Hawk!

Kramer writes in a commentary to my little 'Griceian tribute':

"Planning as I am a visit to the clubhouse, I thought I'd drop by to see what was happening. And lo, I find my name taken, not in vain, but in service to the day's agenda. This happy coincidence emboldens me to stick in my two cents."

Good. For the record, those notes on hylemorphism I composed as walking here and there. And as I thought the thoughts, I was reminded of Kramer's insistence with logical-physical devices, plus other of his discoveries -- such as the pseudo-code.

Kramer writes:

"I don't translate the bird's cry as "Hawk, near" but as "Danger, hawk.""

Good. The reference was to an online essay, called "Lionspeak", co-authored by a writer who wrote on "Grice and the naturalisation of semantics" and Mitchell Green. Worth taking a look. It's THEIR example, "Hawk".

They are bold enough to think that

"By uttering [BIRDCRY], bird m-intends ('intends as per Grice's meaning), 'hawk'".

Elsewhere I have adapted their example to Lewis Carroll:

Alice's adventures in Wonderland:

DOVE (or pigeon, I forget): "Serpent!"

(on seeing long-necked Alice getting by the nest).

"I'm not a serpent," she complains, etc. It transpires that, for all the pigeon cares, Alice _is_ a serpent, since she does confess to liking to eating eggs (for brekfast). Sutherland, in his book, "Language and Lewis Carroll" notes that the pigeon is working with the meaning-postulate:

"If x is egg-eater, x is serpent"

----

and so on.

Kramer goes on:

"The difference,"

Between

i. Danger, hawk.

and

ii. Hawk, near.

"I think, is that the act of utterance is prompted by the signicance of the hawk and so can be interpreted as a communication that the only cause for uttering exists."

I agree.

In the pigeon case,

Serpent!

meaning "Egg-eater approaching" we see the _import_ of the communication even perhaps clearer, but I should have to revise Carroll's context.

Oddly, the utterance resembles the lying shepherd of the story:

"Woolf!"

--- It is never, "Danger, woolf", or "Woolf, near".

Yet, logicians and moralists in language matters always take the shepherd boy as _lying_. How can he have lied if he never uttered a 'proposition'? (I should note that, elsewhere, I was motivated to think on this matters vis a vis certain accounts, e.g. Alison Hall, online, "Fragments" (UCL Working Papers in Linguistics), or Jason Merchant (a student with Horn at Yale) on "The syntax of silence". That discussion got me into making explicit some views on subpropositional/preprositional utterances (unstructured), and so on.

Kramer goes on:

"Consider the strange incident of the dog in the night. It does not matter what the dog would have barked; the fact that he did not bark communicated, in dog-talk, that no strangers were afoot."

Good example.

Dogs are a good case for meaning -- meaningN and meaningNN in Grice's parlance. (natural/nonnatural -- cfr. recent post to blog Unnatural, on a new book). Pavlov noted that

dogs salivate

when they are hungry. Or rather, when they, stupidly, hear a bell.

I would think that if it is 'within the control' of the dog to salivate (as apparently it is not), we could think of

"Salivate"

as a _sign_ that the dog is hungry (or hears a bell).

In the case of the bark, something similar may apply. If the dog barks, he perceives signal. But the absence of the dog bark may well be evidence that the dog has been put to sleep by the trespassers. Or something.

"Let sleeping dogs lie" is perhaps a bad piece of advice.

Kramer goes on:

"Had the dog broken his silence, and particularly, had he barked excitedly, one might infer the presence of a stranger."

For one, I would proceed step by step. My first inference is that the dog is _awake_.

Oddly, my friend Maurice owns two dogs ("Yappie, Yappie") who bark _regardless_.

Cats are on the whole preferable to dogs (as Grice agreed) on account of the fact that they don't bark.

----

Kramer:

"Thus, the squawking bird, by squawking, can be understood to communicate danger."

Yes.

I'm not sure about pigeons being able to squawk. Green and this other author, in Lionspeak, do speak of something like a plover, granted.

Oddly, I think it is T. Wharton in his book (he credits me!), on pragmatics and nonverbal communication, and if he didn't, I HAVE studied the case.

The plover can squawk to communicate, wrongly, "You are approaching my nest".

This has been used by Lyons as an example of 'prevarication' in language/semiosis, but I disagree. Similarly bees can be said to _lie_. Wharton spends some time criticisig some naive views on 'natural codes' of 'natural communication' to prove that animals cannot lie. (Oddly, today, I was informed of this lecture by Stegman on teleo-semantic theories of animal thought! and what NOT do to with them).

