In this paper I provide a unified analysis of a number of pragmatic anomalies that have been discussed in the literature. The paper’s main goal is to account for Sobel sequences of conditionals and sequences of disjunctive sentences, but I will also propose that this analysis can be extended to sequences of sentences with superlatives. The starting point is the observation that, while all these sequences are felicitous in one order, they are infelicitous when the order is reversed. Previous proposals have focussed on particular types of infelicitous sequences (e.g. von Fintel, in: Kenstowicz (ed) Ken Hale: A life in language, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001; Moss in Nous 46:516–586, 2012; Lewis in Nous 52:481–507, 2018; a.o.), or a subset of all the phenomena cited above (e.g. Singh in On competition between only and exh, 2008b; Linguist Philos 31:245–260, 2008c; Dohrn, in: Pistoia-Reda, Domaneschi (eds) Linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches on implicatures and presuppositions. Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke, 2017; a.o.). I propose that sequences of sentences belonging to the same structured set of alternatives T are subject to a Specificity Constraint (SC): sequences are acceptable if both alternatives are dominated by the same number of nodes in the structured set of alternatives T. Violations of SC can be avoided by strengthening the weaker alternative. However, covert strengthening violates an economy condition if the overtly stronger alternative is among those made salient by the preceding utterance in the sequence (if any). I propose that the set of alternatives made salient by an utterance of a sentence s consists of s’s sisters and mother in T. I will show that the strengthening mechanism varies depending on the kind of sequence we have.

中文翻译：

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Sobel 序列的种类

在本文中，我对文献中讨论过的一些语用异常进行了统一分析。这篇论文的主要目标是解释条件句的 Sobel 序列和析取句的序列，但我也会建议这种分析可以扩展到带有最高级的句子序列。出发点是观察到，虽然所有这些序列在一个顺序中都是合适的，但当顺序颠倒时它们是不合适的。以前的提议侧重于特定类型的不恰当序列（例如 von Fintel，在：Kenstowicz (ed) Ken Hale: A life in language, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001; Moss in Nous 46:516–586, 2012; Lewis in Nous 52:481–507, 2018; ao)，或上述所有现象的一个子集（例如 Singh 在 On Competition between only and exh, 2008b; Linguist Philos 31: 245–260, 2008c；Dohrn, in: Pistoia-Reda, Domaneschi (eds) 关于含义和预设的语言学和心理语言学方法。帕尔格雷夫·麦克米兰，贝辛斯托克，2017 年；啊）。我建议属于同一结构化选项集 T 的句子序列受特定约束（SC）的约束：如果两个选项都由结构化选项集 T 中相同数量的节点支配，则序列是可以接受的。可以通过加强较弱的替代方案来避免。然而，如果明显更强的替代方案是由序列中的前一个话语（如果有的话）突出的替代方案，则隐性强化违反了经济条件。我建议通过句子 s 的发声而突出的一组备选方案由 T 中 s 的姐妹和母亲组成。