Mandy Simons' early essay on Grice

Disjunction and Alternativeness
Authors:Simons, Mandy
Source:Linguistics and Philosophy, 24(5), 597-619. 23 p. October 2001.
Document Type:Journal Article
Subjects:ALTERNATIVE
CONVERSATION
DISJUNCTION
LINGUISTICS
LOGIC
PRAGMATICS
SEMANTICS
Abstract:In ordinary discourse, a disjunction is appropriate only if its disjuncts are interpretable as distinct but related alternatives. This paper accounts for this constraint using Gricean conversational principles, given the assumption that "or" has the truth conditions of inclusive disjunction. It is shown that for disjuncts to be related in the required way is for them to be construable as possible answers to some single question. It is shown further that disjuncts must be so construable in order to satisfy informativity requirements. A second, evidence-based, derivation for the relatedness requirement is also offered. To derive the distinctness condition, a constraint on vacuous operations in the calculation of interpretations is proposed.