Asserted and implicated meanings in Catalan 'D´eu n’hi do'

Abstract

In this paper, we present an analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of the lexicalized Catalan expression Deu n’hi do ´ , which embeds wh-clauses, including exclamatives. Interestingly, though, Deu n’hi do ´ sentences do not convey extreme degree, they have have different distributional properties than matrix exclamatives, and they usually – but not always – co-occur with an exclamative intonation. We argue that the peculiar properties of Deu n’hi do ´ derive from the combination of the assertion and the scalar implicature it conveys, plus the conventional implicature generated by this intonation.