A Minimally Sufficient Analysis of Sufficiency Modal Constructions

EasyChair Preprint 9418, version 2

Abstract

A well-known compositionality problem involves the interaction between `only' and teleological modality: `only' can weaken a necessity statement and a necessity modal can suspend a characteristic inference associated with `only', the inference to the prejacent. Existing proposals all resort to non-standard assumptions either about `only' or what it combines with. We show that a standard analysis of `only' and a plausible analysis of teleological modality can account for the compositionality problem.

Keyphrases: only, prejacent problem, scalar alternatives, sufficiency modal construction, teleological modality

@booklet{EasyChair:9418,
  author    = {Cleo Condoravdi and Itamar Francez},
  title     = {A Minimally Sufficient Analysis of Sufficiency Modal Constructions},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 9418},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2022}}