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<p>Iatridou and Tatevosov (Linguist Philos 39:295–331, 2016) (I&amp;T) discuss and analyze cases where <i>even</i> focuses a whole question (Question-Focusing [QF]-<i>even</i>) and suggest that it (a) triggers a scalar presupposition that compares its prejacent question to alternatives questions in C, which (b) requires that this question is the least-likely to be asked (paralleling the commonly-used unlikelihood-based presupposition of “garden variety” [GV]-<i>even</i>). In this paper, we follow I&amp;T’s proposal in (a) but show that there are theoretical and empirical challenges for (b), pointing out that these challenges parallel some of the issues independently raised for the unlikelihood-based presupposition of GV-<i>even</i>. We propose, instead, that the relevant scale for QF-<i>even</i> is based on “helpfulness”, so the prejacent question is the one that is presupposed to be most helpful for deciding about the speaker’s next actions. We show how our helpfulness-based proposal can account for the issues raised for the unlikelihood-based proposal, and discuss the significance of the analysis of QF-<i>even</i> to the research on <i>even</i> in general. Finally, we examine a challenge for our proposal, namely the fact that a felicitous use of QF-<i>even</i> requires a “gap” between the speaker’s and interlocutor’s assessment of the helpfulness of the prejacent question. We raise the possibility to hardwire this gap inference into the semantics of QF-<i>even</i>, but examine also an alternative direction, deriving it from the competition with the shorter <i>even</i>-less question, as a mandatory “Need a Reason” (NaR) implicature (in the spirit of Lauer 2014), discussing also potential interactions with Maximize Presupposition! (MP!).</p>

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On the scalar presupposition of Question-Focusing even

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月1日

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  • Micky Daniels,
  • Yael Greenberg

摘要

Iatridou and Tatevosov (Linguist Philos 39:295–331, 2016) (I&T) discuss and analyze cases where even focuses a whole question (Question-Focusing [QF]-even) and suggest that it (a) triggers a scalar presupposition that compares its prejacent question to alternatives questions in C, which (b) requires that this question is the least-likely to be asked (paralleling the commonly-used unlikelihood-based presupposition of “garden variety” [GV]-even). In this paper, we follow I&T’s proposal in (a) but show that there are theoretical and empirical challenges for (b), pointing out that these challenges parallel some of the issues independently raised for the unlikelihood-based presupposition of GV-even. We propose, instead, that the relevant scale for QF-even is based on “helpfulness”, so the prejacent question is the one that is presupposed to be most helpful for deciding about the speaker’s next actions. We show how our helpfulness-based proposal can account for the issues raised for the unlikelihood-based proposal, and discuss the significance of the analysis of QF-even to the research on even in general. Finally, we examine a challenge for our proposal, namely the fact that a felicitous use of QF-even requires a “gap” between the speaker’s and interlocutor’s assessment of the helpfulness of the prejacent question. We raise the possibility to hardwire this gap inference into the semantics of QF-even, but examine also an alternative direction, deriving it from the competition with the shorter even-less question, as a mandatory “Need a Reason” (NaR) implicature (in the spirit of Lauer 2014), discussing also potential interactions with Maximize Presupposition! (MP!).