Plurality and Ignorance - Department of Linguistics

Plurality and Ignorance
Across languages, we find indefinites that convey ignorance on the part of the speaker (Haspelmath
1997). One such indefinite is Spanish algún. Surprisingly, the ignorance component disappears in the plural
version of algún, algunos. This paper argues that the contrast between algún and algunos follows once we
take into account the scalar implicatures triggered by the plural determiner.
1. The Data. The Spanish indefinite algún displays what Alonso-Ovalle and Menndez-Benito (2003)
dub a free choice (FC) epistemic effect: a speaker can utter the sentence in (??) felicitously only if, as
far as she knows, Mary might be dating any of the guys in the Linguistics department. This accounts for
the unacceptability of (??) in a context where the speaker is pointing to a professor of Linguistics who is
dancing on the table.
(1) Marı́a está saliendo con algún chico del departamento de lin
güı́stica.
Mary is going out with algún guy of the department of Linguistics
(2) ¡Mira! Algún profesor de lingüı́stica está bailando lambada encima de esa mesa!
Look! algún professor of Linguistics is dancing lambada on top of that table
In contrast, algunos, the plural version of algún, lacks a FC epistemic effect: (??) can be felicitously uttered
by a speaker who knows which students Marı́a is sharing an apartment with (as shown by the acceptability
of the continuation with “namely”). Likewise, the sentence in (??) can be felicitously uttered when pointing
to a group of professors who are dancing on the table.
(3) a. Marı́a comparte apartamento con algunos estudiantes del departamento, (en concreto con
Marı́a is sharing an apartment with some students in the department, namely
with
Juan y Pedro.)
Juan and Pedro.
b. ¡Mira! Algunos de los profesores están bailando lambada encima de la mesa.
Look! Some of the professors are dancing lambada on
the table.
The behavior of algún vs. algunos in copular clauses confirms the contrast. The example in (??) is only
good if the definite description is interpreted attributively, but not if it is interpreted referentially. In contrast,
(??) and (??) are good in either reading of the definite description. In the case of (??), the referential reading
of the definite description is much more salient, and, as a result, the sentence sounds odd.
(4) a. Los mejores estudiantes del departamento son algunos de los mı́os.
The best
students of the department are some of the mine
‘Some of my students are the best in the department.’
b. Los mejores estudiantes del departamento son algunos estudiantes mı́os.
c. El mejor estudiante del departamento es algún estudiante mı́o.
(5) a. Los de la derecha son algunos de mis estudiantes.
The of the right are algunos of my students
‘The ones on the right are some of my students.’
b. Los de la derecha son algunos estudiantes mı́os.
c. # El de la derecha es algún estudiante mı́o.
2. The Puzzle. The contrast above is puzzling under the (null) hypothesis that the only difference between
algún and algunos is that algunos introduces plurality. Following the analysis of German irgendein in
Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, Alonso-Ovalle and Menéndez Benito 2003 derive the FC component of
algún as a domain widening implicature which conveys that, as far as the speaker knows, any of the subsets
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of the denotation of the common noun may be the one satisfying the existential claim. If we take the plural
determiner in (??) to quantify over plural individuals, we would expect (??), for instance, to convey that, as
far as the speaker knows, any group of students in the department might be the one that Marı́a is sharing an
apartment with.
3. The proposal A further contrast between algún and algunos is responsible for the lack of epistemic
effects in the plural. While algunos is in a scale with todos (“all”) , algún does not: The examples below
show that metalinguistic denial can target a “not-all” implicature in the case of algunos, but not in the case
of algún.
(6) a. Marı́a no compró algunos libros,
¡los compro todos!
Maria not bought algunos books, (she) them bought all
b. # Marı́a no compró algún libro, ¡los compro todos!
(7)
a. Dudo que M. haya comprado algunos libros. ¡Creo que
los compró todos!
I doubt that M. has bought algunos books. I know that she them bought all.
b. # Dudo que M. haya comprado algún libro. ¡Creo que los compro todos!
The scalar implicature associated with algunos clashes with the FC implicature. Take, for instance, the
example in (??): The FC implicature conveys that, as far as the speaker knows, Mary could be living with
any group of students in the department. But the scalar implicature signals that the speaker knows that Mary
is not living with all the students in the department. There is, then, a group of students in the department
that it is not an epistemic possibility for the speaker. In order to resolve this clash, we contend, the FC
implicature is cancelled, and, thus, algunos lacks an epistemic component.
We would like to suggest that the reason the clash is solved in this particular way is that the two implicatures in conflict have different status. Fox 2006 argues that scalar implicatures are derived within the
grammar, while there are other implicatures (e.g., ignorance implicatures) that are derived via pragmatic
reasoning. According to the analysis in Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, the FC implicature belongs to the
latter class. It seems in principle reasonable to expect scalar implicatures to be more resistant than pragmatically derived implicatures, and, thus, to expect the FC implicature to give way to the “not-all” implicature
in cases of clash.Recent work by Giorgio Magri (Magri 2006) can be taken to support this line of reasoning:
Magri shows that scalar implicatures that conflict with common knowledge give rise to oddity (as illustrated
by the example in (??)) therefore, providing evidence that scalar implicatures are more resistant than was
commonly thought.
(8) John assigned the same grade to all of his students. He gave an A to some of them
Emmanuel Chemla)
(attributed to
To sum up, we argue that algunos lacks the FC epistemic effect associated with algún because the former,
but not the latter, triggers a scalar implicature that conflicts with the FC implicature. The analysis of the
contrast between algún and algunos contributes to the research program that investigates the properties of
different types of implicatures.
References. Alonso-Ovalle, L. & Menéndez-Benito, P. (2003) “Some Epistemic Indefinites”, NELS 33, 112. — Chierchia, G. (2004) “Scalar Implicatures, Polarity Phenomena, and the Syntax-Semantics Interface”,
in Belleti, A. (ed.), Structures and Beyond, O.U.P., 39-103. — Fox, D. (2006) “Free Choice Disjunction and
the Theory of Scalar Implicatures”, Ms. M.I.T. — Haspelmath, M. (1997) Indefinite Pronouns, O.U.P. —
Kratzer, A. and Shimoyama, J. (2002) “Indeterminate Phrases: The View from Japanese”, Otsu, Y. (ed.) The
Proceedings of the Third Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics, Hituzi Syobo, Tokio, 1-25. — Magri, G.
(2006) “Sketch of a Theory of Oddness” Ms. MIT,
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