---- By J. L. Speranza
------ for the Grice Club.
In "The Taxon", THIS BLOG, I wrote, "Dengler has it (then why wouldn't he) right." In this post I will elaborate on the witty analysis provided by Kramer in his commentary. It touches on larger issues, which are a delight to consider. We are assuming two types of arguments, which I will sketch here briefly
----- WE AGREE TO DISAGREE ---
(or not). Let's have a conversation
EPAGOGE ----------- DIAGOGE
p --------------------- p
--- -----
c COUNTER-EX. c POSITIVE Evidence
In Kramer it is all, rightly, about U's disabusing a notion with the U. As per the above, I have discussed those elsewhere vis a vis R. B. Jones's types of dialectic in "Carnap and Grice" (c) Jones and Speranza. The idea is that conversations can fit the mould of 'epagoge', where a counter-example is counter-evidence to a claim by U, as provided by A. Diagoge, which brings, Grice says, an 'eirenic' or peaceful effect, is when only positive evidence is presented for claims. Kramer focuses on a strict Gricean analysis of "A(ddressee) has it, as he should, right". The utterer who utters that, Kramer submits, is 'clumsy' because he is "cancel[ing] one implicature of [one of his utterances] that is already canceled by another [of his utterances]." To argue like that, Kramer provides the affirmative, "not"-free version, and wonders if (i), implicates (a) and (b) below.
(i) A has it right.
+> (a)
i.e. [A] may believe that [A] has it wrong, but [A] has it right.
+> (b)
i.e. [A] may believe that U believes that [A] has it wrong, but [U] believes that [A] has it right.
Kramer notes: "If (i) implicates either (a) or (b), does U (then why wouldn't he) negate whichever it is? And is it necessary, or when no one has expressly raised the possibility that A is wrong, does (i) have no such implicature?
Or, can we say that (i) always implies that A thinks that A has it wrong, because, otherwise, saying (i) is otiose, and we can't have that."
The question is openly and clearly posited by Kramer: "Can we," then, "say that a statement violates "Be relevant" if it doesn't at least potentially in U's mind disabuse A of something?" (emphasis in bold type mine. JLS)
He continues: "If so, then for (i) not to violate that maxim, it's "first-order" (generalized?) implicature"
NB. I think the idea of a first-order implicature is Geary's own! (vide his "Buckley and Co." -- but I will have to revise the context to see if he took that from someone else).
"is that someone will (or may) be disabused by the utterance. Now U wants to cancel that implicature, so he says "(but then, why wouldn't he?),"
raising the question of whether that addition is otiose. Is the cancellation necessary in the conversational context of no one having raised a doubt?"
What if it's in U's own thoughts? -- but see below as to doubts as to whether 'rhetorical questions' are aptly so named. Plus, what is "it" that Dengler is never doubted as having it wrong?
Kramer: "After all, if someone had raised a doubt, we'd know why A would have it wrong, and it would be absurd to suggest by the rhetorical question that there is no reason to think A has it wrong."
INTERLUDE:
("I seem to recall an early thread - the ladder [Langlish lift] thingy? - putting implicatures in order of control, as lawyers do when we say that the specific controls the general.")
Kramer continues:
"In this case, I would think that the implicature raised by the lack of expressed doubt (again, we need to think of silence as information)"
A good notion here is, I propose,
∅-infomation
Cfr. ∅-tolerance
("He ∅-informed me that he disliked the dress." "He did?". "Well, he didn't compliment it, either". Cfr. (-)-informed, "mis-informed", etc).
Kramer continues:
"cancels the implicature raised by saying "A has it right. Would Grice agree that if
a generalized implicature can be canceled, a conversational implicature of the same sentence can do the cancelling? And if that's the case, does (but then, why wouldn't he?) becomes unnecessary absent a reason to have to disabuse A of the notion that "A" might be wrong?" (bold types, mine. JLS)
AN ALTERNATIVE tag.
Kramer writes: "I thought a bit about"
(ii) I agree with A.
"as an alternative to (i). But the two are different, and the [tag]
(iii) But then why not?
"cancellation points to the difference. Both version imply self-importance (but then, why shouldn't an important person imply his own importance?) but in different ways. [Uttering] (i) suggests that U is an authority on the subject;"
--- Cfr. Grice on "Deutero-Esperanto". "I can invent a rigmarole of a lingo that nobody else speaks. That makes me the authority". (cfr. Humpty Dumpty on who the master is).
