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    The felicity argument in P2-P3 therefore underdetermines ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The collective-distributive ambiguity in sentences like 'John and Jane moved a piano' is not due to an ambiguity in the conjunction 'and'

    The felicity argument in P2-P3 therefore underdetermines the locus of ambiguity, since polysemy in 'and' is compatible with the observed felicity data.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Felicity judgments reflect pragmatic acceptability, not semantic structure, so multiple semantic analyses can yield identical felicity patterns.
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    • 2.Polysemy in 'and' (temporal, logical, additive senses) is independently motivated by linguistic data across languages and discourse contexts.
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    • 3.If felicity alone cannot distinguish monosemy from polysemy, we need additional evidence (corpus frequency, processing, cross-linguistic patterns) to settle the issue.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.If polysemy were correct, native speakers should show differential processing costs or explicit meaning distinctions; uniform felicity suggests unified meaning.
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    • 2.Invoking polysemy to explain observed data without independent grammatical constraints risks unfalsifiability: any felicity pattern becomes compatible with some 'and' sense.
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    • 3.Pragmatic principles (relevance, informativeness) can derive apparent 'and' senses from a single logical operator, making polysemy explanatorily redundant.
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    Related

    Felicity judgments reflect pragmatic acceptability, not semantic structure, so m...If felicity alone cannot distinguish monosemy from polysemy, we need additional ...If polysemy were correct, native speakers should show differential processing co...Invoking polysemy to explain observed data without independent grammatical const...
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    Polysemy in 'and' (temporal, logical, additive senses) is independently motivate...Pragmatic principles (relevance, informativeness) can derive apparent 'and' sens...The collective-distributive ambiguity in sentences like 'John and Jane moved a p...

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