Re: also + discourse connective of contradiction

From: Angelina Tan (twanlin@pd.jaring.my)
Date: Sat Apr 05 2003 - 04:09:47 GMT

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    Dear Regina

    Thanks for your e-mail.

    I reread your discussion on parallel disconfirmation and I was actually thinking of the discourse connective 'and' in (31). What if 'but' had been used instead? Wouldn't the sentence yield the same effect of contradiction? In this case then, wouldn't the contradiction be the result of 'but'?

    Best wishes
    Angie

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Regina Blass
      To: Angelina Tan ; relevance
      Sent: Friday, 04 April, 2003 12:34 AM
      Subject: RE: also + discourse connective of contradiction

      Dear Angie,
       
      I do not see at all that 'also' does not constrain to parallelism, but is in indeed in parallel relation:
       
      P 1 The investment would give control of Bank P
      also
      P 2 They would deal with X which has large short-term debts.
       
      This is the parallel relation that 'also' constrains to'
      However, your intuition is right that there is some constradiction which has to do with 'although' and it is not the case that
      the cognitive effects of P 1 are necessarily the same as teh ones of P2. I have shown in my book, Blass (1990) p. 139 that
      although 'also' is a constraint on parallel processing it is not a constraint on parallel cognitive effects. I give an
      example with 'also' where there is a parallel relation that 'also' constrains to but where the overall intention of the
      speaker was to use the parallel processing to contradict something. I think something similar is happening in your
      example.
       
      Have fun!
      Regina
       
       
        -----Original Message-----
        From: owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk [mailto:owner-relevance@linguistics.ucl.ac.uk]On Behalf Of Angelina Tan
        Sent: 31 March 2003 18:02
        To: relevance
        Subject: also + discourse connective of contradiction

        Hello. I'm studying 'also'. Blakemore (1992) shows how 'also' is used to indicate parallel interpretation. This yields the contextual effect of strengthening. But what happens when 'also' occurs together with a discourse connective that indicates denial/contradiction? Here's an example taken from a news report on the acquisition of a bank by certain parties.

        "Although the investment would give them control of Bank P, they would also have to deal with X which has large short-term debts."

        I think that in this case, 'also' doesn't indicate parallel interpretation because if we omit 'also', we still get the same interpretation. Instead it brings to focus the second sentence. However, the effect of contradiction from 'although' remains applicable, i.e. the second sentence contradicts the first.

        Does this mean that the discourse connective of contradiction, 'although' is 'stronger' than 'also' (in its function to indicate parallel interpretation)? Or is there still an indication of parallel interpretation by 'also' that I'm missing?

        Does anyone have any views on this?

        Thanks,
        Angie

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