Steve,
In your very helpful summary of the replies to yourquery, you wrote among
others:
>
> I agree, and have said that a theory that does away with generalized
> conversational implicatures (i.e. one that allows pragmatic aspects of
> 'what is said') has to be the way ahead. I suppose the question at
> issue is what is preferable: a falsifiable but often falsified theory
> (see articles and replies in JL and chapter 4 of Huang's "Anaphora"
> for examples), or a non-falsifiable theory (which is how RT detractors
> describe RT). In my mind the former is preferable, but the best option
> is to either demonstrate that RT is, as it stands, falsifiable, or
> develop RT (perhaps using insights from, dare I suggest, neo-Gricean
> pragmatics) so that it is, and is seen to be, falsifiable (and not too
> frequently falsified).
Doesn't the whole body of work on experimental pragmatics based on relevance
theory demonstrate that RT is falsifiable? Doesn't every linguistic analysis
which demonstrates that a certain phenomenon is best described using notions
proprietary to RT (e.g. Regina Blass' work on the grammaticalization of
interpretive use in Sissala) show that RT is falsifiable?
Seen in this light, the point that RT is falsifiable has been demonstrated
over and over again, and this is nothing new.
Given this, I really wonder what you mean with (the utterance of) your last
sentence. Or were you thinking about the falsifiability of particular RT
analyses of particular phenomena rather than RT as a whole?
Christoph
------------------------
Christoph Unger
In den Gaerten 62
D-35398 Giessen
Germany
Phone: (49) 6403 73782
Office: (49) 6403 776630
Fax: (49) 6403 7759420
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