Vis a vis the two dialogues by Kramer, he comments:
"That same implicature might arise in context where the question implies that the asker wonders whether U told the truth, and in such a case "I told them what happened" is a perhaps meiotic version of "I told the truth against my/your/our interest." But if there is no such implicature in the question, there is no correlative implicature in answering "I told them what happened.""
Excellent point.
A: What did you tell them?
B: i. I told them what happened.
----- A: I knew that! I mean: what exactly did you tell them?
B: Oh! That Smith ate a sandwich.
A: What did you tell them?
B: The truth.
A: Meaning...?
B: That Smith ate a sandwich.
Or something.
At this point one may wonder how UNINFORMATIVE B can be. Dascal, in "Conversational Relevance" has the example:
PRIEST to prisoner: Why did you rob the bank, my son?
PRISONER: 'Cause that's where the dough is.
---
"What did you tell them?", in ordinary circumstances, seem to ask for a specification of the propositional content that both "What happened" and "The truth" fail to do? Or something.
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