Kramer continues:
"[uttering][the less stronger, less presumptuous. JLS] (ii) suggests that one's opinion is of interest, but is, still, only
an opinion."
So it's the 'factuality' vs. 'non-factuality' implicature -- versus the total counterfactuality of "A has 'it' wrong. If A has it wrong, then 'it' is not as A has it, because, strictly A has it _not_. It's like saying the Russians before the Cold War had all of Locke's liberal manifesto for political liberalism wrong, no?
Kramer goes on: "The difference comes clear when we try to cancel the implicature with [the] (iii) [tag]. We get (iv) and (v)."
(iv) A is (but why would not A be?) right.
(v) U agrees (but why would he not) with A.
As Kramer notes, the less strong, less presumptuous move, (v), "leaves it unclear whether the notion of which A needs to be disabused is that the A may be wrong, or [perish the thought, god forbid. JLS] that U may be wrong"
Kramer concludes a disabuse should be avoided. Or an abuse, I'm confused now. "But, I would still submit that if the question is not rhetorical,
its answer is already known"
I would part sides (is that the expression? Not take, the opposite). I don't think I meant it as rhetorical. In fact, perhaps I was expecting, "Of course I'm wrong, JL."
In fact, in his commentary, which I have not replied, since I'm having as a self-imposed rule that when there's more than 2 commenters in a thread I'll let the order proceed numerically. Dengler rigthly (surely it would be odd that the does it 'wrongly') points to the 'it'. The 'it' is perhaps key, too, because I never said what 'it' was. This is Alice-in-Wonderland, but I won't expect the incident in the new Johnny Depp film which I have not yet seen. EXCURSUS. The "it" of the Duck, from Alice in Wonderland, ch. iii:
“Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable—”’‘Found what?’ said the Duck. ‘Found it’ the Mouse replied rather crossly: ‘of course you know what 'it' means.’ ‘I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing,’ said the Duck: ‘it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?’ The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, ‘”—found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown."
So one is never _clear_ what Dengler has, let alone if he has "it" right (or alternatively, wrong). Note that Dengler in comment to thread has the 'it', properly, in 'scare quotes', cfr. Elizabeth Hurley, the 'it' girl. Of course the Alice is a red-herring, because the 'it' is NOT anticipatory in the tag we are examining. ("You have it right when you say that..."-- END OF EXCURSUS. Kramer finalises his brilliant commentary:
"; so it must be rhetorical, but if it's rhetorical, it's otiose."
There are keys or clues to suggest it might be rhetorical by the introduction, "but then." I find that 'but then' is USUALLY rhetoric. "But" is a rhetorical particle. "And then" is NEVER rhetorical. "But then" usually is. "And then, why wouldn't you" In this commentary above, in a sort of draft, I have turned the Dengler references, clumsily, to "A" addressee references, making the point pretty moot and silly, because all of Kramer's apt comments make sense when A ≠ "he" in "but then why wouldn't he?", but for clarification purposes I want to complicate the picture. It seems otiose in more than one respect in that one cannot 'flaunt' one's own having it wrong, etc. But will come back to this, I hope.
But the idea of abuse and disabuse are very Gricean, thanks to L. J. Kramer for bringing them to the forum with such insight and wit.
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ReplyDeleteSorry for the mess. Draft 1 had a stupid error, and draft 2 lost the formatting.
ReplyDelete--------------
What about it? Let me give it a try.
Compare
I want to know that he is alive.
Rumor has it that he is alive.
Pragmatically speaking, I think this usage is about helping A's mental navigator get his sea legs. Consider the sentences that could, grammatically and syntactically, whether or not pragmatically, begin "Rumor has..."
Rumor has a place in social process.
Rumor has nothing to commend it.
Rumor has ruined my life.
Rumor has it that he is alive.
Etc.
A's navigator, who has only the most elementary competence in contextual sailing, wants syntactically acceptable help to know what to expect next. "It" gives it to him. "It" says "this sentence is about a rumor, and here it comes:" That's a lot for the little word to do, and "it" does it very well. Syntactically, "it" becomes the direct object and "that he is alive" an appositive, which is "normal," but the message is delivered in an easier to process way than would the "simpler" Rumor has that he is alive.
