Implicatures: Inferred Meanings in Language | Study notes Linguistics

P. Schlenker - Ling 1 - Introduction to the Study of Language UCLA, Winter 20 06

Introduction to Language - Lecture Notes 7B

Meaning III: Implicatures

☞

Goal: When a professor writes in a letter of recommendation: 'Mr. Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is

neatly dressed', we understand that Smith is probably a bad student. Is this an entailment of the professor's

sentence? No. Applying the test we developed in the previous lecture, we see that the following does not hold:

In every conceivable situation in which it is true that Mr. Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is neatly dressed,

it is true that Smith is a bad student.

[to see that this does not hold, just imagine that Smith is a genius who happens to have a beautiful handwriting

and to be neatly dressed]. Note, by contrast, that if the professor wrote: 'Mr. Smith is absolutely terrible at

everything he does, including his studies', it is now an entailment of the sentence that Smith is a bad student (the

above test can establish this).

The British philosopher Paul Grice coined the term implicature to refer to those inferences that are made, not on

the basis of the content expressed, but by virtue of the fact that a speaker trying to make communication as

effective as possible chose to utter such a content in these particular circumstances. In the above example, we

infer that Smith is a bad student because we know that the letter of recommendation should mention the most

positive things that can be said about Smith. If the most positive thing is that Smith has a beautiful handwriting

and is neatly dressed, we can infer that his academic performance is abysmal.

Because implicatures are inferences based on certain assumptionsabout what the speaker is trying to achieve

rather than (just) on the content of what is said, they can easily be removed or 'cancelled'. Thus I may say without

contradiction: 'Mr. Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is neatly dressed. But these are only the least important

of his qualities. He turns out to be a truly excellent student'. The implicature that Smith is a bad student has been

cancelled by the end of the discourse. By contrast, entailments cannot be cancelled: if I write 'Mr. Smith is

absolutely terrible at everything he does, including his studies. However he is a truly excellent student', my

statement simply sounds contradictory.

In the second part of these Lecture Notes, we focus on a particular variety of implicatures, called scalar

implicatures. If I say: 'John or Mary made a mistake', it is typically understood that either only John or only Mary

made a mistake, but not both. However this is not an entailment of the sentence. Why not? Because this inference

can be cancelled, for instance by adding: 'In fact both of them did'. We will suggest that 'John or Mary' really

means: 'John or Mary or both' ('inclusive disjunction'). However we often get the impression that the speaker

meant: 'John or Mary but not both' ('exclusive negation'). Why? Because if the speaker had known that both John

and Mary made a mistake, he could have said something more informative, namely 'John and Mary made a

mistake'. We normally assume that the speaker is trying to make communication as effective as possible. Thus if

he did not choose the more informative statement, chances are that this was because it was false. Hence we infer

that it probably wasn't the case that both John and Mary came. Since 'John and Mary came' is strictly more

informative than 'John or Mary came', we call the pair <or, and> a scale. The above reasoning can then be

summarized as follows:

(i) The speaker used the least informative member of the scale (='__ or __', meaning '__ or __ or both').

(ii) If the more informative sentence (with 'and' instead of 'or') had been true, it would have been more effective to

utter it rather than the sentence the speaker in fact uttered

(iii) Since the speaker did not make that choice, it is likely that this was because the more informative sentence

(with 'and') was false (hence we add to ' __ or __ ' the inference 'but not __ and __', which accounts for the

impression that 'or' is exclusive).

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Introduction to Language - Lecture Notes 7B

