The article presents a formal analysis in the framework of bi-directional optimality theory of the free choice, ignorance and indifference implicatures conveyed by the use of indefinite expressions or disjunctions. Ignorance is expressed by standard means of epistemic logic. To express indifference we use Groenendijk and Stokhof’s question meanings. To derive implicature, Grice’s conversational...

In this paper we motivate and describe a dialogue manager (called Frolog) which uses classical planning to infer causal implicatures. A causal implicature is a type of Gricean relation implicature, a highly context dependent form of inference. As we shall see, causal implicatures are important for understanding the structure of task-oriented dialogues. Such dialogues locate conversational acts ...

We offer an experimental approach to the study of the types of implicatures generated by polar question intonation in American English and Majorcan Catalan, which is rising and falling, respectively. In a categorization task, we show that discourse context affects whether listeners perceive utterances produced with the polar question markers (PQMs) to be declaratives versus questions. Results f...

In recent years, a local, or even grammatical analysis of implicatures has gained popularity in pragmatics, especially to account for implicatures triggered by disjunctions embedded under other operators. Against this trend, in this paper a more traditional—and perhaps more Gricean—global analysis of implicatures is defended. Crucial use is made of facts, which provide a more fine-grained notio...

The Gricean theory of conversational implicature has always been plagued by data suggesting that what would seem to be conversational inferences may occur within the scope of operators like believe, for example; which for bona fide implicatures should be an impossibility. Concentrating my attention on scalar implicatures, I argue that, for the most part, such observations can be accounted for w...

The present study aims at the analysis of conventional implicatures (Grice, 1991) actualized in Ukrainian dialogical discourse. distinction between and conversational is described. We argue that what commonly considered implicature fact only Implicatures are inherently because they intended by speaker derived addressee Therefore, it makes sense to regard as such not discursive context (such bei...

It has been disputed whether scalar implicatures (= SIs) arise globally or locally. Basically SIs should be global because they arise by comparing strengths of whole alternative statements. On the other hand, there are a lot of examples in which local SIs are preferable. Linguists like Chierchia (2002) and Fox (2006) even claim that SIs arise by applying an operator to syntactic constituents to...

I show that the exhaustive interpretation of answers can be explained as a conversational implicature through the Maxim of Relation, dealing with the problematic epistemic step (Sauerland, 2004). I assume a fairly standard Maxim of Relation, that captures the same intuition as Roberts’ (1996) contextual entailment. I show that if a richer notion of meaning is adopted, in particular that of atte...

The standard Gricean defense of russell in the face of referential uses of descriptions has been to claim that these uses are conversational implicatures. My argument in “The case for referential Descriptions” focused on showing that these uses are not particularized implicatures. I now adapt and develop this argument to show that they are not generalized implicatures nor otherwise pragmatic. I...