RT list: Procedural meaning of 'so' and 'so that' - questions

Dear all,
   
     I am a Malaysian who is doing my master’s degree thesis at the moment.
   
     I am analyzing the procedural meaning of the discourse connectives ‘so’ and ‘so that’ used in local newspaper articles.
   
     I have some confusion over the procedural meaning of ‘so’ given by Blakemore.
   
    According to Blakemore (1992), ‘so’ constrains the interpretation of a sentence such that the proposition introduced by ‘so’ should be interpreted as a conclusion(contextual implication) derived from the preceding proposition.
   
    My question is in order to construe the second proposition as the conclusion derived from the first proposition, is the hearer required to provide a contextual assumption in order to do so?
   
   I am sharing one example used in my thesis.
   
  The pronoun ‘us’ used in sentence (21) refers to the Department of Occupational Safety and Health.
   (21)
    It is not mandatory for private hospitals to register with us so it is difficult to say how many are operating without a license.
   (New Straits Times, 13 September 2006)
  For the ease of analysis of the use of ‘so’ in sentence (21), it will be written as sentences (22a-b).
  (22)
  a. It is not mandatory for private hospitals to register with us.
  b. So it is difficult to say how many are operating without a license.
  The interpretation of sentences (22a-b) is illustrated below:
  (23)
  a. It is not mandatory for private hospitals to register with us.
  b. If it is not mandatory for private hospitals to register with us, then we are not able to know which private hospitals are operating without a license.
  c. It is difficult to say how many are operating without a license.
  In order to arrive at the conclusion in sentence (23c), the audience will need a contextual assumption that works together with the existing assumption (23a). With the use of ‘so’, the communicator strongly suggests to the audience to access (23b) as the contextual assumption.
      My problem is I am not quite sure whether the hearer is expected to provide the contextual assumption or in fact the function of ‘so’ is to constrain the relevance of the two propositions which means the hearer can complete the argument without providing the contextual assumption.
     Another question is does ‘so’ have the same function when it is used in conjoined utterances like sentence (21) and when it is used in two separate sentences like sentence (30) below?
   (30) The sad thing is we are complaining about fewer books being sold and read today. Books are getting too boring for children. So how do we get them to read again?
   
      How about the procedural meaning of ‘so that’ in sentences (31)and (32) below? Does the discourse connective ‘so that’ have the same function as ‘so’?
   
  (31) All I hope for is that the government will one day enforce the build-then-sell system so that future house buyers will not suffer.
   (New Straits Times, 11 September 2006)
   
  (32) He also said that PTPTN plans to set up a kiosk at KL Sentral so that graduates can go there to make payments for their loans instead of going to their headquarters in Wisma Chase Perdana.
   (New Straits Times, 25 November 2006)
   
     I hope to receive your reply as soon as possible. Thank you very much.
   
  Warmest regards,
  Lan Fun

                 
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Received on Fri Mar 9 06:29:56 2007