Experimental Evidence for Embedded Scalar Implicatures

Abstract

Scalar implicatures are traditionally viewed as pragmatic inferences that result from a reasoning about speakers' communicative intentions (Grice 1989). This view has been challenged in recent years by theories that propose that scalar implicatures are a grammatical phenomenon. Such theories claim that scalar implicatures can be computed in embedded positions and enter into the recursive computation of meaning—something that is not expected under the traditional pragmatic view. Recently, Geurts and Pouscoulous (2009) presented an experimental study in which embedded scalar implicatures were not detected. Using a novel version of the truth-value judgment task, we provide evidence that subjects sometimes compute embedded scalar implicatures.