--- title: "Embedded implicatures observed: a comment on Geurts and" description: "This short reply tests a claim by Geurts & Pouscoulous (2009a). 5 references, cited by 3 papers here." authors: ["Charles Clifton", "Chad Dube"] year: 2010 venue: "Semantics and Pragmatics" source: "https://semprag.org/index.php/sp/article/view/sp.3.7" doi: "10.3765/sp.3.7" licence: "CC BY (Semantics and Pragmatics, journal policy)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/clifton-2010-embedded-implicatures-observed-comment-geurts/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/clifton-2010-embedded-implicatures-observed-comment-geurts/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2010](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2010/page/2/) / Embedded implicatures observed: a comment on Geurts and Pouscoulous (2009) # Embedded implicatures observed: a comment on Geurts and Pouscoulous (2009) **Authors:** Charles Clifton and Chad Dube · **Year:** 2010 · **Venue:** [Semantics and Pragmatics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/semantics-and-pragmatics/) ([Semantics and Pragmatics 2010](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/semantics-and-pragmatics/2010/)) · **Publisher:** [Linguistic Society of America](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/linguistic-society-of-america/) · **Licence:** [CC BY (Semantics and Pragmatics, journal policy)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.3.7) · [PDF](https://semprag.org/index.php/sp/article/download/sp.3.7/808) · [DOI 10.3765/sp.3.7](https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.3.7) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W1968540695) **Citations:** 59 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · 3 in our library, of the 141,840 papers whose bibliographies we read ## Summary This short reply tests a claim by Geurts & Pouscoulous (2009a). They argued that when a scalar word like *some* is embedded under a universal, for instance in a sentence saying that every square is linked to some of the circles, it does not get strengthened to "some but not all." Their evidence came from a yes/no picture verification task. Clifton and Dube argue that this task is biased. A sentence can count as a "correct" description of a picture even when it is not the best one. They replaced the yes/no judgement with a forced choice among four options: picture A, picture B, both, or neither. One picture fits the locally strengthened reading and the other fits only the literal reading. - **Non-embedded *some* (Experiment 1):** readers clearly chose the "some but not all" picture. - **Embedded *some* (Experiment 2):** "both" was the most common answer. When readers did pick one picture, they preferred the strengthened one. When neither picture fit the strengthened reading, many rejected both. The authors conclude that the case against embedded implicatures is not established. Such readings seem possible but not obligatory, which creates problems for both Gricean and mainstream conventionalist accounts. ## Key points - Geurts & Pouscoulous's own data show that the task changes the result. For simple *some*, 62% accepted the strengthened inference in a written task, but only 34% rejected the picture in verification. - Experiment 1 involved 36 UMass undergraduates, 4 critical *some* items, and 84 other items (practice, fillers, other experiments). The strengthened picture B beat A, with a 95% CI of the difference of .54–.82. "Both" did not rise above the .25 chance level. - In Experiment 2 (*all/each … some*), when picture B was strengthened, choices were: | Option | *all* | *each* | |---|---|---| | B (strengthened) | 39% | 38% | | Both | 57% | 63% | | A | 3% | 0% | - When neither picture was strengthened, "neither" rose to 17% (*all*) and 21% (*each*). A was chosen more often than B (28/24% vs 6/4%). - The authors note that minimal conventionalism, or treating *some* as simply ambiguous, fits the data. They consider these views too unconstraining to adopt except as a last resort. ## Interesting ideas - Asking which option fits best, rather than whether one option is acceptable, exposes preferences that a yes/no judgement hides, because weak but true readings always pass yes/no. - Adding a control version where no option satisfies the strong reading, and then counting rejections, gives an independent signal that the strong reading is active. - The "less-wrong" analysis counts how many entities violate the strengthened reading in each picture, which explains a graded preference without assuming all-or-nothing truth. - Embedded strengthening seems optional and weaker than unembedded strengthening, so implicatures should carry context-dependent strength rather than always firing. - Running both a verbal inference task and a picture task on the same items showed that each method has its own bias. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (learn): Evaluate implicature handling by having the model rank competing world states for a sentence, rather than checking each one against the text in isolation. - **I2** (learn): Build negative-control items where no candidate world matches the strengthened reading, and check that the system then rejects all candidates instead of picking one. - **I3** (world): When scoring a text's world against a reading, count violating entities to give a graded mismatch score instead of a single true/false. - **I4** (frames): In crate prag, mark *some* under *all/each* as an optional, low-confidence "not all" implicature. Unembedded *some* should get a strong default. - **I5** (answer): Probe the same implicature through both a direct entailment question and a scenario-choice question, and treat disagreement between them as a diagnostic. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [University of Massachusetts Amherst](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-massachusetts-amherst/) — University, Amherst Center, United States · 67 works · 64,591 citations 📚 Shelves (5): [🖥️ Computer Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · 9,085 works · [🤖 Artificial Intelligence](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · 8,888 works · [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 9,296 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 9,206 works · [🤔 Philosophy](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/philosophy/) · 211 works 🧭 Topics (1): [😉 Implicature](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/implicature/) · 72 works ## Cite Cite as: Charles Clifton and Chad Dube. 2010. Embedded implicatures observed: a comment on Geurts and Pouscoulous (2009). Semantics and Pragmatics. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @article{clifton2010embedded, title = {{Embedded implicatures observed: a comment on Geurts and Pouscoulous (2009)}}, author = {Charles Clifton and Chad Dube}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, year = {2010}, doi = {10.3765/sp.3.7}, url = {https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.3.7} } ``` - [← previous A Cascade Method for Detecting Hedges and their Scope in Natural Language Text](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/tang-2010-cascade-method-detecting-hedges-their/) - [next → Using an Error-Annotated Learner Corpus to Develop an ESL/EFL Error Correction System](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/han-2010-error-annotated-learner-corpus-develop/) - [↑ back to papers of 2010](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2010/page/2/) ## References 5 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work. 1. Chemla, Emmanuel. 2009. Universal Implicatures and free choice effects: Experimental data. Semantics and Pragmatics 2(2). 1–33. doi:10.3765/sp.2.2. [↗](https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.2.2) 2. Chierchia, Gennaro, Danny Fox & Benjamin Spector. 2008. The grammatical view of scalar implicatures and the relationship between semantics and pragmatics. In Claudia Maienborn, Klaus von Heusinger & Paul Portner (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. [http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/](http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/) WMzY2ZmY/CFS_EmbeddedSIs.pdf. To appear. [↗](http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/) 3. Geurts, Bart. 2009. Scalar implicatures and local pragmatics. Mind and Language 24(1). 51–79. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2008.01353.x. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2008.01353.x) 4. Geurts, Bart & Nausicaa Pouscoulous. 2009a. Embedded implicatures?!? Semantics and Pragmatics 2(4). 1–34. doi:10.3765/sp.2.4. [↗](https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.2.4) 5. Geurts, Bart & Nausicaa Pouscoulous. 2009b. Free choice for all: a response to Emmanuel Chemla. Semantics and Pragmatics 2(5). 1–10. doi:10.3765/sp.2.5. Charles Clifton, Jr. Tobin Hall 135 Hicks Way University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 USA cec@psych.umass.edu Chad Dube Tobin Hall 135 Hicks Way University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 USA cdube@psych.umass.edu [↗](https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.2.5) *Updated 24 October 2026*