Conversational Implicature: from Grice to the Neo-Griceans and back. Some
comments on Levinson on Grice and relevance in _Presumptive Meanings: The
Theory of Generalised Conversational Implicature_. London & Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press. A Bradford Book, Language, Speech & Communication Series.
Further to my forwarding the Linguist's List's review of Levinson's book to
this list...
MODULARITY, RATIONALITY, & RELEVANCE. Levinson: "my modest ambitions
contrast with another recent attempt to recast Grice's theory of
implicature, viz. Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory, which is offered to
us as a wide-ranging cognitive principle from which all pragmatic facts
follow just as do facts about human attention, memory and so on" (p.xiv).
Leaving questions of _truth_ aside, I wonder which "recast" of Grice is
closer to the Gricean spirit (You may not care, but _I_ do chairing the
Grice Circle!). In particular, I have in mind this other following passage
by Levinson (in notes 53 (p.405)): "I argue that pragamtics [be] considered
a component in a theory of meaning in the sense of a set of distinct
principles. Wilson & Sperber argue explicitly aginst this (altho' there may
be some confusing conflation here between the notion of a linguistic
level/component & a module ala Fodor proper). But their arguments are based
on the assumption that GRICEAN MECHANISMS are _not_ inferential principles
SPECIALISED TO COMMUNICATION. I don't make that assumption. Conversational
maxims are SPECIFIC HEURISTICS ADAPTED TO THE NARROW BANDWIDTH OF HUMAN
SPEECH (or other forms of human COMMUNICATION)"
I like his reference to bandwidth. If that's not a much needed appeal to
conversational e-mail minimisation, I don't know what is... Now, isn't one
of Grice's main points that the rationality evidenced in the use of
language (& the design of conversational strategies or the recovery of the
minimal _particularised_ conversational implicature) a special "case" of
agent-rationality? (cfr. Kasher's essay, 'Conversational Maxims &
Rationality" -- perhaps the first philosopher to explore this Gricean
idea). Grice writes:
one of my avowed aims is to see talking as a
_special_ case (or variety) of purposive
(indeed rational) behaviour.
'Logic & Conversation'.
Studies in the Way of Words, p.28
aim which transpires in the existence of analogues (as identified by Grice)
to the 4 (Kantotelian -- I appreciate Levinson seeing something
Aristotelian in this! I hadn't) conversational categories (informativeness,
trustworthiness, relevance, perspicuity) outside _communication_ (meaning,
and conversation proper. And this was not just a whim by Grice as about to
lecture his Harvard audience, but a "strand" in his thought. Consider the
later Grice of 'Retrospective Epilogue' airing the same rationale for
rationality:
I have taken it as a working assumption
that WHETHER A PARTICULAR ENTERPRISE aims
at a SPECIFICALLY CONVERSATIONAL RESULT
OR OUTCOME, or whether its central character
is more generously conceived as HAVING NO
SPECIAL CONNECTIN WITH COMMUNICATION,
THE ***SAME*** PRINCIPLES WILL DETERMINE
THE RATIONALITY OF ITS CONDUCT.
Now, it may be difficult to verify a reference to "the same principle", but
Levinson does that when he considers "anaphora" (intrasentential).
Contrasting OE with MnE he notes that, given that OE lacked grammatical
reflexive pronouns, and yet must have dealt with anaphora, the _same
principle_ must be operative in a no-reflexive language (like OE) and MnE...
Indeed, the rationalist bend of the Grice programme has has been, justly,
identified by the standard exegeses of Grice by philosophers, from A.
Kasher, in 'Conversational Maxims & Rationality' (_Philosophica_), or
Grice's executor R. E. Grandy, in 'Grice on Language', _Symposium on the
Thought of Paul Grice_, chaired by JF Bennett, in the Journal of
Philosophy, vol. 88.
The debate may ensue...
