Research
Asymmetric inference towards the antonym: Experiments into the polarity and morphology of negated adjectives
Authors:
Nicolas Ruytenbeek ,
Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS, Research Centre in Linguistics (LaDisco), Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 50, av. F. R. Roosevelt, 1050, BE
About Nicolas
I am a PhD researcher in Semantics and Pragmatics.
Steven Verheyen,
Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, PSL Research University, CNRS, Paris, FR
Benjamin Spector
Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, PSL Research University, CNRS, Paris, FR
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the interpretation of negated antonyms. A sentence such as Peter is not tall can be understood as meaning either that Peter is not tall tout court or that Peter is rather short (inference towards the antonym; ITA). We present the results of two experiments, in which we test two theoretical predictions. First, according to Krifka (2007), it is reasonable to expect a stronger ITA effect for positive versus negative adjectives. Second, elaborating on Krifka (2007), we expect ITA strength asymmetry to be greater for morphological antonymic pairs than for non-morphological pairs. In the first experiment, ITA strength was assessed implicitly by having participants judge the pragmatic acceptability of sentences involving a negated adjective and its antonym. In the second experiment, we collected explicit inferential judgments. The results of both experiments support the two predictions. We also discuss theoretical and methodological issues concerning the different notions of polarity.
How to Cite:
Ruytenbeek, N., Verheyen, S., & Spector, B. (2017). Asymmetric inference towards the antonym: Experiments into the polarity and morphology of negated adjectives. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 2(1), 92. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.151
Published on
20 Oct 2017.
Peer Reviewed
Downloads
