Speaker: Aron Hirsch
Title: Exhaustivity and polarity-mismatch: Economy in accommodation
Date/Time: Thursday, Apr 3, 12:30-1:45p
Location: 32-D461
When can the answer to a constituent question be exhaustive, and when can’t it? This talk focuses on the relationship between exhaustivity and polarity. I report experimental data showing that the puzzle is multi-layered. First: an answer can be inferred to be exhaustive only when it matches the question in polarity (Uegaki 2013, Spector 2003, i.a.).
(1) Which of the men have beards?
a. Ryan does. (can be interpreted ‘only Ryan does’; complete answer)
b. Ryan doesn’t. (cannot be interpreted ‘only Ryan doesn’t’; partial answer)Second: an answer that mismatches the question in polarity can, nonetheless, be overtly exhaustified with ‘only’. (2b), as well as (2a), is reasonably felicitous.
(2) Which of the men have beards?
a. Only Ryan does.
b. Only Ryan doesn’t.Why can (1b) not be interpreted as exhaustive when (1a) can? Why can’t (1b) be interpreted as exhaustive at the same time that (2b) is felicitous?
I argue that the resolution to the puzzle reveals something deep about the nature of accommodation.
To satisfy question/answer congruence requirements, when a negative answer is given to the positive question, (1/2b), an unasked negative question must be accommodated; the negative answer is congruent to this accommodated negative question. I argue that accommodation incurs a cost (pragmatic or processing), which is regulated by economy considerations. In particular, there is a constraint on accommodation “Avoid Redundant Accommodation” by which a new question can be accommodated only to convey something that couldn’t be conveyed with an answer congruent to the original question. The contrasts between (1a) and (1b), and (1b) and (2b) follow from this constraint.
In the last part of the talk, I report two additional sets of experimental results providing direct support for the proposal.