RT list: On "+>" & Other Matters

I did find Perry's post, which I'm duplicating below. Have not found my
comments, but it struck me that
 
   "what is implicated", if that's what Perry uses, is misguided here.
Surely for the favoured use that Grice introduced into the literature (justly
emphasised by Sperber's and Wilson's joint essay, "On Grice's theory of
conversation", Pragmatics Microfiche, 1977 -- repr. Werth), reference
assignment is part of what is said.
 
The problem with 'say', as T. Wharton says, is that it's polysemous. (A
horse says nay). Grice was being too parrochial (to my taste) when sticking to
 such an Anglo-Saxonism. Hare seems to have hare-split when he used
'dictor' instead (in his dissertation for Oxford, late 1940s). The irony is that
Hare had to coin 'phrastic' (to impress his Oxford colleagues) for what he
previously called the dictum, versus the dictor which became the neustic.
 
Grice came back to the 'dictive' in "Retrospective Epilogue". But roots for
 'dic' (cfr. Greek deiktic) are just as confusing.
 
I would think Perry's example falls within what Grice calls enthymeme (alla
 Aristotle) in the account of implicit reasoning aptly summarised by N.
Allott in his UCL lectures.
 
     Jack is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave
 
-- what's in the enthymeme? Grice is clear that Jill may NOT be clear about
 this ("All Englishmen are brave", "Englishmen of Jack's ilk are brave",
etc.).
 
Warner makes an excellent point (with Grandy) in their joint, "The
philosophy of Grice", in PGRICE, ed. Grandy/Warner. -- The Richards of Grice's
reply. To IMPLICATE (qua meaning) something, it's not just the analysis or the
theory that matters, but the causal role of the meaning constitutive
intention.
 
To hold that by uttering x, U meant that p, it is NECESSARY that we
postulate in U the intention that the meaning-constitutive intention will play a
causal role in the recovery of the, to use a popular word in Norway -- the
content of content --, 'content'.
 
This is philosophical, rather than linguistical (sic) or cognitive
scientific. I recall discussing Grice with Stich. When I displayed to him (Stich)
some of Grice's philosophisings, and asked for his opinion, he uttered (but
then blame my reporting), 'preposterous'. Stich was irritated, as Rutgers
dons get when outside New Jersey -- that Grice had the 'cheek' to even
mention causal roles when "he never ventured into a psychology lab, to start
with"!
 
Levinson uses +> to implicate "implicate", and it's useful. But what's the
symbol for EXplicate, then?
 
In my PhD, "Gricean pragmatics", I deliberately avoided talk of -ures. It
was all what is explicated, what is implicated. Indeed, I favoured a central
 common core to that notion. What is implicitly or explicitly communicated,
 meant, or what have you. No mention of 'say'! "Say" hath no say in my
treatise!

I have expressed elsewhere that it was by my commenting to L. Horn, "hey,
there's no entry for implicate or implicature in the OED2" (as registered in
 ADS-L) that there is one for which I provided the Pears quote, etc -- in
the OED3. The OED cleverly adds 'implicate' qua verb. This was indeed
recognised already,
 
     "He was implicated in the crime",
 
but not as Grice meant it. It's up to RTheorists to try with oed3 at
oup.co.uk (it bounces) for earliest quotes for 'ex-plicature'!
 
What irritates me slightly (as the weather) with Levinson's +> is that is
so parrochial. If we were to have a symbol for conventionally implicates,
nonconventionally yet not conversationally implicates, etc, we would become
more jargonistic than we should.
 
And there are OTHER pressing matters to take care of!
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
   The Grice Club, etc.
     The Swimming Pool Library, Villa Speranza, Bordighera
 
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 9/11/2009 2:41:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
r.i.l.perry@herts.ac.uk writes:

Dear all,

I am a Research Student and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of
Hertfordshire and have just joined the Relevance List.

I am interested in the role of inference in examples of reference
assignment such as:

a. The picnic was awful. The beer was warm.
b. The beer was part of the picnic

Carston (2002) says that b. (an accessible assumption) acts as an implicit
premise / bridging implicature that must be accessed in order to determine
the referent of the beer in a. If this is the case, what is the implicated
conclusion in this example? Also, would it not be possible to interpret
this example via narrowing and the formation of the ad hoc concept beer*
(representing the subset of properties that relate to beer being drunk at
parties)?

Any comments on these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Best wishes,
Ruth Perry
Received on Tue Oct 6 17:39:52 2009