Embedded implicature in a new interactive paradigm

Abstract

Previous research on scalar implicature has primarily relied on metalinguistic judgmenttasks and found varying rates of such inferences depending on the nature of the task andcontextual manipulations. This paper introduces a novel interactive paradigm involving both aproduction and a comprehension component, thereby fixing a precise conversational context.The main research question is what is reliably communicated by some in this communicativesetting, when the quantifier occurs in unembedded positions as well as embedded positions.Our new paradigm involves an action-based task from which participants’ interpretation of utterancescan be inferred. It incorporates a game–theoretic design, including a precise modelto predict participants’ behaviour in the experimental context. Our study shows that embeddedand unembedded implicatures are reliably communicated by some. We propose two cognitiveprinciples which describe what can be left unsaid. In our experimental context, a productionstrategy based on these principles is more efficient (with equal communicative success andshorter utterances) than a strategy based on literal descriptions.Keywords: scalar implicature, embedded implicature, experimental pragmatics, game–theoreticpragmatics.