA-CHING”3 display 24 “You got some of the gumballs.”5 respond YES (agree)/NO (disagree)

(timeout: 4s)




Recent pastPresent



procedure:1 display 1 (2s)2 “KA-CHING”

3 display 24 “You got some of the gumballs.”5 respond YES (agree)/NO (disagree)

(timeout: 4s)




Recent pastPresent



procedure:1 display 1 (2s)2 “KA-CHING”3 display 2

4 “You got some of the gumballs.”5 respond YES (agree)/NO (disagree)

(timeout: 4s)




Recent pastPresent



procedure:1 display 1 (2s)2 “KA-CHING”3 display 24 “You got some of the gumballs.”

5 respond YES (agree)/NO (disagree)(timeout: 4s)




Recent pastPresent



procedure:1 display 1 (2s)2 “KA-CHING”3 display 24 “You got some of the gumballs.”5 respond YES (agree)/NO (disagree)

(timeout: 4s)




Recent pastPresent

Materials

Subsets Quantifier Conditionconstructions

some somesome of the summaall of the allanone of the nunna

one of the oneatwo of the twoathree of the threeaseven of the sevenaeleven of the elevena

112 randomized trials




Recent pastPresent

Proportions of judgments at 13 gumballs (full set)

alla summa

Pro

port

ion

of Y

ES

res

pons

es

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

“You got all of the / someof the gumballs.”




Recent pastPresent

Mean reaction times for“some of the”at full set

pragmatic semantic

Mea

n re

actio

n tim

e

050

010

0015

0020

00

●

●

“You got some of thegumballs.”




Recent pastPresent

Reaction times for YES responses to“some/some of the”

●

●

●

●● ●

●

●

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1000

1250

1500

1750

2000

2250

2500

Gumballs

Rea

ctio

n tim

e in

ms

summasome

slowdown effect atfull set of gumballsfor YES responses

interpretation:intrusion of thepragmatic discoursecontext even at theearliest stages ofinterpretation




Recent pastPresent

Brief pause

3 questions1 Does integration of pragmatic information occur at the

earliest stages of language processing?

preliminarily - yes.

2 What are the factors that influence whether or not theimplicature is computed?





Recent pastPresent

Brief pause

3 questions1 Does integration of pragmatic information occur at the

earliest stages of language processing?

preliminarily - yes.

2 What are the factors that influence whether or not theimplicature is computed?





Recent pastPresent

Face-threatening contexts

influence of politeness on scalar implicature generation

context + “Some people loved/hated your poem.”(face-boost/face-threat)

“Do you think it’s possible that everyone loved/hated yourpoem?”

fewer pragmatic interpretations of “some” in contexts wherethe stronger statement would lead to a loss of face for thelistener (83% vs. 58%)

[Bonnefon et al. (2009)]




Recent pastPresent

Cognitive load

sentence verification task with underinformative sentences

executive cognitive resources burdened by memorization ofcomplex dot patterns

fewer pragmatic interpretations of “some” under cognitive load

[De Neys and Schaeken (2007)]




Recent pastPresent

Focus

paraphrase selection task with auditory stimuli (pitch accenteither on the disjunction or the auxiliary)

(5) Mary will/WILL invite Fred OR/or Sam to thebarbecue.Paraphrases:1. She will invite Fred or Sam or possibly both;2. She will invite Fred or Sam but not both.

increased exclusive (pragmatic) interpretations with pitchaccent on “or” (16.5% exclusive vs. 28.6% exclusive)

[Schwarz et al. (2009)]




Recent pastPresent

Partitive (evidence from the gumball paradigm)

alla summa some

Pro

port

ion

of Y

ES

res

pons

es

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

“You got all of the/some of the/ somegumballs.”

increase in pragmaticinterpretations




Grammatical accounts of scalar implicatures

observation 1: scalar implicatures arise in embedded positions,e.g. under attitude verbs (not predicted by a Gricean analysis)

(6) Joe believes that some of the students will show up.

a. ¬[Joe believes that all of the students will show up.]

b. Joe believes that ¬[all of the students will show up.]

observation 2: scalar implicatures are often suspended indownward-entailing (DE) contexts

(7) Joe doubts that Sue or Mary will show up.# Joe doubts that ¬[Sue and Mary will show up.](i.e. he believes they will both show up)

[Chierchia (2004); Chierchia, Fox & Spector (2008)]





observation 1: scalar implicatures arise in embedded positions,e.g. under attitude verbs (not predicted by a Gricean analysis)

(8) Joe believes that some of the students will show up.

a. ¬[Joe believes that all of the students will show up.]

b. Joe believes that ¬[all of the students will show up.]

observation 2: scalar implicatures are often suspended indownward-entailing (DE) contexts

(9) Joe doubts that Sue or Mary will show up.# Joe doubts that ¬[Sue and Mary will show up.](i.e. he believes they will both show up)

[Chierchia (2004); Chierchia, Fox & Spector (2008)]




Experimental evidence on SIs in DE contexts

paraphrase selection task; embedding of “or” under negation;

(10) a. Maria asked Bob to invite Fred or Sam to thebarbecue.

b. Maria asked Bob not to invite Fred or Sam to thebarbecue.

What did Maria ask Bob to do?

reduced exclusive interpretations under negation (6.8%vs. 64.7%)

[Schwarz et al. (2009)]




Experimental evidence on SIs in DE contexts

paraphrase selection task with number terms in antecedent ofconditional, restriction of “every”, or UE control sentence

results: 78% exact interpretations in UE conditional controls,49% in DE context

results: 55% exact interpretations in UE quantified typecontrols, 27% in DE context

effect of DE context in both cases (but very differentnumbers)

[Panizza et al. (2009)]





implicatures are computed in the grammar via a silent onlyoperator O

O

a function that takes as arguments a proposition φ and a set ofalternative propositions ALT, and returns the conjunction of φ andthe negation of all members of ALT that are stronger than φ

under downward entailing operators such as negation,antecedent of conditionals, restriction of every, entailmentpattern reverses (unless there is focus on the scalar item. . .)




Against a (purely) grammatical account

critics, e.g. Russell (2006):

departure from rational principles of conversation neitherdesirable nor warrantedgrammatical mechanism is arbitraryscalar implicature as inherently pragmatic phenomenon

alternative:

fixation on labeling SIs as pragmatic or semantic does notprovide much insightfrom a processing perspective: view scalar implicaturecomputation as a cue integration problem




Modeling scalar implicatures - potential cues

prosodic focus - judgment data

politeness considerations - judgment data

cognitive load - judgment and response latency data

DE contexts - judgment and reading time data

partitive vs. bare quantifier - judgment and reaction time data

relevance of stronger statement? - in preparation

contrast set (visual or conceptual)? - in preparation

contrast set (linguistic)?

information focus?

. . .




Conclusion

from the question of Default to boundary conditions

scalar implicature processing as cue integration problem(where prosodic, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cues willplay a role)




Thanks!

Katie Carbary Christine Gunlogson

Florian Jaeger Patricia Reeder

Dana Subik Mike Tanenhaus




Thanks!


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