Kramer goes on:

"The ability to give the utterance an interpretable shape - "hawk" - creates a target of opportunity, so to speak, a useful semantic freebie identifying the threat."

Good point. Holdcroft studies similar cases in the case of uninterpreted languages. He applies Grice's criterion, or criteria. You see a native next to a strange animal, and he utters something like

/kangaroo/

you think that that means the _name_ of the animal. I.e. the utterance meaning "Behold this nice beast: the kangaroo".

It would be otiose to think that the native means, more informatively:

"The kangaroo is brown"

as the case may be. Or

"This is a BIG kangaroo".

---- So one has to be indeed careful, ethologically.

[SQUAWK]

meaning

---- "Danger"
---- meaning:

"Danger <+ a hawk is approaching"

is a case in point, as Kramer notes.

In a way it relates to

"Gavagai".

Apparently, in a native language that Quine is familiar with, this means

"Behold, rabbit!"

But he is never clear. "Gavagai" may mean "rabbit-part", or 'sense datum of a rabbit', or other. I have discussed this ad nauseam -- ad Murphy's nauseam, I hasten to add -- elsewhere. (with M. J. Murphy).

(The Holdcroft paper is in Bouveresse/Parrett, "Radical interpretation and principles of conversation"). (I love Holdcroft).

Kramer goes on:

"Not that identifying the threat is unimportant. From the Smothers Brothers (the Poor American's Flanders and Swan):
Tom Smothers, singing:
Yesterday I fell into a vat of chocolate
Yesterday I fell into a vat of chocolate
Yesterday I fell into a vat of chocolate
Lolly-do-dum-lolly-do-dum-day
Dick Smothers, singing):
What did you do when you fell into the chocolate?
What did you do when you fell into the chocolate?
What did you do when you fell into the chocolate?
Lolly-do-dum-lolly-do-dum-day
Tom:
I yelled "Fire!" when I fell into the chocolate
I yelled "Fire!" when I fell into the chocolate
I yelled "Fire!" when I fell into the chocolate
Lolly-do-dum-lolly-do-dum-day
Dick, speaking: Wait a minute, wait a minute."

*****************************************************
"Why did you yell "Fire!" when you fell into the chocolate?
*********************************************************

Tom:

"Because:

"no one would have rescued me if I yelled "CHOCOLATE!""

-----

Kramer's gloss and explicandum:

"Yelling "chocolate" might be seen as cancelling the implicature of danger carried by a shout of the sort made."

Yes. I think an Italian would have uttered,

"Help!"

--- This is understood, contextually, as "help _me_". "Help" is usually self-deictic. You are drowning in a lake (provided you don't swin) and you cry,

"Help!"

----- In Hungary, even. (I wouldn't know).

It is just the point of catching someone's attention. If you are BY the lake, and see someone drowning, you may utter,

"Help!"

meaning "Help him there". In which case, a hand signal would be required to point to where the help is due.

----

Propositionally, 'Help!' should be interpreted, alla Grice (with phrastics and neustics made explicit):

"I request your provision of help"

I.e.

Not the indicative version:

"Help is always good"

but

"We need help".

In this respect, "Hawk!" or the corresponding cry, may carry a 'perlocutionary effect' which is YET not an implicature. This is discussed elsewhere by Grice ("Meaning") and Stampe.

The plover utters the squawk.

It is interpreted, first and foremost, as "Danger".

But there seems to be a perlocutionary ('protreptic', Grice prefers -- versus exhibitive) effect to the 'effect', if I may repeat, that

the plover's companions should do something about it. Such as 'fly'.

----

It would be otiose to communicate _danger_ regardless. Plus, the squawk itself is liek a 'cri de coeur' and 'battle cry'. Let's do something, even if it's just run away.

---

The "Fire" example is excellent, thank you.

Witters would refer to 'language games' (note Perry's discussion of Wittgenstein's builders, who utter 'Slab'. "Slab" is understood as "pass me a slab"). In our normal scenarios, indeed, people don't fall onto chocolate too often. But they are involved with fire all too often.

The economy (Griceian) of "Help!" seems to have been appreciated by John Lennon who composed a song about it.

The long-playing record by The Beatles even makes the point:

RINGO ---- PAUL ---- GEORGE ---- JOHN

H E L P

---

Which sounds to me, in Morse, as otiose. There should be a more economical way to exprss, 'help'.

Indeed, "SOS" is yet another unstructured utterance (like "Fire" but only different) by which "utterer" means "Help!" without the recipient having to _infer_ it, as he is immediately relying on a code.

