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<p>In natural language, logical functions that have the formal property of upward-monoto-nicity are pervasive. This is most visible in the prevalence of upward-monotonic operators in the logical lexicon. The object of this paper is to point out that this upward-monotonic bias has important consequences for the composition of the alternative sets used in theories of pragmatics, and to argue for the view first proposed by Bar-Lev and Katzir (<i>Linguistic Inquiry</i>, 2022a. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00497">https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00497</a>) that the function of the bias is to guarantee that alternative sets have certain properties. We argue that it is desirable for sets of alternatives to verify the strongest-answer condition, because it is equivalent to the condition that the exhaustification algorithms that have been proposed in the literature to derive scalar implicatures turn the set into a partition of logical space. Then, we show that in certain formal settings, a strongest-answer condition on alternative sets predicts the upward-monotonic bias, assuming those sets are derived as predicted by the structural theory of alternatives. Putting these things together, the bias lets speakers be maximally informative for a given set of alternatives. Because the strongest-answer condition is also equivalent to Bar-Lev and Katzir’s stability condition, defined in the context of probabilistic models of pragmatics, our argument can be seen as a generalization of their approach, for which we offer independent motivation.</p>

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Towards a pragmatic explanation for the prevalence of upward-monotonicity in natural language: some results on communicative stability, the strongest answer condition, and exhaustification

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月5日

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  • Émile Enguehard

摘要

In natural language, logical functions that have the formal property of upward-monoto-nicity are pervasive. This is most visible in the prevalence of upward-monotonic operators in the logical lexicon. The object of this paper is to point out that this upward-monotonic bias has important consequences for the composition of the alternative sets used in theories of pragmatics, and to argue for the view first proposed by Bar-Lev and Katzir (Linguistic Inquiry, 2022a. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00497) that the function of the bias is to guarantee that alternative sets have certain properties. We argue that it is desirable for sets of alternatives to verify the strongest-answer condition, because it is equivalent to the condition that the exhaustification algorithms that have been proposed in the literature to derive scalar implicatures turn the set into a partition of logical space. Then, we show that in certain formal settings, a strongest-answer condition on alternative sets predicts the upward-monotonic bias, assuming those sets are derived as predicted by the structural theory of alternatives. Putting these things together, the bias lets speakers be maximally informative for a given set of alternatives. Because the strongest-answer condition is also equivalent to Bar-Lev and Katzir’s stability condition, defined in the context of probabilistic models of pragmatics, our argument can be seen as a generalization of their approach, for which we offer independent motivation.