Symmetry resolution and blocking

Abstract

We propose a blocking condition that limits the possible effects of exhaustification: exhaustifying a sentence φ cannot output a meaning that could be expressed as the basic, non-exhaustified, meaning of a sentence that is no more complex than φ . We propose that this blocking condition provides a solution to the so-called symmetry problem. We compare our solution to the proposal in Katzir (2007) and Fox and Katzir (2011), which instead prevents ex-haustification from excluding alternatives that are more complex than the assertion. In support of our blocking condition, we argue that Katzir and Fox’s complexity filter does not actually solve the symmetry problem in full, and in fact is incompatible with exhaustification data. We also argue against a central auxiliary assumption that Katzir and Fox’s account appeals to, viz. the assumption that symmetry cannot be resolved by context.