Conversely, sentences that start
I want to know...
are much less flexible. A noun or noun clause comes next. The navigator is cool; no need for "it."
What about
I find ...
'nuff said, I think.
I find it...
is just about always followed by an adjective and a noun clause. "It" signals what usage of "find" ("consider," as opposed to "discover") is in play, and it says "here comes what U considers something to be, followed by what U considers that thing to be." Navigator's nerves are calmed.
In general, English uses expletives where the ordinary subject - predicate syntax is reversed:
I find that you're a communist disturbing.
"Disturbing what?" one might ask. Is that like a dream or a dead man walking? No, the navigator prefers to learn first that U finds something disturbing so that he can await news of what that something is. It's easier that way.
What's easier? Syntactically, Anglophones want to start sentences with subjects. How like a serpent's tooth is a sentence with its subject delayed. But A's navigator isn't interested only in syntax. A's navigator wants to know in what direction he must turn to find in A's mind the next thing that matches what U has to say. But he wants it in normal syntax, too.
When the normal syntax of the language conflicts with the natural flow of its interpretation, we create the linguistic equivalent of a legal fiction - a syntactic structure that allows U to follow the norms while delivering the message to A in a form A is best able to process.
From an information theory point of view, consider that certain locutions have many degrees of freedom as sentence starters, and that, therefore, valuable information can be cheaply delivered if one little word can eliminate all of those degrees of freedom as "it" does for "I find..." If information is the reduction of degrees of freedom in a system, then economical communication must be measured in degrees of freedom eliminated per quantum of A's effort. Or so it seems to me.
I agree. It is an aporematic, by my interpretation of off-setting but still dubious contention. There is a Russia, reference, along with the navigational metaphor, which seems to match the recent decision of the new president of the Ukraine to chart a new course and drop the anchor of the Russian fleet into long term harborage:
ReplyDelete.5054594645662/3
Black Sea Fleet May Remain on the Sevastopol Naval Base After 2017, Yanukovych Says
Front page / World
02/13/2010 11:49 Source:
Viktor Yanukovych, the expected next Ukrainian president, says he cannot rule out Russia's Black Sea Fleet remaining in Ukraine after its lease on the Sevastopol naval base expires in 2017.
Preliminary results showed Yanukovych narrowly winning Ukraine's presidential election, and although the official count has not been released he has been congratulated by world leaders including the Russian and U.S. presidents.
Good. I'll re-apply your important points to the original text that you found "rude"! :). Let me check it, it was something like,"Ian Dengler has it (but then why wouldn't he?) right." In applying the PERE, as it were, principle-of-economy-of-rational-effort, we want to say that, if the parenthetical, "but then why wouldn't he?" is 'well-meant' (i.e. we suppose that the utterer is just clumsy and that he doesn't mean to be rude) then, as Kramer suggests, the parenthetical is aiming at cancelling an implicature, to wit, of "Dengler has it right". I do think that sort of idioms -- "Dengler has it right" -- are condescending. And I felt ashamed of just procedding it. But I write freely and also most of the time in a jocular manner. Also, what he says is so full of implicatures (not to mention explicatures) that one never knows how right he might be. Plus, this is a Club, so I was expecting other people (or pirots) to join in: look for what Dengler says, and propose by injecting perhaps, "Hey, wait, he has it right on this thing, but not really on this other thing." The most efficient way, in this context seems to deliver what the 'it' was that Dengler had right. Say, that taxons are transcategorial in nature. So, the least ad-hominem way would have been, even if more boring, alla, "Taxons are transcategorial (vide Dengler)". The importance of 'it' is fabulous (in the sense of very great, not a matter of fable, sorry about that) and Kramer does very well in re-inforcing it. There are zillions of implicatures for "rumour has it". I think the worse, or one of the worse I read (I love Harman) is when Harman (in PGRICE) writes that the title of Grice's lecture ('Intention and Uncertainty') for the British Academy), 'rumour has it', is a joke on Hamsphire/Hart's article in Mind on Intention and Certainty. I mean: give me a sweet break! It's not like we are outing Madonna as a lesbian here! This is purely academic, and not the stuff of rumour, really. On the other hand, when Bartley III writes some of the things he writes in his bio of Witters, that may be a topic for 'rumour has it'. The 'it' can sometimes be anticipatory: as in "rumour has it", indeed. It does not seem to be anticipatory in "Dengler has it right". It's true that if we analyse this statistically it is most likely going to be followed by an expansion of 'it'. But I suppose one can end a paragraph with. "So, to conclude, I repeat: Dengler has it just right, and he knows it."
