Not Timothy

Abstract of C. Potts on 'conventional implicature':

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I once wrote to Timothy Potts in Leeds. "Yes, Grice was my tutor -- for a year. I changed him. He was very eccentric, but had a great reputation as a teacher." I wrote back, "What d'you mean, 'but'?"

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Potts:

"Grice coined the term 'conventional implicature' in a short passage in 'Logic and Conversation'. The description is intuitive and deeply intriguing. The range of phenomena that have since been assigned this label is large and diverse. I survey the central factual motivation, arguing that it is loosely unified by the idea that conventional implicatures contribute a separate dimension of meaning. I provide tests for distinguishing conventional implicatures from other kinds of meaning, and I briefly explore ways in which one can incorporate multiple dimensions of meaning into a single theory."