Meaning III: Implicatures

☞ Goal: When a professor writes in a letter of recommendation: 'Mr. Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is neatly dressed', we understand that Smith is probably a bad student. Is this an entailment of the professor's sentence? No. Applying the test we developed in the previous lecture, we see that the following does not hold: In every conceivable situation in which it is true that Mr. Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is neatly dressed, it is true that Smith is a bad student. [to see that this does not hold, just imagine that Smith is a genius who happens to have a beautiful handwriting and to be neatly dressed]. Note, by contrast, that if the professor wrote: 'Mr. Smith is absolutely terrible at everything he does, including his studies', it is now an entailment of the sentence that Smith is a bad student (the above test can establish this). The British philosopher Paul Grice coined the term implicature to refer to those inferences that are made, not on the basis of the content expressed, but by virtue of the fact that a speaker trying to make communication as effective as possible chose to utter such a content in these particular circumstances. In the above example, we infer that Smith is a bad student because we know that the letter of recommendation should mention the most positive things that can be said about Smith. If the most positive thing is that Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is neatly dressed, we can infer that his academic performance is abysmal. Because implicatures are inferences based on certain assumptionsabout what the speaker is trying to achieve rather than (just) on the content of what is said, they can easily be removed or 'cancelled'. Thus I may say without contradiction: 'Mr. Smith has a beautiful handwriting and is neatly dressed. But these are only the least important of his qualities. He turns out to be a truly excellent student'. The implicature that Smith is a bad student has been cancelled by the end of the discourse. By contrast, entailments cannot be cancelled: if I write 'Mr. Smith is absolutely terrible at everything he does, including his studies. However he is a truly excellent student', my statement simply sounds contradictory. In the second part of these Lecture Notes, we focus on a particular variety of implicatures, called scalar implicatures. If I say: 'John or Mary made a mistake', it is typically understood that either only John or only Mary made a mistake, but not both. However this is not an entailment of the sentence. Why not? Because this inference can be cancelled, for instance by adding: 'In fact both of them did'. We will suggest that 'John or Mary' really means: 'John or Mary or both' ('inclusive disjunction'). However we often get the impression that the speaker meant: 'John or Mary but not both' ('exclusive negation'). Why? Because if the speaker had known that both John and Mary made a mistake, he could have said something more informative, namely 'John and Mary made a mistake'. We normally assume that the speaker is trying to make communication as effective as possible. Thus if he did not choose the more informative statement, chances are that this was because it was false. Hence we infer that it probably wasn't the case that both John and Mary came. Since 'John and Mary came' is strictly more informative than 'John or Mary came', we call the pair <or, and> a scale. The above reasoning can then be summarized as follows: (i) The speaker used the least informative member of the scale (='__ or ', meaning ' or __ or both'). (ii) If the more informative sentence (with 'and' instead of 'or') had been true, it would have been more effective to utter it rather than the sentence the speaker in fact uttered (iii) Since the speaker did not make that choice, it is likely that this was because the more informative sentence (with 'and') was false (hence we add to ' __ or __ ' the inference 'but not __ and __', which accounts for the impression that 'or' is exclusive).

1 Implicatures

Consider the following letter of recommendation (from The Language Files; modified from the philosopher Paul Grice): (1) Dear Colleague, Mr. John Smith has asked me to write a letter on his behalf. Mr. Smith is unfailingly polite, is neatly dressed at all times, and is always on time for his classes. Sincerely yours, Harry H. Homer It is unlikely that Smith will obtain the position he is applying for. Why not? Because the addressee of the letter has inferred that Smith is a bad student.

Could this be because the content of Homer's letter entailed that Smith is not a good student? No, for two reasons: (a) first, the following does not seem to hold: In every conceivable situation in which it is true that Smith is unfailingly polite, is neatly dressed at all times, and is always on time for his classes, it is true that Smith is a bad student. (b) second, the following is no contradiction: Mr. Smith is unfailingly polite, is neatly dressed at all times, and is always on time for his classes. But these are only his most superficial qualities. Mr. Smith is definitely a good student, even an excellent one. But a sentence which is followed by the negation of a sentence it entails yields a contradiction (e.g. John is a good student and he isn't a student is a contradiction because John is a good student entails John is a student ). Thus if 'Smith is not a good student' were an entailment of what is said in the letter, Homer's statement could not be followed by 'Smith is a good student' without yielding a contradiction. But the above discourse is certainly not contradictory, hence 'Smith is not a good student' is not entailed by Homer's statement.
What is going, then? Here is a plausible analysis, essentially due to the British philosopher Paul Grice: (i) In a letter of recommendation, the professor is normally supposed to mention the most positive features of the student. (ii) Homer only mentioned that Smith is polite, neatly dressed and always on time. (iii) Therefore these are probably his most positive qualities, and therefore he is probably a bad student. Crucially, the fact that Smith is a bad student is not part of what is said, but it is inferred from a reasoning based on (a) what was said, and (b) what a speaker (or in this case a writer) who tries to communicate as effectively as possible is expected to do given the circumstances. More generally, Grice coined the term implicature to refer to those inferences that are made, not (just) on the basis of the content expressed, but by virtue of the fact that a speaker trying to make communication as effective as possible chose to utter such a content in those circumstances.

