What is a potential implicature?

Definition
	A potential implicature is an implicature that would arise from any of the components of a given utterance if that component were uttered in some linguistic or extralinguistic context, whether or not the implicature is an actual implicature of the given utterance.

Examples (English)

The sentence I think that some went has two potential implicatures:

The matrix sentence I think … has the potential clausal implicature ‘I don’t know [that some went]’.
The complement clause … some went has the potential scalar implicature ‘Not all went’.

Adapted from:

Levinson 1983 134

Generic
	A potential implicature is a kind of
	What is an implicature?

Concept module: potential implicature
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): P
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004