Embedded Implicatures and Experimental Constraints: A Reply to Geurts & Pouscoulous and Chemla

Abstract

Experimental evidence on embedded implicatures by Chemla (2009b) and Geurts & Pouscoulous (2009a) has fewer theoretical consequences than assumed: On the one hand, the evidence successfully argues against obligatory local implicature computation, which has however already been discredited. On the other hand, the data are fully consistent with optional local implicature computation.