Speaker: Rick Nouwen (Utrecht University)
Time: Friday, April 8, 2011, 3:30pm-5pm
Location: 32-141 (PLEASE NOTE ROOM)
Title: Superlative modifiers and modality
Abstract:
In the literature on the semantics of “at least” and similarly
superlative modifiers, there has been much attention to the
interaction of such modifiers with modality. In this talk, I will
focus on two observations that are central to this interaction: (I)
sentences like (a) give rise to ignorance implicatures, in the sense
that (a) implies that the speaker does not know how many cards John
picked; and (II) such implicatures disappear in modal environments:
(b) has a reading that is simply a statement of minimum requirement,
with no implicature about the speaker’s knowledge.(a) John picked at least 3 cards.
(b) John is required to pick at least 3 cards.In this talk, I will compare two strategies to account for these
observations: (I) ignorance implicatures are due to the requirement
that the modifiers operate on a scalar argument; (II) the ignorance
implicatures triggered by “at least” are the ignorance implicatures
triggered by disjunctions. I will compare these approaches with
respect to a larger data set that includes the behaviour of ordinary
superlatives, adjectives like “minimal” and “maximal” and definite
descriptions that refer to scalar end-points, like “the earliest John
should arrive”.