HOMOGENEITY OF MEANING: AGAINST THE POLISEMISATION OF "MEANING". I'm using
the word "polisemisation" in the "sense" of B. Nerlich for a recent essay
in _The Journal of Historical Pragmatics_. Levinson writes: "One aspect of
the Gricean umbrella that is important is the claim that meaning is _not_
homogeneous: i.e the semiotic pie can be cut". But now cfr. Grice's
parsimonious remarks in 'Meaning Revisited':
On general grounds of economy, I am inclined
to think that if one can avoid saying that
the word so-and-so has this sense, tht sense
& the other sense, or this meaning & another
meaning, if one can allow them to be VARIANTS
UNDER A SINGLE PRINCIPLE, that is the desirable
thing to do. & it occurs to me that there is
a ROOT IDEA in the notion of MEANING".
Studies, p.292.
which, personally, I have traced as back as T. Hobbes -- if not Ockham, if
one considers English philosophy written in Latin as being still _English_.
In that passage Grice seems directly to be claiming for the HOMOGENEITY of
meaning (and, eo ipso, indeed, of "meaning").
LEVINSON DISCUSSES KEMPSON's RT-MOTIVATIONS (when the choice of a Theory
Guides Observation?): In his discussion of Kempson -- a member of the
London School of Parsimony and RT, as called by L. R. Horn -- on absolute
cardinality (p.26), Levinson makes the following interesting comment: "The
material difference [between his approach and Kempson's] would be that
instead of having TWO different KINDS of inference & ONE kind of context
(as in my Theory of Generalised Conversational Implicature, where we
distinguish between a DEFAULT generalised conversational implicature and a
perhaps overiding NONCE PARTICULARISED conversational implicature), she
would have
1. ONE KIND OF INFERENCE
2. ONE (default) CONTEXT
3. a fully particular NONCE context.
Levinson adds: "and this amounts to Kempson's (and RT's in general)
reduction of generalised conversational implicature to particularised
conversational implicature". I must say I found that quite illuminating, as
falling within a rather abstract consideration of the implicatures of
_absolute cardinals_. As with many other things, it seems to be a matter of
methodological decision then that guides our observations. Do we multiply
inferences and minimise context, or vice versa? Levinson is all over the
place concerned with (1), i.e. the idea that RT favours a mono-thematic
approach to inference (which would be consistent with RT's mono-thematic
approach to "relevance"). At one point, Levinson says that RT's principle
of relevance is _dualistic_ but I fail to see why... (presumably because it
is both _cognitive_ and _communicational_?). In any case, Levinson's main
criticism of the monothematic RT approach to "one kind of inference" is
that "this one kind of inference" is, ultimately, for the RT as seen by
Levinson, _deductive_, thus failing all the tests for conversational
implicature since Sadock and Grice (1978)... But this is open to debate...
As it was noted in the review of Levinson's book forwarded to this FORUM,
LEVINSON proposes 3 "HEURISTICS" which are his versions of:
1. (Grice's submaxim Q1:
"be as informative as is required")
What isn't said isn't.
2. (Grice's submaxim Q2:
"don't be more informative than required")
What is expressed simply is stereotypically exemplified.
(here he includes an analysis of, eg., BRIDGING as in
1. The picnic was awful. The beer was warm
+> the beer is part of the picnic. (also cited on p.117).
3. (Grice's submaxims M1 & M4:
"avoid obscurity of expression" and "be orderly")
what's said in an abnormal way isn't normal.
He does not suggest that his heuristic are the only ones. Indeed, for a
standard Gricean (like me) one would hope to find rephrases, if needed of
the other 6 maxims -- if we count Grice's extra maxim of Manner in
'Presupposition & Conversational Implicature'). What may be of particular
interest for this forum is Levinson's comparative table of "heuristics" as
regards their pragmtic effects -- vis a vis RT's attempts to deal with the
same scope of phenomena:
FIGURE 1.1. Three Gricean Heuristics:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . Q1 . Q2 . M1&M4 .
. .what isn't . what is . what's said .
. .said, isn't. expressed simply,.in an abnormal way.
. . . is stereotypically.isn't normal .
. . . exemplified . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. I. negative . . . .
. inference . Yes . No . Yes .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. II. meta- . . . .
. linguistic . Yes . No . Yes .
. basis . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. III. contrast . . . .
