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Do scalar implicatures prime? The case of exclusive 'or'

Abstract:
Understanding language requires comprehenders to understand not only what speakers say, but what speakers might imply. Scalar items (e.g. some, numerals) often invite comprehenders to compute scalar implicatures, pragmatically strengthening the semantic meaning of scalar items by negating their stronger alternatives. Recent priming evidence suggests that scalar implicatures may share underlying mechanisms, priming both within and between implicature types. We report two experiments designed to extend these finding to or, which has an inclusive meaning that can be strengthened to an exclusive meaning, potentially via scalar implicature. Experiment 1 investigated or alongside some and numerals, holding the number of visual symbols constant. Experiment 2 reduced the visual complexity of Experiment 1. Both experiments found robust within-category priming, but failed to fully replicate or extend between-category priming effects. We discuss implications of these results with respect to visual manipulations and the potential fragility of priming across different categories of scalar implicature.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publication website:
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0cm0j081

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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
HUMS
Department:
Linguistics Philology and Phonetics Faculty
Role:
Author


Publisher:
Cognitive Science Society
Journal:
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society More from this journal
Volume:
43
Pages:
2149-2155
Publication date:
2021-07-19
Acceptance date:
2021-05-11
Event title:
43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Event location:
Virtual event
Event website:
https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/cogsci-2021/
Event start date:
2021-07-26
Event end date:
2021-07-29
EISSN:
1069-7977


Language:
English
Keywords:
Pubs id:
1242346
Local pid:
pubs:1242346
Deposit date:
2022-03-04
ARK identifier:

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