Optionality in the Use of Too: The Role of Reduction and Similarity

Abstract

Este artigo lida com a propriedade da obrigatoriedade que é frequentemente descrita como uma característica da classe das partículas aditivas (e.g., o advérbio too (“também”)). Em resumo, essas partículas são chamadas de obrigatórias porque omiti-las em um discurso criaria ou um resultado infeliz ou a derivação de inferências indesejadas. Uma linha comum de análise trata essa propriedade como booleana. O consenso geral costuma ser que se uma partícula aditiva pode ser usada num discurso, então ela tem que ser usada. Contudo, alguns exemplos mostram que essa propriedade provavelmente recebe um melhor tratamento como sendo gradiente. Neste trabalho, investigaremos algumas das condições que afetam essa obrigatoriedade. Em primeiro lugar, baseado em um pequeno experimento com corpora, avaliaremos a frequência dos usos obrigatórios e opcionais de too. Depois, tendo estabelecido que os casos opcionais não são excepcionais, apresentamos resultado de um experimento que avalia o efeito da elipse e da anáfora na obrigatoriedade das partículas aditivas.

The discursive function and presuppositional nature of additives

“…In a corpus study using the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English (LLC), Spenader (2002) found that too served mainly the purpose of signalling parallel information. Similarly, Amsili et al (2016) found that aussi (French too) signals similarity of the sentence containing aussi -the host sentence -and its antecedent. Varying degrees of similarity between antecedent and host were tested based on the assumption that similarity is marked to a greater extent when the host is reduced via ellipsis or anaphora.…”

“…For example, in one condition the host sentence was identical to the antecedent (see (8a) for the English equivalent), whereas in the more reduced manipulations the objects were replaced gradually by pronouns (8b-8c). Amsili et al (2016) found that the more reduced the host sentence was -and arguably more similar to the antecedent 3 -the more aussi was preferred by hearers. From the speakers' perspective this would mean that with increasing similarity the pressure to utter additive particles such as too increases.…”

“…Whereas empirical research mostly investigated 'immediate' contexts where the antecedent either immediately precedes or is part of the host sentence (e.g. Amsili et al 2016, Grubic & Wierzba 2019, Kripke (2009) argues that in order for additives to be used felicitously, the antecedent has merely to be part of the interlocutors' 'active context', which is said to contain the salient material that is on the interlocutors' minds. Thus, according to Kripke (2009), additives are felicitous even if the antecedent was mentioned a while back or not at all as long as the antecedent is salient.…”

On the scope and nature ofMaximise Presupposition

“…There are alternative views on the data maintaining an MP!-based explanation and competition on the presuppositional level. To capture the influence of different discourse factors, Amsili et al (2015), Winterstein (2009) and Winterstein and Zeevat (2012) propose a more complex presupposition of 'too' incorporating a sensitivity to argumentative identity/similarity. The lack of projection illustrated by ( 33) is not straightforward under these accounts.…”

“…The claim that additive marking is optional in (33‐b)–(33‐d) is supported by experimental data (Bade, 2016; Bade & Renans, 2021; Bade & Tiemann, 2016). Another empirical observation is that the obligatory insertion of ‘too’ depends on several discourse factors, including enumeration structures (Amsili & Beyssade, 2009), reduction/ellipsis (Amsili et al., 2015), text type (Eckardt & Fränkel, 2012) and clefts/contrast (Bade, 2016; Bade & Renans, 2021). Bade's focus exhaustivity based analysis derives these discourse effects from the relation of focus to exhaustivity more generally.…”