The Gricean Vyse

--- by JLS
---- for the GC

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From "McCafferty" comment by Kramer:

"The word "pathetic", for example, can mean what it means in "To say that the market 'wants' to rise is pathetic fallacy" (pathetic-F) or it can mean what it means in "Blanche DuBois is a pathetic figure" (pathetic-B). Context disambiguates, and HPG, as I understand it, takes disambiguation as a pragmatic determination of what is said, not what is implicated."

Right. And his example is never so subtle.

It is "vice".

In American (or in America, if you must) they distinguish (the Americans that is) between (I am told -- I never met an American carpenter):

-- "vyse" -- a tool used by carpenters

and

--- "vice" --- a bad character trait.

These are DIFFERENT words. (I pronounce them differently -- i.e. I pronounce them to be "different" words). But Grice disregards that and spends three long minutes considering the 'sense' of:

""The carpenter was caught in the grip of his own vice", the Walrus remarked."

So, it's not like there is a breach here, of "avoid ambiguity". "Ambiguous" MAY be a word like 'pathetic', or 'lie' -- as in:

"My flat was so minimal, that there was hardly room for me to lay my hat and a few friends".

---

(Yes, a zeugma).

---

i. To say that the market 'wants' to rise is pathetic fallacy"

ii. Blanche DuBois is a pathetic figure"

"Context disambiguates", writes Kramer.

I don't think it needs to -- I never liked Context. It tends, as used by philosophers, to have a somewhat presumptuous ring about it. Perhaps having endured too many conversations with members of my eccentric family, I find that context usually COMPLICATES things, rather than 'disambiguates' them. I know that if at a meeting with some of my family and relations (and a few friends) the following happened, we would NOT feel anything awkward about it:

A: To say that the market wants to raise is a pathetic fallacy.
B: Pathetic, right?
A: What d'you mean?
B: Blanche duBois. Pathetic figure anyway you look at her.

----

I cannot see that the word has acquired a new 'sense' or has dropped an older one. It all means the same to me: i.e. gobbledegook, as I think you'd call it.

"for example, the word "pathetic" can mean what it means in "To say that the market 'wants' to rise is pathetic fallacy" (pathetic-F) or it can mean what it means in "Blanche DuBois is a pathetic figure" (pathetic-B). Context disambiguates"

Or to take another example from one of my tea parties.

A: He is so gay.
B: You mean cheerful?
A: I'm not using 'gay' to mean cheerful. I'm using it in its Victorian implicatum to mean a female prostitute.
B: But you said he was gay.
A: And he is -- it pains me to say.

Etc.

In fact, I never encountered a polysemous word that needs disambiguation. Thus, I am in a way happy that I shared that with Grice. For obviously he couldn't either -- and he had to rely on TWO DIFFERENT words (he knew Latin and he would know that 'vitium' and vyse are NOT cognate) to make his point.

----

Kramer goes on:

"and HPG, as I understand it, takes disambiguation as a pragmatic determination of what is said, not what is implicated."

Well, because how can you determine what someone has SAID just by the 'sound' of it?

"The Walrus told me that the Carpenter died when he was caught in the grip of a vice".

"That must have been a very dangerous one."

"One what?"

"One vyse".

"I thought you meant, one carpenter".

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(I once held a fancy dress party where Patricia A. and her boyfriend came dressed as the Walrus and the Carpenter and they recited the whole poem,

The time has come
to talk of many thigns
--- of cabbages and kings
and why pigs have wings.

-----

"HPG, as I understand it, takes disambiguation as a pragmatic determination of what is said, not what is implicated."

--- as I understand _him_, that's too, too true.

It would be otiose to broaden the range of 'implicate' to such stretches that it would encompass unrealistic assumptions about inexistent things like senses!

("Do not muliply senses beyond necessity").

"HPG, as I understand it, takes disambiguation as a pragmatic determination of what is said, not what is implicated."

Surely if one were to symbolise,

"He was caught in the grip of a vyse"

one would need to provide extensions to classes of things. We need to know that this vyse was a dangerous tool and that the poor man ('he') was caught in its grip.

The logical form would be:

CATCH (for time t1 < t2 of the time of utterance)
'he'
--- if CATCH (he, vyse) --> What grip!

---

The logical form for 'vice' seems altogether different. We are not dealing with two separate space-time continuants ('he', the 'vyse' and its grip). Just 'he'. The logical form has to involve some 'mentalistic' predication:

E.g.

"I felt that the only way to resist the temptation was to yield to it" "He was caught in the grip of a vice -- and lighted his pipe once more". Or something.

Here the form is

He (SMOKED).

--- i.e totally simpler than the previous one which involves a 'relation' of really being caught in the fatal or almost fatal strenght (or grip) of a dangerous tool that is designed for uses OTHER than catching people in its grip.

Etc.







and HPG, as I understand it, takes disambiguation as a pragmatic determination of what is said, not what is implicated.