ReplyDeleteI'm going to let the navigator percolate for a bit. Some metaphors are not created to be extended. I did not "vet" the navigator for extensibility. But I want to relate the navigator to my computer program, and I'll report in a comment on the Berth thread.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I was hoping JL would pursue the last paragraph of my comment, which raises the question of what "brevity" looks like. For any utterance, the test, I would think, is the time it takes A to digest it. But is that so? Is there a negotiation going on? Does U's effort matter? Are we to minimize aggregate effort, so that U is allowed to be less than perfectly brief if the marginal cost to U of optimal good writing is greater than the marginal cost to A of translating suboptimal writing? Is this strictly an interpersonal dominance matter? Is there an evolutionarily determined degree of precision that emerges among peers, taking into account, for example, whether U "trusts" A to decipher logical ambiguities by reference to context?
If brevity is the soul of wit, what is the soul of brevity?
I will have a look at the last paragraph in Kramer's previous comment. Meanwhile, some running commentary, with reply, I hope, to this more recent comment, For any utterance, the test ... is the time it takes A to digest it.. Time? Time? I oddly skipped all those brilliant reference in the "Algebra in Wonderland" NYT piece -- "Implicature in Wonderland", this blog. The quaternion of Hamilton! I never understood Time! And if Henninge is right that I'm the Mad Latter, neither did my alter ego... But is that so? Implicature: Borgy and Bess: "It'Ain't" (such lovely syncopation") "Ne-Ce-Saa-Ree-Lee So-O". Who else but the Gershwins for that?! Is there a negotiation [cheap haggling JLS]going on?
ReplyDeleteSurely not. This is apperceptive Kantian ego-rationality. And as Kramer suggests, the U, in this ex-post-facto situation, no longer has a 'say', less so an 'imply' in the matter.
Does U's effort matter? Are we to minimize aggregate effort, so that U is allowed to be less than perfectly brief if the marginal cost to U of optimal good [moving in the game] is greater than the marginal cost to A of translating suboptimal [moving]?. Indeed. And I like your 'sub-optimal' As my Latin teacher would spend hours with the other ignoramuses: 'optimal', 'pessimus'. What of 'pessimus'? Is this strictly an
interpersonal dominance matter? I don't think strictly. After all, in the non-ex-post-facto situation, the other person may not exist. So it's only the utterer's effort that matters. While it is true that some texts are presented to us to be deciphered as it were, we should not feel obliged to do so.
Second part of my reply. Comments have a maximu of characters (!). Kramers asks
ReplyDeleteIs there an evolutionarily determined degree of precision that emerges among peers, taking into account, e.g. whether U "trusts" A to decipher logical ambiguities by reference to context? Well, that is tricky. I would think that in the evolutionary scenario, there's a lot of trust going on. I can think of the 'gavagai' example. Apparently, 'gavagai' in a tribal language, Quine says, means somethig like 'rabbit'. Or perhaps 'rabbit part', or 'unattached rabbit part' -- the ear of the rabbit? --. So one native says to the other, "Gavagai!". And the other (the co-pirot, as it were) 'de-codes' that. We will, Quine argues, never know what they are talking about, but they, in their little -emic world, understand each other. So if I say, (i) He likes him, I think I am supposed to trust, say, L. J. Kramer, into thinking that the logical form is, (ii) He-a likes him-b, i.e. they are NOT co-referential. Some argue that (iii) He-a likes him-a, would be ruled out as ungrammatical. And it may well be! In which case we may need to study linguistics and get an explanation from, say, Chomsky. It violates a 'rule and principle' thing in the modules of our mind, if we have one. But I'll elaborate on this. In the passage of his previous post, Kramer refers to a. Rumour has it and b. I find it. Re (a) I was thinking that indeed the collocational-guide is not to be trusted, in that one can imagine a column, in the NYT perhaps not, but in a more parochial thing, entitled, "Rumour has it" -- a tabloid, say. As if people cared! But it seems a use of a cliche. But Kramer rightly focuses on the 'I find it' and suggests: economical communication
[is] be measured in degrees of freedom eliminated per quantum of A's effort. It's indeed A-based decoding. But this is jsut ex-post-facto. The intentionalist point Grice seems to be making is to focus on the effort on U's part in minimising the quanta (I loved the idiom) of his potential A's effort. In pirotic survival strategies, this seems pretty relevant, in that both pirots are out there to help each other survive. So that 'gavagai' and what it means seems a matter of death-or-life (for 'or' _is_ commutative, right?).