2 Scalar Implicatures

In this section we study in greater detail a particular sort of implicatures, called 'scalar implicatures'. 2.1 What scalar implicatures are If I say: 'John or Mary made a mistake', it is typically understood that either only John or only Mary made a mistake, but not both. Here we concentrate on the not both part. Given what we have studied so far, it could either be an entailment or an implicature.

Is it an entailment? No. (a) First, the following does not hold: In every conceivable situation in which it is true that John or Mary made a mistake, it is true that not both of them did (b) Second, if not both of them made a mistake were entailed by John or Mary made a mistake, it would be a contradiction to say: 'John or Mary made a mistake. In fact both of them did'. But this sentence is not a contradiction. Hence not both of them made a mistake is not entailed by the original sentence.
All this suggests that not both of them made a mistake is in fact an implicature of the original utterance. What is the reasoning on the basis of which this implicature is derived? Here is a plausible story. If the speaker had known that both John and Mary had made a mistake, he could have said something more informative than 'John or Mary made a mistake', namely 'John and Mary made a mistake'. We normally assume that the speaker is trying to make communication as effective as possible. Thus if he did not choose the more informative statement, chances are that this was because it was false. Hence we infer that it probably wasn't the case that both John and Mary came. Since 'John and Mary made a mistake' is strictly more informative than 'John or Mary made a mistake' (where '__ or __ ' means: '__ or __ or both'), we call the pair <or, and> a scale. The above reasoning can then be summarized as follows: (i) The speaker used the least informative member of the scale (='or') (ii) If the more informative sentence (with 'and' instead of 'or') had been true, it would have been more effective to utter it rather than the sentence the speaker in fact uttered. (iii) But the speaker did not make that choice. Therefore the more informative sentence (with 'and') was probably false. This explains why John or Mary made a mistake normally implicates: not both of them did. This reasoning can be applied to a variety of other scales. Note that the scale may include more than two terms. The implicature is always of the form: _It is not the case that _____ , where ___ is the original sentence, with its scalar term replaced by a stronger scalar term.

(5) The quantifier scale: some < most < every a. Some student came to the party implicates

It's not the case that most students came to the party (=replacing some with the stronger term most )
It's not the case that every student came to the party (=replacing some with the stronger term every ) b. Most students came to the party implicates It's not the case that every student came to the party (=replacing most with the stronger term every ). Note: There are many other scales, for instance <two, three, four, ...>, where 'two' is analyzed as 'at least two', 'three' is analyzed as 'at least three', etc. The reader can check that under this analysis 'Three students came to the party' is more informative than 'Two students came to the party'. 2.2 What children know about scalar implicatures Recent experiments [discussed in class but not reported here] suggest that young children do not always compute the scalar implicatures that adults do. It is a topic of current research to understand why this is so. The rest of these Lecture Notes is optional (though highly recommended). 2.3 Scalar implicatures systematically disappear in downward-entailing environments In certain environments scalar implicatures systematically disappear (the following examples are from S. Crain): (6) a. Lucy does not like Snoopy or Charlie b. Lucy will never in a million years like Snoopy or Charlie c. No one will like Snoopy or Charlie d. Every student who likes Snoopy or Charlie will enjoy the class In none of these examples are we tempted to interpret 'Paul or Bill' as: 'Paul or Bill but not both'^1. Why is this? First, we note an interesting correlation. The environments in which scalar implicatures systematically disappear are precisely those in which negative polarity items are licensed: (7) a. Lucy will not like Snoopy at all b. Lucy will never in a million years like Snoopy at all c. No one will like Snoopy at all d. Every student who likes Snoopy at all will enjoy the class (^1) Of course, in other environments implicatures may be cancelled, since implicatures can always be cancelled. But the point is that in the sentences in (6) 'Snoopy or Charlie' is never interpreted as: 'Snoopy or Charlie but not both'.

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Meaning III: Implicatures

1 Implicatures

2 Scalar Implicatures