Hostname: page-component-77c78cf97d-d2fvj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-04T15:24:49.264Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Most

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Mira Ariel
Mira Ariel*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
*
Linguistics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel [mariel@post.tau.ac.il]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ever since Horn 1972, it has been a received view that the lexical meaning of scalar quantifiers specifies only a lower bound. Most, it is assumed, codes ‘more than half, also covering ‘all’. To account for most's common interpretation, ‘more than half but less than all’, linguists have assumed a ‘not all’ implicature. I argue that the implicature analysis cannot account for most of the discourse data, and that the upper bound on most is independent of a ‘not all’ implicature. Furthermore, based on questionnaire results, I propose a different semantics-pragmatics division of labor. Most denotes ‘a proper subset which is the largest subset given any partitioning of the complement subsets’. Thus, most's lexical meaning does provide an upper bound, but pragmatic inferences may nonetheless sometimes render its use compatible with states of affairs in which ‘all’ is true.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 80 , Issue 4 , December 2004 , pp. 658 - 706
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ariel, Mira. 1990. Accessing NP antecedents. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 1994. Interpreting anaphoric expressions: A cognitive versus a pragmatic approach. Journal of Linguistics 30. 3–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 2002a. The demise of a unique concept of literal meaning. Journal of Pragmatics 34. 361–402. (Special issue on Literal, minimal and salient meanings.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 2002b. Privileged interactional interpretations. Journal of Pragmatics 34. 1003–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 2002c. The possessive NP construction: Discourse function and discourse profile. Berkeley Linguistics Society 28. 15–26.Google Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 2003. Does most mean “more than half’? Berkeley Linguistics Society 29. 17–30.Google Scholar
Ariel, Mira. 2005. A ‘just that’ lexical meaning for most. In Turner and von Heusing, to appear.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atlas, Jay David, and Levinson, Stephen C.. 1981. It-clefts, informativeness, and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised standard version). Radical pragmatics, ed. by Cole, Peter, 1–61. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bass, Bernard M, Cascio, Wayne F.; and O'Connor, Edward J.. 1974. Magnitude estimations of expressions of frequency and amount, journal of Applied Psychology 59. 313–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan; and Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Essex: Longman.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere; and Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carston, Robyn. 1990. Quantity maxims and generalized implicature. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 2. 1–31. [Revised version, Lingua 96.213-44, 1995.]Google Scholar
Carston, Robyn. 1998. Informativeness, relevance and scalar implicature. Relevance theory: Applications and interpretations, ed. by Carston, Robyn and Uchida, Seiji, 179–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carston, Robyn. 2002. Thoughts and utterances. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. 1994. Discourse, consciousness, and time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro. 2004. Scalar implicatures, polarity phenomena, and the syntax/pragmatics interface. Structures and beyond: The cartography of syntactic structures, voi. 3, ed. by Belletti, Adriana, 39–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro, and McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 1990. Meaning and grammar: An introduction to semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chueka, Yaakov. 1997. Rav milim—ha-milon ha-shalem la-ivrit ha-chadasha (A Flebrew Dictionary). Tel Aviv: Sifrey Hemed.Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Thompson, Sandra A.. 2005. A linguistic practice for retracting overstatements: Concessive repair. Syntax and lexis in conversation, ed. by Haulinen, Auli and Selting, Margret. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, to appear.Google Scholar
Davis, Wayne A. 1998. Implicature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Morgan, Augustus. 1847. Formal logic. London: Taylor and Walton.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 1980. Beyond definiteness: The trace of identity in discourse. The pear stories, ed. by Chafe, Wallace L., 203–74. Norwood: Ablex.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 1998. Reference and identification: Definiteness from a discourse point of view. Paper presented at Tel Aviv University Colloquium, January 29, 1998.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2001. Stance: Intersubjectivity and the pragmatic differential in dialogic interaction. Paper presented at the Hebrew department colloquium, Tel Aviv University, December 30, 2001.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W., Chafe, Wallace L., Meyer, Charles; and Thompson, Sandra A.. 2000. Santa Barbara Corpus of spoken American English, Part 1. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W., Chafe, Wallace L., Meyer, Charles, Thompson, Sandra A.; and Nil, Martey 2003. Santa Barbara Corpus of spoken American English, Part 2. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.Google Scholar
