Equatives, Measure Phrases and NPIs
Jessica Rett · Lecture notes in computer science · 2009
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. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.