When does sm mean all?
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Date
2025-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
English has two quantity words that sound very similar (sm and some) but have been argued to have different properties (Postal 1964; Milsark 1977). However, this has never been established empirically. In this experiment, we test the hypothesis that sm has only a logical “some, and possibly all” interpretation, whereas some has a pragmatic “some, but not all” interpretation. In this project, I specifically test adult English speakers’ interpretations of sentences with sm in the subject position, as in the phrase “Sm kids crossed the street.” We hypothesize that this sentence will be acceptable when participants see 3 of 4 kids cross the street and when they see 4 of 4 kids cross the street. To test this hypothesis, I use a stop-motion video context depicting either 3 or 4 kids or 4 or 4 kids in the same scenario, paired with the same sentence in audio. There are 16 experimental items, with six distractor items. Participants indicate acceptance of the sentences as accurate descriptions of the scenarios by pressing keys on a laptop computer. Because previous work has shown that both executive function and lexical ability are predictive of implicature generation, we measure participants’ lexicons using Lextales and measure executive function abilities using the TabCat executive function battery. Results consist of descriptive abilities of acceptance of the sm condition in each scenario and their lexical and executive function scores. These will be entered into a multiple regression analysis. Findings will inform current thinking regarding possible interpretations of the candidate quantifiers.
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Keywords
sm, quantifier, thetic judgment, categorical judgment