. between . Yes . N/A . No .
. strong/weak . . . .
. forms . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. IV. contrast . . . .
. bewteen . No . N/A . Yes .
. synonymous . . . .
. forms . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. V. meta- . . . .
. linguistic . Yes . No . Yes .
. negation . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. VI. inference . No . Yes . No .
. to stereotype . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. VII. overriding. . . .
. particularised . None . Q, M . Q .
. implicature . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THE ABSOLUTENESS OF CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE. In his sketch of various
forms of _reasoning_ and how they apply to the modeling of implicature (vis
a vis Levinson's important reflection that it's about high time we consider
implicature as the paradigm of default reasoning rather than vice versa),
Levinson notes: "implicatures seem to be PRESUMED ____abolutely_____, i.e.
not with such-and-such degree of INDUCTIVE support, nor in general do we
seem to think that an utterer means p by x with probability P". I note in
sad passing that Levinson 1983 (Pragmatics, CUP -- influential chapter III)
made a reference to a crucial essay by Grice here, which Grice delivered at
the famous Performadillo Conference,
Probability, Desirability and Mood Operators
-- which Levinson misquotes as "Defeasibility" instead of Desirability. In
that essay -- which Grice refers to in his essay with J. Baker on
"practical reasoning" in Hintikka & Vermazen, cited in the list of Grice's
publications in Grandy/Warner, P.G.R.I.C.E., Oxford -- Grice indeed
explores the _analogies_ of implicature with probablistic inference...
That aside, I must point that of all the models of reasoning, the
practical-reasoning model (attempted early on by Levinson & Atlas) seems
rather promising: One is reminded (as I was by a Harvard philosopher
studying at Harvard (when H.P.G was delivering his "Logic & Conversation),
and to whom I commented the work of the likes of vonNeumann:
"Schelling was teaching at Harvard when I was an undergraduate --- I
understand many philosophical types were impressed with him, tho' I found
him a little creepy because he was so much the Cold Warrior. There was also
a boy wonder named Scott Boorman, who wrote a book purporting to show that
Mao's revolutionary strategies mirrored those in the ancient game of Go.
Also, Robert Nozick understands decision theory very well and often writes
about it."
(I add this because serious work on _strategical reasoning_ as put forward
by philosophers is so much lacking, that I welcome any philosophical
comment to that effect!)
Levinson poses an interesting problem for the Strategical-Rationality Model
(which is _not_ considered by Grandy in his discusson of Mccafferty in the
Grice Symposium): "A number of attempts have been made to model implicature
in terms of pratical reasoning systems (Atlas/Levinson 1973, Brown/Levinson
1978, Mccafferty 1987, Thomason 1987, 1990, Welker 1994). But, even _if_ we
had a complete account of how an utterer PLANS an utterance, complete with
its implicatures, THIS WOULD NOT *****DIRECTLY***** give us an account of
how the implicatures were recovered in comprehension." When I read that, I
must confess, I thought: "how about _in_directly?"
CANCELLABLE IMPLICATURE VS CANCELLed IMPLICATURE. On p.50, Levinson
introduces the symbol, "+>*" which means a "canceled or nonarising
implicature" as e.g. in
2. A: A Saudi Prince has just bought Harrods.
B: Some Saudi Princes must be pretty wealthy.
+>* Not all Said Princes are pretty wealthy.
I mention this because it had not occurred to me that "cancelled"
implicatures needed a special symbol. I once mentioned to this Harvard
undergraduate Levinson's idea of symbolising conversational _non-cancelled_
implicature by "+>" and "defeasible reasoning" by "P ~> Q", and he replied:
In the course of our discussion of Burton-Roberts type of problems ("p & <>
-p"), he wrote:
"I'm enjoying these alternative implication symbols you're introducing me
to. There could be no
end to them, e.g.
p &> q (anyone who says p will say q)
p $> q (q is the financial effect of believing p)
p !> q (p, amazingly, implies q)
p *> q (p implies q, so p must be wrong)
and so on."
This man overides Grice anytime!
