@cite{geurts-pouscoulous-2009} — Embedded Implicatures?! #
Theory-neutral empirical data and argumentation chain from @cite{geurts-pouscoulous-2009}.
Central Question #
Do scalar implicatures arise "locally" inside embedded clauses? Conventionalists (Chierchia, Levinson, Landman) predict SIs occur "systematically and freely in arbitrarily embedded positions." Griceans predict SIs are global pragmatic inferences only.
Argumentative Structure #
Exp 1a-b (Table 2): SI endorsement rates vary wildly by embedding type (3–94%), contradicting "systematically and freely."
Paradigm bias (§2): Three worries about the inference paradigm used in Exp 1; it likely inflates observed SI rates.
Exp 2 (§3, n=29): Inference task (62%) vs verification task (34%) confirms paradigm bias on simple sentences.
Exp 3 (Table 3, n=26): Verification shows zero local SIs in UE contexts (100% "true"), while inference shows ~50% across all conditions regardless of monotonicity. The inference paradigm produces spurious "local SIs."
Paradigm correction: After accounting for bias, only think (57.5%) shows genuinely elevated SI rates. The rates for all (27%) and want (32%) may be entirely paradigm artifacts.
Gricean explanation for think (§8): Global SI (¬Bsp[Bs(all)]) + competence assumption (Bs(all) ∨ Bs(¬all)) entails Bs(¬all), which looks like a local SI but is derived globally.
Exp 4 (Tables 4–5, n=22): Minimal conventionalism predicts people should detect ambiguity in scalar sentences. Genuine ambiguities detected at 70%, alleged SI-ambiguities at only 6%. Both mainstream and minimal conventionalism are falsified.
The two experimental paradigms.
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Monotonicity of an embedding context.
- upwardEntailing : Monotonicity
- downwardEntailing : Monotonicity
- nonMonotonic : Monotonicity
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Quantifier contexts tested in Experiments 3–4.
- all : QuantifierContext
- moreThanOne : QuantifierContext
- exactlyTwo : QuantifierContext
- notAll : QuantifierContext
- notMoreThanOne : QuantifierContext
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Inference task: "Does X imply Y?"
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Verification task: "Is this true of the picture?"
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Mainstream conventionalism predicts local SIs are preferred in non-DE contexts. In the inference paradigm, this means participants should endorse the inference that "some" implies "not all" when embedded under UE/NM quantifiers. In the verification paradigm, this means participants should reject the classical reading when it conflicts with the local SI.
We formalize this as: conventionalism predicts SI endorsement rates should be high (> 50%) in non-DE inference conditions, and verification rates should match the SI reading, not the classical reading.
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- Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.conventionalistPredictsLocalSI Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.QuantifierContext.all = true
- Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.conventionalistPredictsLocalSI Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.QuantifierContext.moreThanOne = true
- Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.conventionalistPredictsLocalSI Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.QuantifierContext.exactlyTwo = true
- Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.conventionalistPredictsLocalSI Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.QuantifierContext.notAll = false
- Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.conventionalistPredictsLocalSI Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.QuantifierContext.notMoreThanOne = false
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Embedding types tested in Experiments 1a-b.
- simple : EmbeddingType
- think : EmbeddingType
- want : EmbeddingType
- must : EmbeddingType
- all : EmbeddingType
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- embedding : EmbeddingType
- localSIRate : ℕ
% endorsing the local SI reading
- n : ℕ
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Experiment 1a results (Table 2, n=30).
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Experiment 1b results (Table 2, n=31).
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SI rates vary from 3% (must) to 94% (simple 1b), a 91pp range. This contradicts the conventionalist claim that SIs occur "systematically and freely in arbitrarily embedded positions." If SIs were systematic, rates should be uniformly high across all embedding types.
Only think shows substantial local SI endorsement among embedded conditions. At 50% (1a) and 65% (1b), think is the only embedding above 35%. All others (all: 27%, must: 3%, want: 32%) fall below. The paper later argues (§5–8) that even these rates may be artifacts of the inference paradigm.
Experiment 2 results (§3.1–3.2, pp.16-17). 29 Dutch-speaking students at the University of Nijmegen. Within-subjects: same critical sentence ("Some of the B's are in the box on the left") tested in both inference and verification tasks. McNemar's test, n = 29, p < .01.
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- Phenomena.ScalarImplicatures.Studies.GeurtsPouscoulous2009.exp2 = { inferenceRate := 62, verificationRate := 34, controlAccuracy := 97, n := 29 }
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The inference paradigm inflates SI rates by 28pp (62% vs 34%). This confirms three a priori worries about the inference paradigm (§2): (1) endorsing an argument is easier than spontaneously drawing it, (2) the question "Does X imply Y?" makes the SI contextually relevant, (3) superficial similarity to valid inferences may cause errors.
In the more neutral verification task, SI rate is below 50%. This argues against even weak defaultism.
Near-perfect control accuracy rules out a positive response bias.
One row of Table 3 (p.22). The table has 6 rows because "exactly two" has two verification conditions (one where the classical reading is true, one where the local-SI reading is true) but a single shared inference rate.
The verificationPred field records the conventionalist prediction for
verification (the parenthetical 0/1 in Table 3): should participants
say "true"? Similarly inferencePred for the inference column.
- quantifier : QuantifierContext
- verificationTrueRate : ℕ
% saying "true" in verification task
- verificationPred : Bool
Conventionalist prediction: should participants say "true"?
- inferenceRate : ℕ
% endorsing local SI in inference task
- inferencePred : Bool
Conventionalist prediction: should participants endorse SI?
