Patients with psychosis struggle with scalar implicatures

Pragmatic language difficulties in people with psychosis have been demonstrated repeatedly but one of the most studied types of pragmatic language, i.e. scalar implicatures (SIs), has not yet been examined in this population. SIs are a special kind of pragmatic inferences, based on linguistic expressions like some, or, must. Such expressions are part of a scale of informativeness organized by informativity (e.g. some/many/all). Although semantically the less informative expressions imply the more informative ones, pragmatically people generally infer that the use of a less informative expression implies that the more informative option is not applicable.

Source: Schizophrenia Research - September 6, 2017 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Martien Wampers, Sofie Schrauwen, Marc De Hert, Leen Gielen, Walter Schaeken Source Type: research