Non-Implicature Sources of Exclusivity in Linguistic Disjunction

Authors

  • Casey Felton University of California, Davis
  • Masoud Jasbi University of California, Davis

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/elm.3.5806

Keywords:

experimental pragmatics, prior probability, scalar implicature, disjunction

Abstract

Disjunction in natural language alternates between an inclusive reading (A or B or Both) and an exclusive  reading (A or B but not Both). Traditional accounts of this ambiguity focus on scalar implicature as the source of disjunction exclusivity, a process whereby Gricean reasoning over Horn scales strengthens the baseline inclusive reading to an implied exclusive reading (Grice, 1978; Horn, 1972; Gazdar, 1980). Despite nearly all theories acknowledging that other factors likely play a role in the generation of exclusivity implications, non-implicature factors have received comparatively little attention. Across four experiments we tested two such non implicature factors, prior compatibility and syntactic category, finding that both play a role in speaker interpretations of disjunctive sentences. Additionally, by drawing our stimuli in the first two experiments from the prior literature, we found evidence that previous research on disjunction, while accurately identifying the key role of scalar implicatures, may be overestimating the effect size thereof due to a failure to control for non-implicature factors. 

Author Biography

  • Masoud Jasbi, University of California, Davis

    Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, UC Davis

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Published

2025-01-24

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Articles