GRICE'S FOUR CONVERSATIONAL CATEGORIES: A JOKE ON KANT, and the EVERLASTING
POLEMIC BETWEEN THE REDUCTIONISTS, THE MULTIPLICATIONISTS, and GRICE
HISSELF (sic). Does Relevance Subsumes them (sic) Four? One of the main
criticisms of Levinson to "RT", as far as the exegesis of "good ol'" Grice
is concerned, is that Grice, unlike RT, had a LOCAL account of _relevance_,
which Levinson thinks is the habitual one, since Holdcroft holds this, and
Holdcroft knows. Thus Levinson writes: "I attribute the business of plan
recognition & the inferences that follow from it to a maxim of relevance,
construed much as Grice INTENDED & NOT AT ALL AS SPERBER & WILSON (1986)
reconstruct. For similiar presumptions, see Holdcroft 1987, Mccafferty 1987
and Thomason 1990)." Indeed, perhaps the best illustration of Grice's
account of relevance (as I found it) is by Grice himself, when he uses the
carpentry simile of "DOVE-TAIL":
Contributions should be dovetailed,
mutually dependent
Studies, p.29
I.e. it's in terms of the previous conversational move that one's
utterance's relevance is judged -- cfr. local-relevance accounts of _local_
coherence). Perhaps Levinson's most specific criticism of Sperber and
Wilson's Relevance ("SW-R") is thus his section, "1.6.1.", titled,
"Sperber-Wilson Relevance", where he refers to S & W's reference to the
"mental automatism": "implicature is a _side effect_, as it were, of a
mental automatism". Even if Levinson is not in principle concerned with
_particularised_ converational implicature, he notes that the main problem
of SW-R are indeed with these types of implicatures. He writes: "SW-R seems
to have overwhelming disadvantages as an account of implicature in general,
but it faces even worse problems as an account of particularised
conversational implicatures in particular". Which would be real bad, since
Levinson takes the trouble to quote what S-W think is the relevance of
those particularised conversational implicatures. He does so, as per
reductio, by pointing to what S-W think is the (theoretical)
_non-usefulness_ (even for good ol' Grice) of the notion of _generalised_
conversational implicature. Thus, in note 5 of chapter I, Levinson quotes
from Sperber/Wilson:
Grice's best known examples are particularised
implicatures. The discussion of GENERALISED
implicatures is restricted to a few cases, and
there is no evidence that he saw the distinction
as THEORETICALLY significant
1987:748).
Must say that before reading Levinson's book, I had not realised how hot
topics these could be! Being an Ockhamist (i.e. a nominalist) I hold that
generalised conversational implicature MUST be a rational reconctruciton
out of particularised implicature (that's what "to generalise" means), but
I realise that this has to do more with the _genesis_ of the generalised
implicature than with its theoretical status. In other words, it seems to
me that Grice was partly joking when using such convoluted forms as
"particularised" & "generalised" instead of the simpler "particular" &
"general". "Generalised" does sounds fine: it just suggests that the
implicature is the result of GENERALISING from a given set of particular
implicatures. The term "particularised" (and I think this is where Grice's
joke resides, as if wanting to have his cake and eat it) is more tricky
since it would presuppose, non-nominalistically, that a particularised
implicature is the result of INSTANTIATING a general pattern, very much as
in, say, Plato's theory of ideas.
The two difficulties that Levinson poses for Sperber and Wilson in
1.6.1. are:
1. "SW-R emply deduction, but GCIs & PCIs are non-monotonic" (this relates
to e.g. Kempson's views on absolute cardinality mentioned above).
2. "SW-R, if it makes any clear predictions, probably makes the wrong ones".
Here, Levinson refers to S-W's reply to Levinson, where they point out that
RT "does not predict that THE MOST RELEVANT INTERPRETION CONCEIVABLE is the
RIGHT one". Levinson analyses the imports of their reply. He mentions in
passing what was my first comment on this FORUM, viz. Grice's own criticism
to S/W, in Studies, Retrospective Epilogue (p.371 -- Levinson does this in
note 4 to ch. l on p.380).
THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION. Towards an arithmetical pragmatics. On p.64,
Levinson refers to Grice's "Square of Opposition" (Grice, Studies, p.373)
as having "plagued schoolchildren for two millenia". I mention this partly
as furthering Horn's joke of calling Aristotle the Greek Grice, and partly
to highlight this hot topic of debate by Noel Burton-Roberts in his
criticism of Grice on modality... On p.83, Levinson has the following
figure, which I particularly enjoyed since it figures a pet topic that
boggles my mind: the pleonetetic particles studied by J. Altham in
Cambridge. I quote it here to check if there's relevance-oriented relevant
bibliography on pleonetetics.
A . . . . . . . . . . .E
all none
. contraries .
. .
. .
many ????? few
. .
. .
. subcontraries .
some all
I . . . . . . . . . . .O
Levinson notes that Burton-Roberts was probably wrong in thinking that he
had identified an unresolvable puzzle for Grice. It seems what
Burton-Roberts shown is the _non_-existence of the Horn scale "<NEC p, p>".
Given that Horn Scales are so abundant anyway -- and that Hischberg Scales
are CHEAPER and thus more within my reach -- I don't think Grice would have
cared much!
A HOT TOPIC: ABSOLUTE CARDINALITY, & KEMPSON's MOTIVATIONS, revisited.
Levinson, as we've seen, discusses "cardinals" and Kempson. (The reviewer
in LINGUIST LIST was especially concerned about this). Levinson writes that
Kempson "takes this approach BECAUSE SHE WISHES [obviously] to reduce
generalised conversational implicatures to particularised conversational
implicatures compatible with RT". Honestly, Ockhamist & all, I would never
have thought that the particularised/generalised distinction was as
motivating as that! I am reminded then that Bultinck's review of Levinson
in LINGUIST focuses on numerals. Bultinck being a Dutch linguist with a PhD
(in progress?) on "Numerous Meanings". I think this reference by Levinson
to "reducing" is slightly misleading. Grice is criticised as holding a
reductionist motivation too (of seeing "utterer's meaning as psychological
-- Atlas, Levinson's philoosphical collaborator seeing this as bad). Now,
"reduction" is a tricky word. Grice distinguishes, in 'Retrospective
Epilogue", between "reductive" and "reductionist" (p.351). He says he he is
reductive but not reductionist... Two further problems of this label,
"reductionist" are: 1. it seems to conflate synchrony with diachrony, or
being a victim of the Genetic Fallacy: a generalised implicature may
_reduce_, diachronically, to particularised implicatures. 2. It would do to
anayse the logic of taxonomies here. Grice speaks of "intentions",
"utterer's meaning", "particularised implicature" (what the utterer
particularly implicates), and "generalised implicature" (what she generally
implicates). But this does not mean that there are FOUR different items all
standing there. Grice would hold that, ontologically speaking, it's only
_intentions_ that exist. The other terms are, as it were, terms of art...
WHERE PHONOLOGICAL SUPRASEGMENTALS FIT IN. On p.102 Levinson makes the
interesting claim that if there's a phonetic/pragmatic interface, (note
that he is concerned in much of the book with the semantic/pragmatic
interface -- ch 1-3) and the pragmatic/syntactic interface -- ch. 4), then
that would be a proof that the implicature is PARTICULARISED. "The
inference underlying a particularised conversational implicature requires
either a special "context"
e.g.
3. A: Does he have pets?
B: He has cats
(+> no dogs) Hirschberg 1985
or a special intonation pattern (Ladd 1980, Horn 1989, Ward/Hirschberg)
THUS LYING BEYOND A THEORY OF GENERALISED CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE". As
someone with philosophical background, I am reminded that I can almost
_see_ grand philosophers attending Grice's William James Lectures at
Harvard as being perhaps a bit surprised (shocked?) that Grice is there
dedicating a full section of his THIRD lecture to issues of INTONATION
(Studies, "Stress", pp.50-53)! But I see Grice's point! _My_ point: Grice
would _not_ be concerned with issues of _intonation_ unless they bear on
general issues of communication! What surprises me is that Levinson who
otherwise favours Grice's ICONIC model of language, fails to highlight the
centrality of Grice's implication here. Grice is attempting to reduce the
functionality of INTONATION to iconic features of highlightening...