The intentionalist point Grice seems to be making is to focus on the effort on U's part in minimising the quanta (I loved the idiom) of his potential A's effort.
ReplyDeleteWhen the masochist says "Beat me," the sadist says "No."
If U is concerned about A's effort, shouldn't we be similarly concerned as analysts? Can't we say to U, "You have failed to minimize A's effort, so you have failed to be brief"?
If we are trying to analyze what is said and what is meant, don't we have to focus on A's state of mind? A's the one with the blanks that U's utterance is intended to fill.
Maybe I'm missing JL's point about U's effort being what matters. I know its U who makes the effort to make the move, but isn't the effort that he demands of his intended A the benchmark for brevity, relevance and the rest?
Mmm. Allow me to use the working-out pattern of the implicature, as per Gr, WoW:ii, which is brief enough. This can be read top-bottom (i.e. U -> A) or bottom-top (A -> U). Grice mixes both things in each of the steps. So we'll see. We can loosely generalise Grice's point here to apply to any case of utterer's meaning where the reasoning goes from U's goal: I want to mean that p, to U's goal to make the most efficient/economical move that will achieve it; and where the reasoning for A goes from A's goal: I want to undestand this talking pirot, to A's best most economical way to handle the situation. Grice: a general pattern for the working out of a conversational implicature might be given as follows: i. U has said, or explicitly communicated that p[Grice is skipping the 'medium', of the oratio recta, as it were -- where what one says is, say, GAVAGAI], i. There is no reason to suppose that U is not "making his conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it ocurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which [he] is engaged"-- from def. of CP --, iii. U could NOT be doing this unless he thinks that q (different from "p"). iv. U knows (and knows that the A knows that the U knows) that A can see that the supposition that he means that q IS required. v. U has done NOTHING to stop A thinking that U means that q. Therefore, vi. U intends A to think, or is at least willing me to allow me to think, that q. Ergo, vii. He has implicated or meant that q. So at most stages in the very process of 'implicating' it's U's efforts and trust that A will take his efforts seriously. Of course we don't, necessarily at the club, because we can flout them. And recall also the Maxims of Blog. We should be free to expand, or as Cargan has it (perhaps right?) 'ramble', and stuff.
ReplyDeleteKramer: isn't the effort that U demands of his intended A the benchmark for brevity, relevance and the rest?. Yes. Otherwise I don't think he would have called, I suppose Coooperative, or as my aunt prefers, Co-Operative Principle. What is the failure of co-operative banks, incidentally? Why are co-operatives criticised (vide Sacco e Vanzetti) in most places but in Griceland? (I love the idiom of the 'benchmark' -- that must be legalese idiom, no? as in 'legal fiction'? So, yes, I would think it's a bit like St. Matthew, Don't do to others as don't want to be done to you. U is saving effort for A, on the condition that A will save effort for U. The problem with less than optimal utterers is that they cannot tell efficiency (never mind optimality) from their elbows. A child will say, "I'm going to the bahtroom to do number two." This has been analysed by Coulthard in "Elements of Discourse Analysis". "Nobody is interested in the number of the refuse. The child is NOT flouting Grice -- he is almost sh*tting on his whole grand plan. That that stand to ... what? Similarly, chidren turn to be like Alice, if not worse. Again Bayle's exegesis, I think Carroll, more generally is, defending the Literalist. Alice, the clever girl, thinks she can read between the lines, but in the proceeding, she becomes the most illogical girl you'll ever encounter through the looking-glass! Jabberwock, that's what I say!
U is saving effort for A, on the condition that A will save effort for U.