Even-Shoshan, Abraham. 1982. Ha-milon he-chadash (A Hebrew dictionary). Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer.Google Scholar
Fauconnier, Gilles. 1975a. Pragmatic scales and logical structure. Linguistic Inquiry 6. 353–75.Google Scholar
Fauconnier, Gilles. 1975b. Polarity and the scale principle. Chicago Linguistic Society 11. 188–99.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J., Kay, Paul; and O'Connor, Mary Catherine. 1988. Regularity and idiomaticky in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language 64. 501–38.Google Scholar
Foolen, Ad. 1991. Metalinguistic negation and pragmatic ambiguity: Some comments on a proposal by Laurence Horn. Pragmatics 1. 217–37.Google Scholar
Gamut, L. Τ. F. 1991. Logic, language, and meaning, vol. I: Introduction to logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gazdar, Gerald. 1979. Pragmatics: Implicature, presupposition, and logical form. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Geis, Michael L., and Zwicky, Arnold M.. 1971. On invited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 2. 561–66.Google Scholar
Gesenius, William. 1907/1974. A Hebrew and English lexicon of the Old Testament. Ed. by Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Briggs, Charles A.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Geurts, Bart. 1998. Scalars. Lexikalische Semantik aus kognitiver Sicht, ed. by Ludewig, Petra and Geurts, Bart, 95–117. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Green, Mitchell S. 1995. Quantity, volubility, and some varieties of discourse. Linguistics and Philosophy 18. 83–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, ed. by Cole, Peter and Morgan, Jerry L., 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1978. Further notes on logic and conversation. Syntax and semantics 9: Pragmatics, ed. by Cole, Peter, 41–57. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Sir William, of Edinburgh. 1860. Lectures on logic. Edinburgh: Blackwood and Sons.Google Scholar
Harnish, Robert M. 1976. Logical form and implicature. An integrated theory of linguistic ability, ed. by Bever, Thomas G., Katz, Jerrold J., and Langendoen, D. Terence, 313–91. Sussex: Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1997. Cognitive foundations of grammar. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschberg, Julia Bell. 1991. A theory of scalar implicature. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1991. On the principles of grammaticization. Approaches to grammaticalization, vol. 1, ed. by Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Heine, Bernd, 17–35. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J., and Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1972. On the semantic properties of logical operators in English. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club, mimeo.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1984. A new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicatures. Meaning, form and use in context: Linguistic applications (GURT ‘84), ed. by Schiffrin, Deborah, 11–42. Washington. DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1989. A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1992. The said and the unsaid. Proceedings of the second conference on semantics and linguistic theory (SALT 2), 163–92. Columbus: The Ohio State University, Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 2002. Assertoric inertia and NPI licensing. Chicago Linguistic Society 38.2.55–82.Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 2005. The border wars: A neo-Gricean perspective. In Turner and von Heusinger, to appear.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Just, Marcel Adam, and Carpenter, Patricia Ann. 1971. Comprehension of negation with quantification. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 10. 244–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kadmon, Nirit. 2001. Formal pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Keenan, Edward L. 1996. The semantics of determiners. The handbook of contemporary semantic theory, ed. by Lappin, Shalom, 41–63. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kempson, Ruth M. 1986. Ambiguity, and the semantics-pragmatics distinction. Meaning and interpretation, ed. by Travis, Charles, 77–103. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Koenig, Jean-Pierre. 1991. Scalar predicates and negation: Punctual semantics and interval interpretations. Chicago Linguistic Society 27. 140–55.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 1995. The semantics and pragmatics of polarity items. Linguistic Analysis 25. 209–57.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1985. The several logics of quantification. Berkeley Linguistics Society 11. 175–95.Google Scholar
Landman, Fred. 1998. Plurals and maximalization. Events and grammar, ed. by Rothstein, Susan, 237–71. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Landman, Fred. 2000. Events and plurality. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, vol. I: Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1995. Raising and transparency. Language 71. 1–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey N. 1983. Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1987. Minimization and uncooperative inference. The pragmatic perspective, ed. by Verschueren, Jef and Bertuccelli-Papi, Maria, 61–129. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1991. Pragmatic reduction of the binding conditions revisited. Journal of Linguistics 27. 107–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 2000. Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lotan, Saul. 1990. A Hebrew transcript of a conversation between a businessman and income tax clerks. Tel Aviv: Chever, ms.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yo. 1995. The conversational condition on Horn scales. Linguistics and Philosophy 18. 21–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1981. Everything that linguists have always wanted to know about logic but were ashamed to ask. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1867. An examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy. 3rd edn. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Morris, Celia. 1994. Bearing witness. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Moxey, Linda M. 1986. A psychological investigation of the use and interpretation of English quantifiers. Glasgow: University of Glasgow dissertation.Google Scholar