LEVINSON'S REPLY TO CARSTON's CRITICISM. In reply to Robyn Carston's
criticisms -- she of "the London School of Parsimony" so called by Horn
:)), Levinson introduces now a new symbol, "++>". Despite my Harvard
undergraduate's comments, I have nothing against the symbol or indeed any
new symbol. Actually, I think ++> is a rather cute, as symbols go. What I
do find a bit convoluted is Levinson's paraphrase of it as "the barbaric
*implicate". He means not that _implicate_ is barbaric, which it is
(anyway), but that _"asterisk implicate"_ is barbaric. And paraphrases it
as "the total communicated or conveyed content". My criticism is that
Grice's briefer "MEAN" seems to do the job there! At this stage I realise,
though, how systematic Levinson is trying to be (and cheers for that: it's
great to have most of the implicature bibliography in one single
paperback!) so I think it may pay to have a consideration here of the table
of contents of his offering, since it's rarely for a philosopher to come up
with such detailed divisions & subdivisions since Wittgenstein's
Tractatus... I offer this also because people working with RT may like to
provide something which I think is lacking: an index of the _specific_
English particles that they have analysed ("and", "however", "yet",
"already", "three", etc -- and how each links with a _theoretical issue_).
Interlude: The contents of the book and where RT fits in. The contents are
then:
CONTENTS
conventions
1. typographical.
2. symbols & abbreviations.
preface
1. generalised conversational implicature
0. an argument for the existence of
"generalised convesational implicatures"
1. Grice's programme
2. 3-layers vs. 2 in communication theory.
3. Grice's conversational maxims as "heuristics"
4. a typology of generalised conversational implicature
1. Grice's Q1: "What isn't said, isn't"
2. Grice's Q: "what is expressed simply is
stereotypically exemplified"
3. Grice's M1/M4: "what is said in an abnormal way
isn't normal"
4. interactions of implicatures
vs. clash of heuristics?
5. nonomonotonicity & default reasoning
1. nonmonotonic reasoning systems in general.
2. nonmonotonic inference & conversational implicature
3. the defeasibility of Horn's SCALAR implicature
6. reducing generalised conversational implicature to
nonce utterer's meaning
1. Sperber/Wilson's relevance
Two problems
1. SWR employs deduction, but
GCIs & PCIs are nonmonotonic
2.SW-R, if it makes any clear predictions,
probably makes the wrong ones.
2.Implicature as accomodation (Mccafferty, Thomason)
7. conversational implicature & patterns of lexicalisation
2.1. the phenomena ("the appearances to be saved")
-- Levinson refers to a quote by Grice on the role
of a theory to _save_ the appearances (Gk. "phainomena").
2. Grice's maxim Q1: "What isn't said, isn't"
1. Associated implicatures
2. Entailment scales ("Horn Scales")
1. quantificational/modal operators:
Horn's arithmetic square of oppositions.
Altham's Pleonetetics.
2. Entailment scales over NONlogical predicates
1. General Lexicon
2. Absolute Cardinality (Kempson)
3. Closed-class morphemes & function lexemes.
3. Contrasts based on Lexical Opposition
4. Scalar implicature: generalised or particularised?
5. CLAUSAL implicature
3. Grice's Q2:
"What is simply described is stereotypically exemplified"
1. formulae
2. examples.
4. Grice's M1/M4:
"What is abnormal isn't normal"
1. Horn's division of Labour.
5. Joint Implicature
1. projection problem for implicature.
3. progress in the semantics/pragmatics interface
1.intro
2. the received view.
1. Grice's view: implicatural side to truth-conditions
2. disambiguation
3. indexical resolution
4. reference assignment
5. ellipsis unpacking
6. generality-narrowing
7. A reply to "the Grice Circle"
(Grice Circle being the idea that
the input to implicature is truth-conditions).
(AntiThesis: RT's claim that Truth-Conditions
are Pragmatically Penetrated or Intruded, or
Pervaded).
