2

G E N N A R OC H I E R C H T A

Scalarlmplicatures,
PolarityPhenomena,and the
Syntax/Pragmatics
Interface

1. Introduction

Negativepolarity phenomena'as exemplified

in the behavior of English any, and
scalarimplicatures'as exemplified by, say,
the interpretationsof some(i.e.,,,atleast
oneandpossibly all" vs. "at leastone but
not all"), have often beenfelt io ue closely
related'l However, the exact natureof such
a relationship remains asof now not fully
understood,insofar as I can tell. And in
fact, some important empirical genercliza-
tions pertaining to it, if not altogethermissed,
have perhapsnot beenproperly appre_
ciated'In this chapter,I addressthe issue
of what *. tt relevant factual connections
betweenscalar implicature and negative polarity
and"what we can learn from this
aboutthe grammatical mechanismsat the
Lasis of th.r" phenomena.one of the fea-
turesthat makesthe analysisof negativepolarity
items (NpIs) and scalarimplicatures
(sls) particularly interesting is that
they raise a number of key questionsconcerning
how syntax, semantics,and pragmaticsinteract
with eachother. we will mostly focus
on the interface of pragmatics with syntax
and semantics.More specifically, here is
a widespreadview of the latter. Grammar (which
includes syntax and semantics)is
a computational system that delivers, say, pairs
of phonetic representationsand in-
terpretedlogical forms. The output of the
computaiional systernis passedonto the
conceptuavpragmaticsystem that employs
it for concretecommunication. The com-
putationalsystemof grammarand the conceptuavpragmatic
system*r r.p*ute units
and work in a modular way: each unit is blind
; d.t inner workings of the other.
Things like agreementor c-cornmand belong
to grammar; things like relevance or
conversationalmaxims belong to the conceptualtpiagmatic
systeir. Thi,
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