Maximize conventional implicatures!
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Abstract
It is argued that the comparison between an uttered sentence and a set of relevant alternatives carrying a stronger conventional implicature may give rise to scalar inferences akin to already known instances of the phenomenon, such as scalar implicatures and antipresuppositions. I label these inferences anti-conventional implicatures. Evidence for this thesis comes from the examination of a number of expressions like nominal appositives, supplementary adverbs (e.g., luckily, amazingly), emotive markers (e.g., alas, wow!), epithets, expressive adjectives and the Spanish honorific don/doña. After arguing that anti-conventional implicatures constitute a bona fide phenomenon and addressing (and dismissing) a number of objections to the view, I conclude the article by examining some of the properties of anti-conventional implicatures as compared to their cousins, scalar implicatures and antipresuppositions.
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