3. Some INTRUSIVE constructions.
1. comparatives
2. "if" (discussion of Grice, "Indicative Conditionals")
3. negation
4. on referring
1. implicatures fixing definite reference
2. implicaturally-determined reference &
Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction
(no mention of Grice's attempt, in "Vacuous Names",
cited in PGRICE, to reduce that to a pragmatic
thing about identificatory vs non identificatory
uses).
3. The Obstinate Theorist (Kent Bach as an Old Fashioned
Grice)
Levinson seems to suggest that Grice would _not_ be
an old fashioned Gricean (p.188). Which is nice. There seems
to be a presumptive meaning that "old" +> "bad".
("the obstinate theorist (affectionately OT) is principally
an old-fashioned Gricean", p.188).
(I like Levinson's implicatures. In another context he says that S-W make a
point rather well, implicating that ... (p.375)!
4. Pragmatics: pre-semantic & post-semantic
5. 1. intro
2. modularity
3. Sag's proposal within AI.
4. "Discourse Representation Theory" (Kadmon)
5. application
6. getting at _propositions_ & truth-conditions.
4.Intrasentential anaphora & implicature: the case against Chomsky.
1. grammar
2. co-reference vs disjoint reference.
1. local anaphora
2. inferring co-reference
3. inferring disjoint reference
3. binding theory
4. philogenesis vs. ontogenesis
5. the case for a generative pragmatics?
5. Retrospect and prospect
1. predictions
2. presumptive meaning & general aspect of reasoning
(cfr. Grice, 2001, Aspect of Reason, OUP).
3. prospect.
=====
In connection with his polemic with Carston (inter alii), Levinson proposes
on p.195 a handy table which features not only good ol' obstinate theorist
old-fashioned Grice, but Sperber/Wilson, Carston, and Recanati, inter alia.
Since I would think that Recanati is RT, this table by Levinson seems to
suggest thtat there is _some divergence_ even _within_ RT. The table is:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.author .semantic .deictic & .minimal .enriched .additional .
. .representation .reference .proposition.proposition.proposition.
. . . assignment. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.Grice . . .
. . WHAT IS SAID . IMPLICATURE .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.S/W . semantics . explicature .implicature.
. . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.Carston . semantics . explicature . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .
.implicature.
. . what is said. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.Recanati . WHAT IS SAID .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . sentence . .
. . meaning . explicature .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Unfortunately, I fail to have any intuitions about "say"! All I can say is
that when I read Grice I don't see what he's heading for! All that
delightful "fuss" of an Oxford philosopher so much concerned about what we
mean by _say_! We all know that already, don't we? Has anyone analysed if
the O.E.D. considers the "shades of meaning" of "say"? Unlike Grice's
"implicate" (or rather "implicatURE) which is a barbaric neologism already
-- unless you hold that -URE is a productive suffix), I did wonder if J.
Murray, qua editor of the OED, considered that things which are _not_
really (strictly) _said_ (utterered) are part of what is said!
This is what I retrieved from the OED:
"SAID: quasi-sb. Something said or spoken. nonce-use. 1578 Florio 1st
Fruites 18 b,
So say I also. But from the said unto
the deed there is a great throw.
Not very illuminating. So I tried the LOOONG entry for "say". "Cfr. Frisian
"sizze", Dutch "zeggen", German "sagen", Latin "insquam" (= "I say").
Murray notes: "In some northern poetry the two forms (say, sagge)
occasionally occur in juxtaposition as distinct words,
Tille I have seggid & said all my saw.
York Myst. xxxii. 16.
I point this because it would seem that we have _two_ lexical entries
there! The OED has: "Signification. In English, as in other Germanic
languages, "say" is an approximate synonym of "speak", from which it
differs in having normally as its object a particular word or series of
words, or a sentence
REPRESENTING THE *****MEANING*****
of a particular series of words."
Philosophers familiar with the vast literature on D. Davidson's OED-based
analysis on "saying that" ('On Saying That', Synthese) may symphatise with
that!
