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Journal of Semantics Advance Access originally published online on November 22, 2006
Journal of Semantics 2006 23(4):361-382; doi:10.1093/jos/ffl008
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Against Grammatical Computation of Scalar Implicatures

Benjamin Russell

Brown University

Correspondence: BENJAMIN RUSSELL, Brown University, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Providence, RI 02912, USA, e-mail: brussell{at}brown.edu


  Abstract

Recently, several authors have argued that Gricean theories of scalar implicature computation are inadequate, and, as an alternative, one author has proposed a grammatical system for computing scalar implicatures. The present paper provides arguments, counter to the claims of these authors, that Gricean reasoning can account for the implicatures of certain complex sentences and does not generate undesirable implicatures for others. Moreover, it is shown that a putative advantage of grammatical scalar implicature computation, that it informs a theory of intervention in negative polarity item licensing, is spurious. These arguments, plus general conceptual advantages of Gricean theory, lead to the conclusion that scalar implicature computation is not carried out in the grammar.


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