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Equatives, Measure Phrases and NPIs

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Logic, Language and Meaning

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6042))

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Abstract

Standard semantic accounts of the equative ascribe it an ‘at least’ meaning, deriving an ‘exactly’ reading when necessary via scalar implicature. I argue for a particular formulation of this scalar implicature account which considers that (i) equatives license NPIs in their internal arguments, and (ii) equatives whose internal arguments are measure phrases (MPs) are, in contrast to clausal equatives, ambiguous between ‘at most’ and ‘exactly’ interpretations. The analysis employs particular assumptions about MPs, scalar implicature and the notion of set complementation to enable ‘at least’ readings to be sensitive to the direction of a scale, thereby becoming ‘at most’ readings in certain constructions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCLA, 3125 Campbell Hall, Los Angeles, CA, 90095

    Jessica Rett

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  1. Jessica Rett
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy (ILLC), University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Maria Aloni , Harald Bastiaanse , Tikitu de Jager  & Katrin Schulz , ,  & 

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Rett, J. (2010). Equatives, Measure Phrases and NPIs. In: Aloni, M., Bastiaanse, H., de Jager, T., Schulz, K. (eds) Logic, Language and Meaning. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6042. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14287-1_37

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14287-1_37

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14286-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14287-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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