Pragmatic effects of 'more than' and 'at least' in incremental interpretation

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Abstract

We investigate the incremental interpretation of comparative and superlative numeral modifiers by manipulating the speaker’s epistemic state in an eye-tracking reading experiment. The results reveal a different processing profile for two types of numeral modifiers. We take this difference to point to a difference in the source and nature of the attested effects (e.g., Quantity- vs. Manner-based pragmatic reasoning). Our findings inform the existing theoretical landscape, invalidating a number of accounts of speaker ignorance effects with numeral modifiers and giving support to Quantity-based accounts of such effects with superlative modifiers.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 27th Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference
Place of PublicationCollege Park
PublisherLSA
Pages680-699
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory
Volume27
ISSN (Electronic)2163-5951

Keywords

  • numeral modifiers
  • speaker ignorance effects
  • reading eye-tracking
  • implicature

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