LSA.236 | Scalar Implicatures and the Organization of Grammar

Danny Fox
MW 4:50-6:30
location: 32-141
course web site: http://mv.ezproxy.com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/Class/236

This class will concentrate on the source of Scalar Implicatures. We will compare the Gricean approach to implicatures, which attributes their presence to a reasoning process about the belief states of speakers, to an alternative language-internal account that we will develop. Various arguments will be presented in favor of the alternative. The arguments will depend on various auxiliary hypotheses about the nature of degree representations, the syntax of comparative constructions, the interpretation of questions and definite descriptions, and the relevance of events or situations to natural language semantics. Much of the course will be dedicated to a discussion of these hypotheses and the evidence in their support. Central to all of this will be a detailed argument that implicature calculation makes use of a modular (i.e., informationally encapsulated) knowledge-base.