-- not to mention the sometime unscrutable "logical form"...
The final passage to L. R. Horn's 'All John's children are as bald as the
King of France: existential import & the geometry of opposition' (CLS 33)
-- cited by Levinson in _Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalised
Conversational Implicature_ -- makes a mention of RT:
"While we have agreed with Moravcsik in taking the presence or absence of
existential import as a pragmatic matter, it does not follow for us, as it
does for him, that we must therefore abandon logical form. Rather, what we
have here is a prime candidate for the relevance-theoretic doctrine of
"explicature" in the sense of
a pragmatically determined component of propositional
content (Sperber/Wilson, _Relevance_, Carston 1988).
Two remarks: one stylistic, one methodological.
* Unfortunately, the details of how this proposal might be implemented
will have to await another occasion."
Horn is not explicit if "the details of how this [relevance-theoretic]
proposal [of viewing e.g. "(Ex)KINGx" as part of the explicature of "The
King of France is not bald"] might be implemented", and which "will have to
await for another occasion", will be coming from him. Linguists and
philosophers are prone to say so when that's the case, though. Or at least
implicate.
(Thus Grice, famously, in the section III (entitled 'Implication'), which
did _not_ make it to _WOW_ (Studies in the Way of Words) of 'The causal
theory of perception", writes: "My main purpose in this sub-section has
been to introduce four ideas of which I intend to make some use; and to
provide some conception of the ways in which they apply or fail to apply to
various types of implication. I do not claim to have presented a systematic
theory of implication; that would be a very large undertaking and one for
another occasion". (repr. in GJ Warnock, _The philosophy of perception_,
Oxford readings in philosophy, p.95). On another occasion (the very last
passage of _WOW_), he refers to a "longer day": "As Plato once remarked,
the ability to see horses without seeing horses is a mark of stupidity.
Such considerations as these are said to lie behind reports that yet a
fifth fairy godmother, Q* [Quine's], was last seen rushing headlong out of
the gates of Never-Never-Land, loudly screaming and hotly pursed (in strict
order of seniority) by M* [Moore], R* [Ryle], A* [Austin] and G* [Grice].
But the narration of these stirring events must be left to another and
longer day" (WOW, p. 385)).
* And ... how faithful can a reader be? Horn writes that "the faithful
reader of Strawson's An Introduction to Logical Theory [...] will not be
surprised to encounter Moravcsik's finding that the Aristotelian
housewife's response generalizes successfully to [his] examples but does
not extend to [...] "lawlike statements". In an endnote Horn adds:
"Curiously, Moravcsik seems not be among these faithful readers. [...] He
cites Strawson only for the truth-value gap approach to existential import
[...] neglecting to mention that the relevant chapter on "Subjects,
Predicates, and Existence" (Strawson 1952: 152-94) is devoted to the very
contrast under Moravcsik's own microscope."
Similarly, Moravcsik does not seem to quote J. L. Austin (_How to do things
with words_, Lecture XI, p.144) as the source of his ornithological
example. Horn thus reports Moravsik's view: "Given what we assume about the
nature of migration as it affects natural kinds, we take ['All snow geese
migrate to Labrador'] to report a lawlike (and hence import-free)
universal; deleting the quantifier yields a generic bare plural whose
interpretation will be roughly the same."
Cheers,
JL
Refs.
Austin JL. How to do things with words. Clarendon.
Burton-Roberts N. On Horn's dilemma: presupposition and negation.
JLinguistics 25.
Carston R. Implicature, explicature, and truth-conditional semantics. In R.
M. Kempson, ed. Mental representations: the interface betweeen language and
reality. pp. 155-181. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Repr in A.
Kasher, _Implicature_. London: RKP.
Grice HP. The causal theory of perception. Repr. in GJ Warnock, The
philosophy of perception. Oxford readings in philosophy.
Grice HP. Retrospective epilogue. To WOW.
Grice HP. Studies in the Way of Words.
Horn, LR. All John's children are as bald as the King of France:
existential import & the geometry of opposition. Chicago Linguistics
Society 33.
Horn, LR. Showdown at Truth-Value Gap: Burton-Roberts on presupposition.
JLinguistics 26
Moravsik JME. 'All A's are B's': form & content. Journal of Pragmatics 16
Sperber D. & D. Wilson. Relevance: communication and cognition. Oxford:
Blackwell. 1986. Second edition: 1995.
Strawson PF. An introduction to logical theory. London: Methuen.
==
J L Speranza, Esq
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