ReplyDeleteIs Grice only interested in two-way exchanges? What happened to "Shut the door"? Don't commands follow the CP?
But back to brevity. Let's assume everyone is being as brief as the CP requires. How do we measure brevity? Or, viewing the thing through the other end of the telescope, I say that
I find it disturbing that you are a communist
is "briefer," i.e., less wasteful of what we strive not to waste, than
I find disturbing that you are a communist
because of the likelihood that A would read that last one twice. I went on about I find... in an earlier comment, but I could do the same with I find disturbing... Where disturbing could, until resolved, be a gerund or a participle. The subject arose in connection with "it," but I think it inheres in all situations where the semantically otiose delivers a time-saving signal such that more is less. Is that OK with HPG? Sorry if you have dealt with this and I missed or forgot it.
Lawyers don't especially use "benchmark." Car guys seem to favor it. The BMW 3-Series seems always to be called a "benchmark" in the automotive press.
I'd like to get back to "grammatical fiction" as analogous to legal fiction in a very tight way. I could expand that if you think it would be useful.
Yes, expand! And sure, "Close the door!" can just as well fit the Gricean model. No need for the two-move exchange. I was trying to generalise to the "long run" as it were. I know I am never to cautious with my conversational moves if I'm never seeing HER again! But back to the issue: The subject arose in connection with "it," but I think it inheres in all situations where the semantically otiose delivers a time[or energy]-saving signal such that more is less. Is that OK with HPG? "I find it disturbing..." Consider Spanish -- as much as they are ALWAYS criticised for going the talkative side, I think a Spaniard would say there, DISTURBADOR (disturbing) YO -- I
ReplyDeleteENCUENTRO -- find. Would a Spaniard care for the 'it'? Here we need the 'that' clause. These clauses, origianally, were demonstratives, but I don't know if in ALL casees. "I find it disturbing. That. You are a communist." We seem to have three modules there. In Spaniards' language it may be
"YO ENCUENTRO DISTURBADOR QUE TU ERES UN COMUNISTA." I.e. the 'it' is dropped. So I would think this is surface syntax for the English lingo, only, and that to dwell on the surface grammar of things like that is when grammar CEASES to be 'a pretty good guide' to logical form? In that beloved book of "Dot Not the Strawson on the Russellah", Introduction to Logical Theory, Strawson writes, "It is raining" -- "(What is 'it'?"). More fun, I think Grice has a similar one from archival material: It's p. 55 of Chapman's bio -- archival material, the ref.: Grice, H. P. "Perception Papers". H. P. Grice Papers, BANC MSS 90/135c, the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. "Grice and Warnock" (later Vice-Chancelor of Oxford -- Chapman fails to credit that), "their surviving notes are FULL of lists of words and usages by means of which they hoped to discover the undersatnding of perception embedded in the language. For instance, they draw up a list headed 'Syntax of Illusion', [brilliant!. JL], considering the various consturctions in which the word 'illusion' can appear, and the shades of meaning associated with these. 'Be under the illsution (that)', and 'have the illusion (that)' are grouped together, presumably as predicates that can attach to people" [and cats I added in my marginal note]. Chapman goes on, "'Gives the illusion (that)' and 'creates the illusion (that)' are listed separately, with the note that these might 'apply exclusively to cases where anyone might be expected, in the circs, [no, that's not the circus and the illusionist. it's the more boring circumstances. JLS] to handle the
illusion." Finally, and this is the point I wanted to raise about 'it' (Rumour has it, I find it, I find it disturbing, is it raining):
"The example, 'it is an illusion' is accompanied by the unanswered question 'what is _it_?'"
Second part of reply.
ReplyDeleteSo, here the berths of grice may do. We think that 'it' can add as a quantum or burden in the way up of the lift, but it may not, because 'more is less'. There are atavisms or relics that we do not need once we formalise things into first-order predicate calculus. What about: It disturbs me that you are a communist. Me disturbe que tu eres un comunista, or, Your communism disturbs me.
