Mirative implicatures at the syntax-semantics interface: a surprising association and an unexpected move

This chapter investigates the mirative implicature that is associated with two distinct Romance constructions: Mirative Focus Fronting (MFF) and Doubly Inflection Construction (DIC). Despite the distinct level at which the mirative meaning is syntactically encoded in the two constructions, the mirative import displays consistent properties. Both in MFF and in DIC, this meaning can be captured as a conventional implicature about the falsity of the at-issue proposition in the most normal worlds. The modal parameters that are required to interpret the implicature are anchored to the world and time of utterance and to the conversational community; hence, this mirative implicature is not exclusively anchored to the speaker’s perspective, but it also involves the interlocutor(s) in the attempt to arrive at a joint evaluative commitment. In this respect, it contrasts not only with expressives, but also with the other types of mirative meaning that are described in the literature and that are solely anchored to the speaker.