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”.