>Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 14:15:58 GMT
>From: owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
>To: relevance-approval@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk
>Subject: BOUNCE relevance@ling.ucl.ac.uk: Non-member submission from
[D.Blakemore@salford.ac.uk]
>Dear Colleagues
>
>In response to Thorstein Fretheim=92s comment on my recent paper (JL
>36.3 2000), I would just like to say that yes it is indeed true that RT ha=
>s
>always recognized that the decision to answer indirectly rather than
>directly constrains the hearer=92s search for relevance by leading him to
>access and use particular contextual assumptions (implicated premises)
>and by encouraging him to derive and speculate on additional
>conclusions derivable from these premises. However, this is a pragmatic
>means of constraining the hearer=92s interpretation in the sense that the
>speaker is exploiting the hearer=92s assumption that the indirect answer i=
>s
>optimally relevant: there is no sense in which the linguistic form of the
>answer encodes a line of processing. My article (and indeed most of my
>work) has to do with the linguistic encoding of procedural information,
>and I was specifically concerned with the question of what kind of
>procedural information linguistic expressions and structures may encode,
>or in other words, what the information encoded by linguistic
>expressions and structures looks like. I think that everyone who has
>worked on procedural encoding (including myself) has been rather vague
>about this, and it is time that we were more specific. It seems that in my=
>
>previous work I had simply assumed that expressions which encode
>procedural information encoded information about the type of contextual
>effect intended, where this is defined in terms of the type of inferential=
>
>computation involved (the derivation of a contextual implication,
>contradiction and elimination and strengthening). As I say in the JL
>article, I have acknowledged that expressions like =91so=92 and =91but=92
>constrain the hearer=92s choice of context, but according to my analyses,
>they do this only derivatively (the hearer has to use those contextual
>assumptions which allows him to derive the sort of contextual effect
>encoded by the expression). It takes very little thought to realize that t=
>his
>does not allow us to distinguish the meanings of closely related but
>different expressions (e.g. =91But=92, =91still=92 =91however=92, =91yet=92=
>, =91nevertheless=92).
>Moreover, it is not clear that it enables us to analyse expressions like
>=91well=92 or =91anyway=92 since they do not seem to be associated with an=
>y one
>of the three types of contextual effect. My aim in the JL article was to
>take a closer look at =91but=92 and =91nevertheless=92 and to see whether =
>the
>framework I have developed was able to account for the difference
>between =91but=92 and =91nevertheless=92. My conclusion was that it would =
>only
>if we allow for the (direct) encoding of information about context. As I
>say in the conclusion, this should not be surprising. For as Thorstein
>has said, the interpretation recovered depends not only on the kind of
>inferential procedure involved but also on the contextual assumptions
>used. Linguistically encoded procedural information must in principle be
>information about any aspect of the inferential phase of utterance
>interpretation. However, I think it needed saying.
>
>As for your other comment Thorstein, you may be right, but I would
>need some examples to demonstrate that this is the case.
>
>
>Diane Blakemore
>
>
-------------------------------------------------
Robyn Carston
Department of Phonetics & Linguistics, UCL
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Tel: + 44 020 7679 3174
Fax: + 44 020 7383 4108
URL http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/home.htm
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