We are developing a test for ad-hoc (ad-hoc) and scalar implicatures (SI) and are showing 3 images (of similar nature) to the participants: image, image with 1 item, image with 2 items.
E.g. Plate with pasta, a plate with pasta and sauce, a plate with pasta, sauce and meatballs.
A question for an ad-hoc is: My pasta has meatballs, which is my pasta?
Q. for an SI is: My pasta has sauce or meatballs, which is my pasta? (pasta with sauce is the target item since we are testing pragmatic implicatures, where 'or' means 'not both'.)
The item that causes many difficulties in making up questions is the image without any items, ie. plate with pasta. How do we phrase the question so that it elicits this image as a target response, without using too complex syntax?
Negation; "My plate has no sauce or meatballs", "My plate has only pasta, no sauce and no meatballs", seems like a complex structure to introduce as a counterbalance to the other type of items.
Has anyone tested something similar, without negation? We would be grateful for any kind of tips and hints.
Does the phrase have to include 'meatballs' or 'pasta'? Could you not say something like: "My plate is empty"?
Also, I would imagine that syntactic complexity would depend on the characteristics of your participants. Are you concerned that they will find the phrases too complex? Have you run a pilot study to verify if that is the case?
Chris Dixon Thank you for the contribution! We thought about it and actually we will go with it for now, as 'empty' could be the ad hoc implicature. Only the plate then is the subject, not the pasta. But we will give 'empty' a shot!
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