How the position of at least affects its interpretation

Experimental data

Bibliographic Data

ID22130300
AuthorsAlexander Göbel (0000-0002-7920-9071, Princeton University), Michael Wagner (0000-0002-0214-2403, McGill University)
Year2023
Volume8
Issue1
Publication date2023-08-04
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlossa a journal of general linguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2397-1835 • E-ISSN: 2397-1835
PublisherOpen Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.16995/glossa.9273
OpenAlexW4381550427
LanguageEN
References cited11

The Focus-particle at least is known to be ambiguous between two interpretations: an epistemic one conveying uncertainty/ignorance, and a concessive/evaluative one that conveys a desirability ranking. Prior literature has argued that the position of at least determines what interpretation is available: at least is concessive/evaluative adsententially and epistemic adnominally. We present three experiments that investigate how three properties which the two interpretations have been taken to differ on are restricted by the syntactic position of at least, namely entailment of the prejacent, truth of higher alternatives, and desirability. The results overall support the view that the interpretation of at least is restricted by its position as previously claimed by some accounts, but syntactic position seems to dissociate the three properties in ways incompatible with previous assumptions. We discuss the implications of these results for formal accounts of at least

Cognitive psychology · Economics · Epistemology · Ignorance · Linguistics · Skepticism · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence

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