"Cf. L. "insquam". The word designates ____not the action of speaking
itself____, but its relation to THE OBJECT ("what is said")". Important
test by Murray: "its use with reference to written expression does not
ordinarily, like the similar use of "speak", involve any consciousness of
metaphor."
Some relevant uses of "say" listed in the OED:
1. 1. to utter/pronounce a _specified_ word/words, or any articulate sound.
In wider context, used of an author or a book, with quoted words as object.
Also figurative use: of things: to suggest, to indicate.
2. to declare or state in words (a specified fact, thought, opinion, or
_intention_). Introduced by "that".
Also transf. and fig. = "to convey", "communicate".
"to mean"
to indicate.
1840 J. H. Newman Par. Serm.
Let us aim at meaning what we say & saying what we mean.
cfr. Cavell, Must we mean what we say, as an early criticism of Grice, in
Inquiry, vol. 1!
1881 H. James Portrait of Lady
I'm afraid there are moments in life
when even Beethoven has nothing to say to us.
1951 M. McLuhan Mech. Bride
By juxtaposition & contrast he is able to `say' a great deal.
1977 Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts CXXV. 602/1
Titian, in the nature of what he can & does `say'
is at least as close to Cezanne or Francis Bacon
as he is to Sannazaro or Aretino.
1878 Huxley Physiogr.
Rocks which thus allow water to filter
thru them are said to be permeable.
"you('ve) said it": you are absolutely right; you have got the point
completely; I agree with you entirely."
1970 N. Streatfeild Thursday's Child vii. 52
'It is a big place, there must be a lot of servants needed.'..
'You've said it.'
1921 I. Berlin (song-title) Say it with music.
1960 G. Mikes How to be Inimitable 33,
I used to say it with flowers.
Quite gallant, no doubt.
But with cognac it is so much quicker.
In uneducated use often with repetition: "Says I to myself, says I": "Well,
says Mr. Smith, says he". In perf. (pluperf.) tense: "when he has said" =
"when he has finished speaking". Also = "To tell (a person) to do
something". In modern colloq. use: (a) const. for; (b) without const., the
personal object being understood from the context. In passive, of a person:
"to be ruled, submit to command or advice." Now dialectal. From the 18th c.
often in expressions like "it's hard to say", "I cannot say", where the
verb comes contextually to mean: "to judge, decide". To deliver (a speech,
a discourse); to relate (a story); to express, give (thanks); to tell,
speak (truth, lies); to express (one's opinion). To speak of, mention,
enumerate, describe. To recite or repeat (something that has a prescribed
form)
========
Enough for one to prefer talk of the ellusive Fregean "truth condition" (as
Grice does, Studies, p.364) I say!
Also, it occurs to me that much of Levinson's problem is, again, between
the _genetic issue_ (how are those _truth-conditions_ arrived at) and the
non-genetic issue (what _are_ those truth-conditions, and how do these
truth-conditions relate to implicature, and what are the corresponding
truth-conditions of the associated implicature). Thus, while pragmatic
factors may guide the grasping of the truth-condition of an utterance, it
does not mean that the pragmatic factor _constitute_ those
truth-conditions, does it...
Anyway, there is more to say about all this, and I hate not to have a
conclusion to offer! I have thoroughly enjoyed Levinson's book (not *+>:
I'm still enjoying it). The philosopher in me would have loved more
philosophically-relevant examples (Austin, Nowell-Smith, Urmson, Strawson,
etc), and perhaps more up-dated bibliography re the philosophical
discussion of Implicature (e.g. Wayne Davis's book on _Implicature_ for the
Cambridge Studies in Philosophy Series) but then, one can't have everything...
Congratulations to Levinson on a great book that I hope will shape the
discussion of RT (inter alia) within the framework of a _general_ pragmatic
theory.
Best,
==
J L Speranza, Esq
Country Town
St Michael's Hall Suite 5/8
Calle 58, No 611 Calle Arenales 2021
La Plata CP 1900 Recoleta CP 1124
Tel 541148241050 Tel 542214257817
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
http://www.netverk.com.ar/~jls/
jls@netverk.com.ar
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