S C A L A RI M P L I C A T U R E SP/O L A R I T YP H E N O M E N A /A N D T H E S Y N T A X / P R A C M A T I CI S

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86 S T R U C T U R EASN D B E Y O N D

causeof ungrammaticality in intervention cases.However, I think that the specific

This raises,however,a generalissuefor our proposal.Let me try to lay it out as
form in which factivity getsrealizedinbecaaseclausesis indeedresponsiblefor their
clearly as I can. Implicatures are, in general,cancellable.Shouldn't we expect, there-
peculiarbehavior vis-d-vis intervention. Let me try to illustrate this idea. Consider a
fore, ihat when they are removed, intervention effects should disappearor be weak-
sentencelike (137a) on the LF schemaricallyindicaredin (137b):
ened with any kindof intervener?Shouldn't we, in other words, expect that if we
remove the relevant implicafixe, every should behave like many? For that matter,
(I37) a. Johndidn't complainbecause
Mary wasin a badmood.
how can we possibly reiy on implicatures, generally held to be an extragrammatical
b. not [JohncomplainedBEcAUsEMary wasin a bad mood]
phenomenon,to account for the degradedgrammatical status of certain sentences?
The point is that, for independentreasorls,the claim that implicatures are exffa-
The problem is the following. If, assumingan LF-isomorphic to (137b), we ernbed
grammatical is probably wrong. Or rather, whether we like to think of them as extra-
anNPI in the main clause,we get intervention (whereasif we embedit in the subor-
grammatical or not, scalar implicatures are computed in parallel to the syntactic
dinateclause,we do not). Now supposethat the factive natureof becauseclausesis
computation, and (at appropriate stages)the results of the two computational pro-
due to the circumstancethat they actually involve a double assertion.Suppose,in
..rr., are accessibleto each other. Look in particular at the present setup. For any
other terms, that a sentencesuch as "John complained becauseMary was in a bad
expressiono, we have a well-defined characterizationof its plain meaning lloll and
mood" is literally interpretedas "John complainedand that was causedby Mary's
oflts strong one llslls. This enablesus to directly state a condition in NPl-licensing
beingin a bad mood." Accordingly, the logical form of a plain (nonnegated)because
in terms of strong meanings. Strengtheningmust be checked with respectto strong
clauselike (138a)is as shownin (138b):
meanings.The fact that implicatures can be cancelled (i.e., that in certain contexts
*. *unt to useplain meanings)does not and cannot affect this fact. If sentenceswith
(138) a. Johncomplained
because
Mary wasin a badmood
any failto be stronger than the strong version of the corresponding sentenceswith
b. lJohncomplained]i
md cAUsE(Mary wasin a badmood,xi)
some,the condition on any licensing cannotbe met. And that's the end of it.
To clarify further, Suppose,for example, I try to say, "I doubt that every student
So,becauseclausesare covert conjunctive statementswhere the first conjunct is the
has any background." Grammar gives me two meanings,the plain one ll I doubt that
mainclause(which is actuallyasserted)and the secondconjunct is formedby the cAUSE
every student has any backgroundll and the strong one lll doubt that every student
operator;the secondargumentof the latter [x1in (l3Sb)] is a covert pronominal ele-
has any backgroundlls.It doesnot matter which one I choose.Whichever one I choose,
mentbound by the main clause.This reflects the intuition that "p becauseq" does two
I am required to check whether it entails the relevant competitor, which is lll doubt
things:assertsp and adds to it a specification of what causesit. Now consider what
that every studenthas some backgroundlls.Since that fails, the sentencein question
wouldhappenif we embeda structurelike (138b)under negation,as in (139):
is ruled out. The disappearanceof intervention with numeralsor a quantifier like many
is an all togetherdifferent matter. In that case,by simply choosinga suitable scale
(139) not [[Johncomplained];
andcAUsE(Marywasin a badmood,x1)l
(which we independentlyknow that we must be able to do), we can get a strong
meaninglll doubt that many studentshave any backgroundlls,which is equivalentto
Formula(139) is of the form - (p ^ q); such formulas, as we saw above,generally
its plain meaning; with respect to such an interpretation, strengthening is met and
implicate(p v q). That is, the strong meaningof (139) would be
ony itgrammatical. Independentlymotivated axioms on scalespreventme from doing
the same with every (and other operators)
(140) - [[Johncomplained]1
n causn(Mary wasin a badmood,x1)l
Let us now turn to other types of sentential operators-t/ and becauseclauses.
n [[Johncomplained],v causr (Mary wasin a badmood,x1)l
A puzzling aspectof intervention noted above was the fact that r/clauses, although
involving u uniu"tral quantifier over worlds, show no intervention effect. The an-
Given the factivity of cAUsE(i.e., the fact that CAUSE (p, q) entailsp ^ q), formula
swer to that, frorn the presentpoint of view, is straightforward. It is not the inherent
(if (la0) is provably equivalentto
feature of an operator that causesintervention. It is, rather, its position on a scale
any). ffclauses are not part of a lexicalized scale.Hence, under negation they don't
(141) Uohncomplainedli
n - cAUsE(Marywasin a badmood,x;)
trau" a positive implicature of the sort that could get in the way of NPl-licensing.
This leads us to the issue of becauseclauses.They do show intervention effects.
In otherwords, the strongmeaningof (139) would be (141). This would explain why
However, just like fclauses, becauseclausesdo not seemto belong to a scale.Hence,
wide scopenegation of a becauseclause is generally construed as negatingjust the
it is not obvious what my approachmight have to say about them. Although this might
cause,not what gets caused.A further consequenceof this approachis that when-
well turn out to be a problr*, thrr" area few preliminary considerationsthat are worth
evernegationis construedas having wide scope,an NPI in the main clausecan never
pointing out. The obvious observation is that becauseclausesare strongly factive.
be licensed.Consider,for example,(121d'), whose logical form (under the current
ihir, pi, ,., is not enough to conclude much. We know that NPIs may be licensed
hypothesis)is given in what follows:
by cenain factives, llke be surprised,2eandthus factivity by itself can hardly be the