Donáti, Flóra Lili;
Sudo, Yasutada;
(2025)
Additivity, accommodation, and alternatives.
Natural Language Semantics
10.1007/s11050-025-09233-y.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
Sudo_s11050-025-09233-y.pdf Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Additive particles are generally infelicitous in out-of-the-blue contexts. Kripke (in Linguistic Inquiry 40(3):367–386, 2009) puts forward an influential idea that the additive presupposition they trigger has an anaphoric component that cannot be accommodated. Ruys (in Linguistic Inquiry 46(2):343–361, 2015) proposes an alternative analysis that the observation can be explained in terms of conditions on deaccenting, claiming that in light of exceptional cases where additive particles can be used felicitously out of the blue, it is better to analyse the additive presuppositions as existential presuppositions. However, such exceptional cases have not been given a systematic explanation so far. In this paper, we closely examine existing and novel examples where additive presuppositions are felicitously used out of the blue and argue that Ruys’s existential analysis as well as the Kripkean anaphoric approach face empirical issues. We propose a new analysis, according to which the sui generis infelicity of additive particles in out-of-the-blue contexts is due to their focus sensitivity. Specifically, when an additive particle is used, two interpretive processes take place: (i) identification of a contextually relevant set of focus alternatives, and (ii) evaluation of the additive presupposition based on the focus alternatives so identified, which may result in accommodation. We claim that the felicity conditions on out-of-the-blue uses of additive particles emerge from the interplay between (i) and (ii).
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Additivity, accommodation, and alternatives |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11050-025-09233-y |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-025-09233-y |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Additive particles, Presupposition accommodation, Focus, Alternatives |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Linguistics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208704 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
