Osamu Sawada
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198714224
- eISBN:
- 9780191782633
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198714224.003.0008
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
Chapter 8 investigates the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and considers the semantic mechanism behind subject- and speaker-oriented interpretations of embedded pragmatic scalar ...
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Chapter 8 investigates the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and considers the semantic mechanism behind subject- and speaker-oriented interpretations of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and CIs. For a subject-oriented reading, it is argued that there is a shift from a CI to a secondary at-issue entailment at the clausal level when the embedded clause combines with an attitude predicate and has a subject-oriented reading. For a speaker-oriented reading of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers, it is claimed that the lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers have the distinctive property of projection: unlike higher-level pragmatic scalar modifiers/typical CIs, lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers can project out of the complement of a belief predicate only if there is a speaker-oriented modal in the main clause. This chapter shows that the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers is not only a matter of context and involves semantic and pragmatic mechanisms.Less
Chapter 8 investigates the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and considers the semantic mechanism behind subject- and speaker-oriented interpretations of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers and CIs. For a subject-oriented reading, it is argued that there is a shift from a CI to a secondary at-issue entailment at the clausal level when the embedded clause combines with an attitude predicate and has a subject-oriented reading. For a speaker-oriented reading of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers, it is claimed that the lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers have the distinctive property of projection: unlike higher-level pragmatic scalar modifiers/typical CIs, lower-level pragmatic scalar modifiers can project out of the complement of a belief predicate only if there is a speaker-oriented modal in the main clause. This chapter shows that the interpretation of embedded pragmatic scalar modifiers is not only a matter of context and involves semantic and pragmatic mechanisms.
