Gradable adjective interpretation under negation: The role of competition

Abstract

Gradable adjectives have recently drawn a lot of attention in experimental semantics/pragmatics regarding the different interpretations they trigger depending on scale structure, polarity, extremeness, and presence of negation (e.g., Gotzner et al. 2018b; a; Leffel et al. 2019). The current study investigates the interpretation of relative and absolute gradable adjectives in the scope of negation (e.g., not large and not clean, respectively) capitalizing on the role of competition between alternative expressions in adjective interpretation. Our experimental results show that contextual competition between adjective expressions affects the interpretative asymmetry characteristic of positive and negative relative adjectives in the scope of negation (not large vs. not small; see Horn 1989). However, we do not find evidence that contextual competition affects the symmetric interpretation patterns of positive (not clean) and negative absolute adjectives (not dirty) under negation, or that potential relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives hinge on the availability of overt contextual competition. The attested polarity asymmetry of negated relative adjectives is captured by Horn’s pragmatic theory. The apparent availability of relative-like interpretations of negated absolute adjectives are hypothesized to result from a reasoning akin to Horn’s division of pragmatic labor.