Abstract
This paper analyzes the emergence of scalar additive meanings. We show that in Basque the same particle ere can obtain both the “simple additive” reading (akin to English too) and the “scalar additive” reading (akin to English even) but we argue that we do not have to distinguish two types of ere. We provide evidence, by means of a production and a perception experiment, that the reading is disambiguated by means of prosody (the placement of nuclear stress), which is a correlate of focus. We argue that the scalarity effect is generated by the combination of two presuppositions (a focus-induced one and a lexical one) and the assertion of the sentence.
Highlights
Languages vary in the way they generate different additive readings
By means of a production and a perception experiment, that the reading is disambiguated by means of prosody, which is a correlate of focus
In this paper we provide experimental evidence that the simple additive and the scalar additive interpretations are distinguished by means of prosody, which is a main correlate of informationstructure
Summary
Languages vary in the way they generate different additive readings. There are languages with particular lexical particles to express simple additive and scalar additive readings (cf. English too vs. even) but in Basque, the same particle, ere, is used to express simple additive as well as scalar additive values. “For all x-s under consideration besides Aitor, the likelihood that Jon invited those x-s is greater than the likelihood that Jon invited Aitor.” In other words, it can have the very same semantic import as English even (cf Section 1.1) associating to the element preceding it. It can have the very same semantic import as English even (cf Section 1.1) associating to the element preceding it Likewise, under this reading the particle displays a similar behavior to that of even and, for instance, the scalar presuppositions brought up by ere are reversed under negation. We saw that the stress associated to the element preceding the particle ere in the Scalar condition is stronger (in F0 and intensity) than in the Simple condition which, we would like to argue, is a signature of their focal nature (as narrow focus is associated to nuclear stress in Basque). THE PERCEPTION EXPERIMENT Experiment 2 was designed to assess the interpretations associated to strings uttered with different prosodic patterns
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