Re: RT list: Re: Translating BUT

Miri,

Thanks for your contribution. Again, my question is: how does the hearer select the relevant procedure from all the independent procedures said to be encoded in the linguistic item but? An answer would be consideration of contexual information available. But but is claimed to specify 'certain properties of context', isn't it? So is it the case that context information helps to determine which of the procedures of but is in opertation or that the procedure encoded in but determines or guides the hearer in the selection/construction of context?

Minh

Miri Hussein <M'i.Hussein@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote: I agree with you, Minh, that the denial, contrast and correction’ but’ do
not encode the same procedure. There is actually a (slight) difference
between the three meanings encoded by ‘but’. That is why ‘but’ is
translated to different words in some languages as is previously claimed
by Anscombre and Ducrot (1977) and Horn (1989.

For instance, in Standard Arabic there are three different corresponding
lexical items to ‘but’:

a) Lakinna (the denial but)

‘He is rich lakinna-hu stingy’

b) ’Innama (the contrast but)

‘John is rich ’innama Peter is poor’

c) Bal (the correction but)

He is not rich bal poor

These three lexical items which are all translations of ‘but’ in English
are not replaceable. I think that the relevance theoretic uni-procedural
analysis of ‘but’ proposed by Blakemore (1987, 2002) and Iten (2005)
cannot account for these three different meanings in the same way, i.e.
‘but’ in the tree uses does not encoded one and the same procedure, as you
speculate.

An alternative account could be that ‘but’ is a multi-procedural
linguistic expression. It encodes different procedures and thus puts
separate (though related) constraints on the inferential part of the
interpretation of the utterance in which it occurs. I don’t have a clear
idea so far how this could be done, but it could be something like:

In stead of having one general (unified) procedure of ‘but’ as in (1):

(1) What follows (Q) contradicts and eliminates an assumption that
is manifest
              in the context.

We can have three different (though related) procedures:

In the case of denial, the procedure could be that:

‘The following clause is relevant as a denial and replacement of an
assumption communicated (or manifest) in the preceding clause’

(NB the following clause = the clause that follows but & preceding clause
= the clause the precedes but)

In the case of contrast, it could be:

‘The following clause is relevant as contradiction and replacement of an
assumption communicated (or manifest) the preceding clause’

In the third case, the procedure could be:

‘The following clause is relevant as correction and replacement of an
assumption communicated (or manifest) the preceding clause’

It seems to be that these three procedures are related in the sense the
content of the but-clause in the three cases replaces the assumption
communicated in the preceding clause. However, these procedures are
different due to the differences between three linguistically encoded
meanings of ‘but’ namely ‘denying’, ‘contradicting’ and correcting’

To deny something does not really mean to contradict or correct it, or to
contradict something, you don’t have to correct it, etc.

> It is well-known that several languages have separate words for
> denial/contrast but and for correction but [nhung and mà in Vietnamese,
> aber and sondern in German, pero and sino in Spanish, and Swedish,
> Finnish, and Hebrew as reported in Iten (2005: 123 book)]. Fraser (2006)
> also reports a similar observation with Arabic, Catalan, Danish,
> Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Korean, Sinhala, Spanish, and
> Vietnamese. Let me take Vietnamese as a case study.
>
>
> B = but; N = nhung; M = mà
>
>
>
> 1. It is true that denial B is/must be translated in Vietnamese as N.
>
> (a)
> - He’s rich but very stingy.
> - Ông ta giàu nhung r&#7845;t b&#7911;n x&#7881;n.
>
> 2. It follows from (1) that encoded in denial B and N is one and the
> same procedure. Otherwise it would be a bad/unacceptable or even
> impossible translation.
>
>
> 3. It’s true that correction B is/must be translated into Vietnamese as
> M (not N).
>
> (b)
> - John is not my father but my uncle.
> - John không ph&#7843;i là b&#7889; tôi mà là chú tôi.
>
> 4. It follows from (3) that encoded in correction B and M is one and the
> same procedure. Otherwise the translation would be bad or unacceptable
> or even impossible.
>
>
> 5. It is true that RT claims that denial B and correction B encode one
> and the same procedure, that RT does not distinguish between the two.
>
>
> 6. It follows from (2, 4 and 5) that encoded in N and M and B is one and
> the same procedure. This does not seem to be right, since it is true
> that N and M cannot be intersubstituted.
>
>
> 7. It follows from (6) that B seems to be procedurally ambiguous. This
> is not to mention other special uses of but as in (c-d) below.
>
>
> (c) Every one but John was there.
> But must be translated as tr&#7915; (except)
> M&#7885;i ngu&#7901;i ð&#7873;u có m&#7863;t &#7903; ðó tr&#7915; John
> M&#7885;i ngu&#7901;i tr&#7915; John ð&#7873;u có m&#7863;t &#7903; ðó.
>
>
> (d) You can’t expect much from him. He is but a three year old boy.
> This but must be translated as ch&#7881; (only/ just)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Miri Hussein
PhD Student in Linguistics
Semantics and Pragmatics
School of English Language and Linguistics
Percy Building
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
Website: http://www.students.ncl.ac.uk/miri.hussein/
       
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