RT list: "my"

-----Original Message-----
From: Paulo Sousa <p.sousa@qub.ac.uk>
To: relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk <relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk>
Sent: Sun, Jan 10, 2010 3:48 pm
Subject: RT list: help on possessive pronoums and preposition "for"
Dear all,
I'm looking for current work on the semantics and pragmatics of
possessive pronouns...  
... My interest is quite general. I just want to know about work
that discusses the range of meanings that pronoums like "my" can help
to convey in different contexts, and if there is any sense in claiming
that these pronoums have some stable semantic feature that remains
constant across contexts.

---
Well, I´m titling this post, "my", since to title it "possessive" is 
already a theory-laden move, as Hanson would call it. I would think 
that to echo Kant, it´s all "Relation" here. So, yes, the stable 
semantic feature is that the item in question relates to the personal 
pronoun in question. I don´t think ownership or possessiveness is the 
right word, whatever the Greek grammarians which the Romans translated 
were thinking about. Recall that grammatical labels postdate the uses 
they label. In that case, one can imagine that they started pretty 
early in Grice´s myth about things (vide Wharton, last chapter, CUP).
    Tarzan: Me Tarzan, you Jane.
    Jane: And these (pointing to her fingers)
    Tarzan: Those yours.
    Jane: And these (holding HIS fingers now)
    Tarzan: Those MINE!
----
But again, philosophically, nothing belongs to nobody. Recall ¨The best 
things in life are free:
   The flowers in spring
    The robins that sing
    The sunbeams that shine
    They're yours, they're mine
In any case, consider Grice on "one", "one woman", "my woman", "one 
wife", "my wife". It would be otiose or anti-Occamian (Do not multiply 
senses beyond necessity) and to claim that each use has a "sense". The 
only sense possible is this connected with Kant´s category of 
"Relation" -- taken up by Grice as one of the four conversational 
categories --. All further addenda are implicata.
Incidentally, Relation also plays a richer role than Grice allows in 
his only example that breaches it:
    A: Mrs. Smith is an old bag.
    B: The weather has been delightful this summer, hasn´t it?
In terms of Kant´s relation, and using D. S. M. Wilson´s & Neil V. 
Smith´s presuppositional analysis in The Results of Chomsky´s 
revolution, we get:
    A: Something happens.
    B: Indeed, and something has happened. Odd, but true, no?
--- What needs to be analysed is why English needs ´his´ and ´hers´ and 
Italian doesn´t! Who´s machista now? The Italians are particular too in 
dropping the "la", which should be ALWAYS otiose, when it relates to 
family members. This sort of irritates me, and apparently it started in 
Tuscany. It should be dropped in ALL cases, I say!
In dialectal northern English -- D. Blakemore should be able to 
confirm, "ours" is used sometimes in the vocative case in a rather 
irritating way for a Southerner:
            -- Our Doris, thee shouldn´t go to the market place on thy 
own.
           -- But, our Maggie, why wouldn´t I?
The use of possessive pronouns in English should be analysed in 
connection with Locke and his private property right claims. For the 
native Americans, it´s all "us" and "ours" -- including global warming. 
And I would not be surprised if there is a native language out there, 
-- cfr. this department of UCL where Firth belonged and which 
specialised in non-western languages -- that lacks the grammatical mark 
of possessiveness altogether.
Grice would say that´s unthinkable. Words to the perlocutionary effect: 
a pirot needs to be able to refer to itself, and to its addressee, and 
it should be able to express a content that yields an item that relates 
to both itself and the addresee. The presence of a third pirot in the 
picture will complicate things -- two´s company, three´s a crowd. Once 
the reference to the persons -- with the metaphysical problems involved 
more or less sort -- vide Anscombe on the First person -- pirots should 
proceed to expand Russell´s iota operator of the definite descriptor to 
attach specifically to the pirot itself, its addressee, and any third 
pirot passing by.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
   for the Grice Circle
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza