Implicit Information in Directionality of Verbal Probability Expressions

Many verbal probability expressions (verbal probability) can be categorized into either positive terms (e.g., likely, small chance) or negative terms (e.g., uncertain, poor chance). This distinction reflects the semantic function of communicative focus called “directionality.” Previous studies have shown that positive (or negative) terms refer to potential occurrence (or non-occurrence). We conducted two experiments investigating what implicit information was conveyed by directionality. The results show that the verbal probability expressions not only convey explicit probability information, but also implicit information about the speaker’s prior beliefs.