What almost can reveal about counterfactual inferences

Abstract

In studies in past literature on the semantics of adverbs of proximity such as almost and nearly, such adverbs have been treated either from a semantic analysis as containing a negative entailment or from a pragmatic analysis as containing a conversational implicature. However, neither of these arguments has been demonstrated to account adequately for the negative inferences associated with the use of such items, due to insufficient scope of analysis. The present study aims to resolve the past inadequacies, offering a description in which the adverbs are ranked equivalently to counterfactual markers. As such, the negative inferences are hypothesised to be counterfactual implicatures, the counterfactuality derived from the interaction of the two principles of the Quantity maxim of Grice (1975). The hypothesis is supported by the argument that evidence for entailments may vary according to context, that almost may function as a predictive marker, and that the grammaticalisation of items with a similar function crosslinguistically verifies the pragmatic development of the meaning of proximity. The indefeasibility of the implicatures associated with almost is explained by means of a given Principle, which is proposed to apply generally to counterfactual meaning across other grammatical environments.