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Experiment 3 results (Table 3, p.22, n=26). 26 first-year humanities students at the University of Nijmegen (§5.1, p.20). Pairwise McNemar tests (Bonferroni-corrected) all significant: all p < .005, not all p < .001, more than one p < .0005, not more than one p < .05, exactly two p < .005 (both conditions).
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Verification shows zero local SIs in UE contexts: 100% say "true" (accepting the classical, non-SI reading). Conventionalism predicts participants should say "false" (the local SI makes UE sentences false in the depicted situation). This is the paper's central empirical finding against mainstream conventionalism.
Inference rates cluster around 50% for ALL conditions (46–62%), regardless of monotonicity. The inference paradigm produces a roughly constant endorsement rate that does not discriminate between contexts where conventionalism predicts SIs and contexts where it does not. The paper reports: "all rates, for DE and non-DE items alike, clustered around chance level, give or take 12%" (p.23).
Verification perfectly tracks the classical (non-SI) truth value. When the classical reading is true (verificationPred = false, i.e., conventionalism predicts "false" but classical reading predicts "true"), the rate is ≥ 96%. When the classical reading is false (exactly-two row 2 and DE items), the rate is ≤ 4%. Participants judge truth values by the classical reading, not by any local-SI reading.
After Experiment 3 establishes that the inference paradigm inflates SI rates by ~50pp, the rates observed in Experiment 1 must be corrected. The paper argues (p.23): "it is quite possible that the rates previously observed for all (27%) and want (32%) are entirely due to a paradigm bias." Only think (avg 57.5%) exceeds the observed paradigm bias level (~50% baseline in Exp 3 inference conditions).
The Gricean explanation for apparent local SIs under "think"/"believe".
For "Bob believes Anna ate some of the cookies", the global SI yields: ¬(Bob believes Anna ate all the cookies)
Under a competence assumption (Bob has an opinion on whether she ate all): (Bob believes all) ∨ (Bob believes ¬all)
From these two premises, it follows that Bob believes ¬all — which looks like a local SI but is derived entirely from global pragmatics + competence.
This explains why "think" shows elevated rates (57.5%) while other embeddings do not: the competence assumption is independently plausible for attitude verbs (people typically have opinions about what they believe) but not for quantifiers ("all students heard some" does not license "each student has an opinion about whether they heard all").
The competence explanation does NOT generalize to universal quantifiers.
For "All the customers shot at some of the salesmen", the global SI yields: ¬∀ (c : Customer), ShotAtAll c
The analogous competence assumption would require: ∀ (c : Customer), ShotAtAll c ∨ ShotAtNotAll c
This is a much stronger assumption — it requires every customer to have a determinate shooting pattern. The paper notes (p.29) that this assumption is "considerably less plausible" than for belief reports.
We demonstrate this by showing the proof still works formally (same logical structure) but flagging in the docstring that the premise is pragmatically implausible for quantifiers.
One row of Table 4 (p.27). Response rates for critical and DE control items in Experiment 4, where participants chose among "true", "false", and "could be either". As in Experiment 3, there were two verification conditions for exactly-two.
- quantifier : QuantifierContext
- trueRate : ℕ
% saying "true" (yes)
- falseRate : ℕ
% saying "false" (no)
- eitherRate : ℕ
% saying "could be either"
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Experiment 4 results (Table 4, p.27, n=22). 22 first-year linguistics students at University College London (p.26). Wilcoxon's Exact test: W = 208, n = 20, p < .0001.
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Ambiguous control sentences from Table 5 (p.27). These are genuinely ambiguous sentences (e.g., "Visiting relatives can be boring") that participants should be able to recognize as ambiguous.
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Table 5: ambiguous control items (p.27).
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People detect genuine ambiguities at 70% on average but alleged SI-induced ambiguities at only 6% (non-DE items). The 64pp gap shows that people simply do not perceive the ambiguity that conventionalism predicts. This falsifies even minimal conventionalism, which merely claims that local-SI readings exist (not that they're preferred).
Total non-DE responses consistent with conventionalism: only ~10%. The paper reports (p.26-27): "only 9 out of 88 responses (i.e. 10%) were consistent with minimal conventionalism. Moreover, all but one of these responses were associated with non-monotonic exactly two."
The gap between genuine and alleged ambiguity detection is massive: 70% vs 6% = 64pp. This is the strongest result against conventionalism.
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Sample of experimental data from @cite{geurts-2010} Table 1. Across the literature, SI rates are highly variable and generally below 65%, consistent with the Gricean view that SIs are context- dependent pragmatic inferences rather than defaults.
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Average SI rate across the literature is below 50%. This is inconsistent with defaultism's prediction that SIs are the norm and should arise at high rates.
No study in the survey exceeds 65%.
Connects NeoGricean scalar implicature theory (@cite{geurts-2010}) to the experimental findings above.
- Embedding predictions match experimental SI rates
- DE blocking matches verification data
- Contextualism vs Defaultism adjudicated by task effects
- Hurford rescue/violation predictions match felicity judgments
- Singh asymmetry predictions match felicity judgments
Exp 1a simple rate (Table 2).
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Exp 1a think rate (Table 2).
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Exp 1a must rate (Table 2).
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Exp 3 verification rate for all+some in UE: 100% classical reading.
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Gricean prediction for embedding types.
- embedding : EmbeddingType
- predictsElevatedRate : Bool
- explanation : String
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Gricean predictions match experimental pattern.
NeoGricean predicts SIs arise in UE contexts.
DE blocking prediction matches Experiment 3 verification data.
Gricean account supported over conventionalism.
Competence-based explanation for belief reports.
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NeoGricean derives "not all" from "some".
NeoGricean explicitly blocks SIs in DE contexts.