Processing Intonationally Implicated Contrast versus Negation in American English

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Intonational contours in English can convey pragmatic meanings, specifically conversational implicatures.
• The L+H* L-H% contour is hypothesized to implicate that a relevant alternative proposition is false.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how frequently and quickly naïve participants derive pragmatic meanings from the L+H* L-H% intonational contour.
• To compare the processing of intonationally implicated alternatives with lexical negation.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted using sentences with L+H* L-H% contours, broad focus affirmative, and negative counterparts.
• Experiment 1 assessed interpretation frequencies.
• Experiment 2 used a picture-naming paradigm to map activation levels of asserted and alternative meanings over time.

Main Results:

• Most L+H* L-H% sentences yielded the expected implicature, but not all.
• Lexical negation led to earlier activation contrast between asserted and alternative meanings compared to the L+H* L-H% contour.
• For L+H* L-H% sentences, activation shifted over time, with the implicated alternative becoming highly active as the asserted meaning declined.

Conclusions:

• The L+H* L-H% contour facilitates pragmatic enrichment, but this process unfolds over time.
• Intonation and lexical negation engage distinct temporal dynamics in processing alternatives.
• Findings enhance understanding of pragmatic processing in negation and intonation.