The syntactic structure of asymmetric conjunction

Abstract A central issue in pragmatics is the meaning difference between logical operators and their counterparts in natural language. Unlike the symmetric operator of conjunction, sentences in the natural language can be interpreted in an asymmetric way. This phenomenon is traditionally regarded as a phenomenon at the semantics-pragmatics interface. However, recent studies have suggested that the syntactic structure of the coordinated sentence may also play a role in the interpretation of asymmetric conjunction. The investigation in this article shows that a special syntactic structure is neither necessary nor sufficient for the presence of asymmetric conjunction. There is no one-to-one correspondence between a certain syntactic structure and asymmetric meaning aspects between the conjuncts, but syntactic factors have an influence on the preferences in interpreting coordinated sentences, which illustrates the importance of establishing a direct link between syntax and pragmatics.