Tu comunismo me disturbe. The phrase, "I find it...", I find perhaps too syncopated, if that's the word. A bit convoluted. It may have to do with topic and focus, and newness and givenness, but also politeness. As when an army general tells the mother of a dead soldier, "We regret to have to tell you that your son was killed in action". The 'regret', Urmson notes in Parentheticals, is bureaucratic. But "your son is dead" sounds a bit too abrupt. So more may be less. But we need to analyse exactly perhaps what we mean by that. If it's ARTICULATORY effort (the effort of uttering 'it') but when there's NO NATURAL OPTION that comes to the utterer other
In Spaniards' language it may be
ReplyDelete"YO ENCUENTRO DISTURBADOR QUE TU ERES UN COMUNISTA." I.e. the 'it' is dropped. So I would think this is surface syntax for the English lingo, only, and that to dwell on the surface grammar of things like that is when grammar CEASES to be 'a pretty good guide' to logical form?
I'm not sure that the logical form is the issue. The subject, I think, is brevity. The usage strikes me more as a matter of idiom than grammar: I am substituting a prounoun and it's referent (it and that you are a communist) for the referent alone. The referent of it isn't an "antecedent," but the pronoun is so short and so close to it, and so idiomatic, as to make that sin not a sin. Also, you use "surface syntax" and "surface grammar" interchangeably. I don't understant which one you mean (or why it doesn't matter). Please explain further what I am missing here. (Y claro que no tuteo yo los comunistas.)
"I find it disturbing. That. You are a communist." We seem to have three modules there.
Speaking of Prof. Irwin Corey, one of his classic bits is to answer the question, allegedly from the audience, "Why do you wear tennis shoes." He says "That's a two-part question. "WHY?" That's the ultimate question" and he then rambles on nonsensically for a minute or two, ending with something like "... I cannot answer in the limited time alloted to me this evening. As for your second question: Do I wear tennis shoes? YES!"
The "it" that is raining is, of course, that which rains. Duh! I'll cover that in my legal fiction post. Short version, we pretend that a fictional something rains so that we can have a well-formed sentence in our language. We cannot just say "Llueve" and head indoors. Llueve en la Argentina, but in the US, and in all of Canada, it rains.
Yes, I find I find it disturbing a bit too long. It disturbs me uses the (fictitious) expletive "it," - the it is raining "it, which I think I would distinguish from the navigational it. As Yoda might have said, start our non-imperative sentences with verbs we do not. He might even say "Disturbs me it does that you are a communist." Even long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, "it" was there...
Thanks, and re-reading my previous post up here, I see it was somewhat cut in the posting so apology for that. One has to double check! (I have). No, I would not distinguish between surface grammar and surface syntax. I would, if pressed, not use "grammar" at all. But 'syntax' is a trick, too. Linguists speak of 'morpho-grammatical' and as you yourself have noted, things like 'try and do it' ('try'n'do it') may involve, not just grammar -qua morpho-syntax but a phonetic component, too. So there's seem to be a continuum along these three areas, which is of course pretty much simplified if not nullified in first-order predicate calculus. I'll try 'n' formalise "I try 'n' formalise" in logic. Yes, the 'it' in "it rains" is whatrains. But ask natives and they may say, the sky or the weather. You call "it" fictional but not, I think, expletive, and thus rightly different from the 'anticipatory' grammars have "it", "it" of "I find it amusing that...". There's also "it" followed by things other than "that"-clauses: "I like it when you smile". I'm selecting repertoire for my party next St. Patrick's day and trust they'll ask me to play "When Irish eyes are smiling". Is that a noun phrase? "I like it when Irish eyes are smiling"? Sure. But "When Irish eyes are smiling pleases me" sounds perhaps awkward. So "it" is more like "It pleases me when Irish eyes are smiling", &c. "It" must be the most important Grammatical Word in English. What can the Gricean say about "it"? You are right: "it" is cheap and short. "It" hardly translates. In fact, the romance languages have swallowed "it" up whole. Everything HAS to be either feminine or masculine. I think in Old English it was with an aspiration, "het". "It" does not seem to survive formalisation into logic. I would think that rather than to Quantity (info), or Quality (truth) or Relatio (pertinence) "it" belongs to Modus ('be perspicuous'), but Grice does NOT have, "Be grammatical" as a maxim. So what I was thinking in that bit that got cut is that pehraps there is no CHOICE for an anglophone but to USE 'it' and as such the communicative value of "it" is (alla Barthes, "le degree zero de la ecriture), 'zero'? Will think about these things. Thanks.
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