How to cancel an implicature

Abstract

Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicature in general, and scalar implicatures in particular. Despite this fact, cancelability itself is a phenomenon rarely looked at. This paper presents an account of when the cancellation of a scalar implicature is an acceptable discourse move and provides experimental evidence to support our proposal. Our main claim is that the felicity of a scalar implicature cancellation depends on the discourse structure. More speci cally, cancellation is acceptable only if it addresses a Question Under Discussion that di ers from the previous one. As will be shown, this proposal has the additional bene t of permitting us to tease apart cancellations from self-repairs.