Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Trivium pursuits
- 2 Ex nihilo: the grammar of polarity
- 3 Licensing and the logic of scalar models
- 4 Sensitivity as inherent scalar semantics
- 5 The elements of sensitivity
- 6 The scalar lexicon
- 7 The family of English indefinite polarity items
- 8 Polarity and the architecture of grammar
- 9 The pragmatics of polarity licensing
- 10 Visions and revisions
- Appendix: A catalogue of English polarity items
- Notes
- References
- General index
- Person index
5 - The elements of sensitivity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Trivium pursuits
- 2 Ex nihilo: the grammar of polarity
- 3 Licensing and the logic of scalar models
- 4 Sensitivity as inherent scalar semantics
- 5 The elements of sensitivity
- 6 The scalar lexicon
- 7 The family of English indefinite polarity items
- 8 Polarity and the architecture of grammar
- 9 The pragmatics of polarity licensing
- 10 Visions and revisions
- Appendix: A catalogue of English polarity items
- Notes
- References
- General index
- Person index
Summary
The Informativity Hypothesis
This book began with a mystery. Polarity items seem like such peculiar constructions, their patterns of distribution so apparently unmotivated, one wonders why such forms should exist in any language. But polarity items might not be so mysterious after all. Thus far I have argued that polarity sensitivity is a regular function of the meanings of polarity items. The theory is that polarity items are scalar operators and that polarity sensitivity is a sensitivity to scalar inferencing. This is the “Scalar Model of Polarity,” or simply, the Scalar Model.
The key to the Scalar Model is the idea that polarity items are defined by their rhetorical functions, and particularly by the argumentative force which they contribute to the expression of a proposition. Certain polarity items are associated with the expression of emphatic propositions. Others are associated with the expression of attenuating propositions. The hypothesis is that these associations are not just incidental facts about the uses of polarity items, but essential facts about the nature of grammatical sensitivity. Polarity items are sensitive precisely because they are conventionally associated with these rhetorical functions.
The Informativity Hypothesis makes two claims about the lexical semantics of polarity items:
i) Polarity items profile an element with a fixed q-value, either high or low in an ordered set of semantic alternatives.
ii) Polarity items are conventionally construed with a fixed i-value, either emphatic or attenuating with respect to their ordered alternatives.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Grammar of PolarityPragmatics, Sensitivity, and the Logic of Scales, pp. 104 - 125Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011