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标题：Where does the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis apply?
本地全文：下载
作者：Uli Sauerland
期刊名称：Snippets
印刷版ISSN：1590-1807
出版年度：2012
卷号：25
出版社：LED Edizioni Universitarie
摘要：The Strongest Meaning Hypothesis (SMH henceforth), a pragmatic principle motivated in Dalrymple et al.'s (1998) study of reciprocals, has recently been applied to problems in implicatures (Chierchia et al. to appear) and Vagueness (Cobreros et al. 2011). In this snippet, I argue that the SMH can apply to embedded sentences, which is perhaps unusual for a pragmatic principle. Dalrymple et al. (1998) argue that reciprocal sentences possess a variety of potential readings, for example the universal and existential reciprocal readings given for (2). (These two are often called the strong and (oneway) weak reading, but this terminology would be confusing for my present purposes). Furthermore a potential reading must be compatible with general world knowledge and the non-linguistic information available in the context. Dalrymple at al.’s SMH states that a sentence with a reciprocal allows only the logically strongest of its potential readings (if there is a unique, strongest potential reading): (1) a. universal reciprocal reading for R and D: ∀x, y ∈ D: x ≠ y → R(x,y) b. existential reciprocal reading for R and D: ∀x ∈ D ∃ y ∈ D . x ≠ y & R(x,y) For example, Dalrymple et al.'s (1998) account predicts that (2) only allows the universal reciprocal reading because the universal reading entails the existential reading and both readings are possible with the relationship know given general world knowledge. Only examples like (3) with the relationship hold hands with allow the existential reading. This follows because the universal reading cannot be true for groups with four or more members given our knowledge that people generally have only two hands.