Moxey, Linda M., and Sanford, Anthony J.. 1987. Quantifiers and focus. Journal of Semantics 5. 189–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moxey, Linda M., and Sanford, Anthony J.. 1993a. Prior expectation and the interpretation of natural language quantifiers. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 5. 73–91,CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moxey, Linda M., and Sanford, Anthony J.. 1993b. Communicating quantities: A psychological perspective. Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Moxey, Linda JVL, and Sanford, Anthony J.. 1997. Choosing the right quantifier: Usage in the context of communication. Conversation: Cognitive, communicative and social perspectives, ed. by Givón, T., 207–31. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Newstead, Stephen E. 1995. Gricean implicature and syllogistic reasoning. Journal of Memory and Language 34. 644–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noveck, Ira A. 2001. When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition 78. 165–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noveck, Ira A., and Posada, Andres. 2003. Characterizing the time course of an implicature: An evoked potentials study. Brain and Language 85. 203–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Papafragou, Anna. 2002. Scalar implicatures in language acquisition: Some evidence from Modern Greek. Chicago Linguistic Society 38. 507–18.Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna, and Musolino, Julien. 2003. Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognition 86. 253–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Papafragou, Anna, and Schwarz, Naomi. 2005. Most wanted: Explorations in scalar semantics. Language acquisition, to appear. (Special issue: Negation and Quantification.)Google Scholar
Papafragou, Anna, and Tantalou, Niki. 2004. Children's computation of implicatures. Language Acquisition 12, to appear.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pi ïterson, Philip L. 1979. On the logic of ‘few’, ‘many’, and ‘most’. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 20. 155–79.Google Scholar
Politzer, Guy. 1986. Laws of language use and formal logic. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 15. 47–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Politzer, Guy. 1990. Immediate deduction between quantified sentences. Lines of thinking: Reflections on the psychology of thought, ed. by Gilhooly, K. J., Keane, M. T. G., Logie, R. H., and Erdos, G., 85–97. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Politzer, Guy. 2004. Reasoning, judgment, and pragmatics. Experimental pragmatics, ed. by Noveck, Ira A. and Sperber, Dan. Basingstoke: Paigrave Macmillan, to appear.Google Scholar
Récanati, François. 1989. The pragmatics of what is said. Mind and language 4. 295–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rooth, Mats. 1992. A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1. 75–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Routh, David A. 1994. On representations of quanti Hers. Journal of Semantics 11. 194–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation. Ed. by Gail Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sanford, Anthony J., and Garrod, Simon C.. 1981. Understanding written language. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Sanford, Anthony J., Moxey, Linda M.; and Paterson, Kevin B.. 1996. Attentional focusing with quantifiers in production and comprehension. Memory and cognition 24. 144–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sevi, Aldo. 2003. Problems and prospects in a theory of quantity implicatures. Paper presented at the Tel Aviv Linguistics Colloquium, May 8, 2003. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 1977. Vol. II.Google Scholar
Soames, Scott. 1982. How presuppositions are inherited: A solution to the projection problem. Linguistic Inquiry 13. 483–545.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Wilson, Deirdre. 1987. Precis of relevance: Communication and cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10. 697–754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Wilson, Deirdre. 1995. Relevance. 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google ScholarPubMed
Svartvik, Jan, and Quirk, Randolph (eds.) 1980. A corpus of English conversations. (Lund studies in English 56.) Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2004. A critique of Q- and M-inferences in historical pragmatics. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Dasher, Richard B.. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and König, Ekkehard. 1991. The semantics-pragmatics of grammaticalization revisited. Approaches to grammaticalization, vol. I, ed. by Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Heine, Bernd, 189–219. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Ken, and Heusinger, Klaus von (eds.) 2005. Where semantics meets pragmatics. Oxford: Elsevier, to appear.Google Scholar
van Kuppevelt, Jan. 1996. Inferring from topics. Linguistics and Philosophy 19. 393–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar