Séminaire CLLE-ERSS, 10 octobre 2013
14h00 - 16h00 (D30, Maison de la recherche)

Laia Mayol, Grup de Lingüística Formal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

A cross-linguistic study of direct denial as a diagnostic for meaning types

One of the diagnostics that has been used to identify different types of meanings and, ultimately, to test the distinction between so-called at-issue and projective content is direct denial, here defined as the ability to say 'No' in response to a statement. The claim in the literature is that only at-issue content can be the target of direct denial, while projective content (which includes presuppositions and conventional implicatures) can only be indirectly denied. However, the theoretical literature does not make a case for possible variations within the subtypes of projective content (with the exception of non-restrictive relative clauses, cf. Koev 2012), and different kinds of denials are not taken into consideration.

In the first part of the talk, I will present the results of an experiment testing the direct deniability of different meaning subtypes in English. It will be shown that the type of direct denial interacts with meaning type and that the heterogeneity of categories such as CIs leads to heterogeneity in felicity ratings. In the second part of the talk, I will present the results for the same experiment in Catalan and Spanish, which shows that the test is subject to cross-linguistic differences. Finally, I will discuss the theoretical implications of the experimental data.