Downward entailing

In linguistic semantics, a downward entailing (in short: "DE") expression is one that denotes a monotone decreasing function. A downward entailing expression reverses the relation of semantic strength among expressions. An expression like "run fast" is semantically stronger than the expression "run" since "run fast" is true of fewer things than the latter. Thus the sentence:

John ran fast.

entails the sentence:

John ran.

Examples of DE expressions include "not", "nobody", "few people", "at most two boys". They reverse the entailment relation of sentences formed with the predicates "run fast" and "run", for example. So the following sentence:

Nobody ran.

entails that:

Nobody ran fast.

And the sentence:

At most two boys ran.

entails that:

At most two boys ran fast.

An upwards entailing expression is one that preserves the relation of semantic strength among a set of expressions.

See also

• Entailment (pragmatics)

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