English bare long appears to be a negative polarity item. But a more revealing way to think of it is to say that bare long just needs something to be present that can carry it along, within its containing DP, to a pre-indefinite article position. Negation is one such something; degree words are another. Bare long differs in this respect from a long time, with a long time showing no need for either negation or a degree word. The reason is that a long time contains no silent TIME in need of licensing. The apparent negative polarity character of bare long is a side effect of its containing TIME.

Vocatives (terms for calling and addressing) have been studied from various perspectives but there has been little research on them from the viewpoint of Gricean implicatures. The goal of the present paper is to show that a new light can be shed on vocatives by looking at them from the perspective of Gricean implicatures. After reviewing previous works on vocatives in terms of conventional implicatures and generalized conversational implicatures, I point out that there is a systematic way of yielding particularized conversational implicatures in vocatives. I argue that they are metaphoric in nature and can be captured by the Cooperative Principle and the first maxim of quality. Some theoretical implications of the findings are also discussed.