>Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 20:04:44 +0200
>To: relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
>From: Ira NOVECK <noveck@isc.cnrs.fr>
>Subject: Negative Polarity Items
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>Hello everyone,
>
>I've been impressed by an overlap -- pointed out to me and others by
>Gennaro Cherchia -- concerning scalar implicatures and Negative Polarity
>items (NPI's). For instance, for both kinds of phenomena, there is a
>suspension (of the implicature in one case and of the conditions for the
>licensing of the NPI in the other) when placed in an antecedent of a
>conditional. To illustrate briefly, first with implicatures, consider the
>"or" in (1) and (2):
>
>(1) If you score an 80 on the standardized test or have 5-years
>experience, then you are qualified for this job.
>
>In (1) the inclusive-disjunction appears to be called for; compare it to
>(2) where the exclusive-disjunction appears to be in force.
>
>(2) Everybody here is male or european.
>
>The same holds for NPI's. In (3), the NPI's (anyone; anything) are part of
>a well-formed sentence as long as they remain part of the antecedent.
>Independent of the antecedent, they are no longer acceptable, as in (4).
>
>(3) If anyone notices anything unusual, report it to the police.
>(4) *Anyone notices anything unusual.
>
>The overlap applies to question-forms as well...which leads me to the
>following indirect request:
>
>Has anyone on the list addressed this sort of overlap or written on NPI's
>from a Relevance perspective?
>
>Yours,
>
>Ira
>
>
>Ira Noveck
>Institut des Sciences Cognitives
>CNRS
>67 Blvd. Pinel
>69675 Bron FRANCE
>
>Tel. (de la France): 04 37 91 12 68
>Tel. (from abroad): + 33 4 37 91 12 68
>
-------------------------------------------------
Robyn Carston
Department of Phonetics & Linguistics, UCL
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Tel 020 7679 3174
Fax 020 7383 4108
URL http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/home.htm
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