On the role of entailment patterns and scalar implicatures in the processing of numerals.

ABSTRACT: There has been much debate, in both the linguistics and the psycholinguistics literature, concerning numbers and the interpretation of number denoting determiners ('numerals'). Such debate concerns, in particular, the nature and distribution of upper-bounded ('at-least') interpretations vs. lower-bounded ('exact') construals. In the present paper we show that the interpretation and processing of numerals are affected by the entailment properties of the context in which they occur. Experiment 1 established off-line preferences using a questionnaire. Experiment 2 investigated the processing issue through an eye tracking experiment using a silent reading task. Our results show that the upper-bounded interpretation of numerals occurs more often in an upward entailing context than in a downward

SUBMITTER: Panizza D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2796780 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature