The first question provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the deniability test. The second question asks you to diagnose satisfaction conditions as presumed or at issue.
In writing up your answer, be sure to explain your reasoning. Give the examples that you use to test your judgments when applying tests. If there are points that you are unclear about, please feel free to ask about them in your answers or explain what is unclear to you.
An utterance of the sentence in (a) will normally lead the interpreter to infer that (b) and (c) are true. However one of these additional implications is an entailment of (a) and one is a conversational implicature of the utterance of (a). Using the deniability test, determine status of these two implications.
a. Margo usually drinks tea at breakfast.
b. Margo sometimes drinks tea at breakfast.
c. Margo doesnÕt always drink tea at breakfast.
In the case of the implication which is a conversational implicature, explain (as well as you can) how you think it arises within an Òecology of implicationÓ governed by principles of Quality, Quantity, and Relevance.
Imagine that you overhear a conversation between A and B. A tells B:
1. John has stopped smoking.
You would probably infer both (2) and (3):
2. John used to smoke.
3. John doesnÕt smoke now.
In this question, we are interested in the status of these two implications. They are both entailments of (1). However one results from a presumed condition and the other is at issue. Apply the appropriate diagnostics to show this.