In the case of "Fire"/meaning "Someone please rescue me" or "provide assistance", the point is, as Kramer notes, 'exploitation'. Utterer relies on the 'convention' or expectation that people in fire are to be assisted.

Kramer goes on:

""Instead of the generic "HELP!!" the utterer behaves as if he needs help,"

--- Good. I like the idea of "Help!" as generic.

"but, by saying "chocolate" would at least call into question that inference."

Yes, in our 'form of life', to utter Wittgenstein. The context requires that the recipient is NOT watching what is going on. If recipient is seeing the utterer _falling in a vat of chocolate_, indeed, "Chocolate" seems to flout or infringe a few of Grice's conversational maxims.

"I fell onto a vat of chocolate!"

--- would be otiose to utter when the recipient can find that for himself.

"Help" is generic, yet triggers different implicatures, too.

Kramer notes:

"So, he had to yell something that did not nullify the plea for assistance implicit in his vocalizing at all, and "Fire" served the purpose."

He had said,

"Instead of the generic 'Help!' the utterer behaves as if he needs help.

Here we need rigid designation. This is not just any utterer. This is

Tom Smothers.

---- Grice would argue that it is irrational to utter "Fire!" (even if you are on fire?) instead of "Help!".

----

"Fire!"

may mean:

"Look, dad. Lovely fireworks in the sky!"

--- "Help" cannot but mean _help_.


----

Note that 'Fire!' can also mean, _open fire_ (as uttered by a commander of a troop).

----

Kramer notes:

"The logical devices here, I think, are two: the warning of danger and the communication of the specific threat."

Good.

Perhaps we could add, as per the 'implicature' or protrepsis, what the U _means_ by imparting that info. It's not like he is lecturing.

Grice was obsessed with effects.

Exhibitive: "Rain!" -- the utterer means that it rains. I.e. intends his recipient to think HE (utterer) thinks it rains.

Protreptic: "Thin Ice!" -- the utterer means that there is a dangerous patch of thin ice.

Granted, Grice is more subtle when he poses the distinction. He is considering the use of 'shall':

"You shall not cross the barrier"

versus:

"Don't cross the barrier!"

He wants to say that 'You shall...' has a protreptic implicature.

"When uttering 'You shall not cross the barrier', U would characteristically intend A to think that U intends that A shall not cross the barrier; but it seems that a specification of U's meaning, for a normal utterance of "Don't cross the barrier", would be incompletely explicated unless it is stated that U intends A NOT MERELY to think that U intends that A shall not cross the barrier, but also HIMSELF to form the intention not to cross."

This may be paternalistic Grice. I know a few 'liberals' who would never ascribe such protreptic effects to what they say.

Grice goes on:

"Let us draw a distinction between what I might call 'purely exhibitive' utterances (utterances by which the utterer U intends to impart a belief that he [U] has a certain propositional attitude"

---- or subpropositional in the case of the plover's squawk.

Grice continues:

"and utterances which are not only exhibitive, but also what I mgiht call 'protreptic' (that is, utterances by which U intends, via imparting the belief that he [U] has a certain propositional attitude"

---

or analog:

----------------- "I feel a danger by this hawk approaching"

"to INDUCE a corresponding attitude in the [recipient]"

-------------- "And you should do, too -- hence my squawk."

-

Grice goes onto a lot of trouble and detail about that, and he is not yet considering 'implicata', i.e. things that may 'follow' under some circumstances but not other, and which may be just 'cancellable' and NOT part of what is explicitly conveyed.

---- Cfr. "I squawked, true, but I never meant to say that you should fly away out of a feeling of danger. I may be a coward plover, but you need NOT."

--

Kramer notes:

"In physical terms, the first is aural, the second verbal."

i.e.

"The logical devices here, I think, are two: the warning of danger and the communication of the specific threat."

Yes.

I wouldn't know, 'verbal', when it comes to a plover's squawk. After all, Alison Hall, and others, talk 'articulate' seriously. I'm not sure the plover articulates his beak in a complex enough way to say he verbalised.

The problem with human languages is phonetic/phonemic.

Grice's favourite:

"I regret that Jones was caught in the grip of a /vais/"

if it's 'vyse', a tool carpenters' use, that's one thing different from a term Roman Catholics use too often ('vice', qua 'sin'). Here we have two words.

A phonetic transcription won't just do, because it fails to recognise 'vice' versus 'vyse'.

----

Yet, in a physical medium that allows for phonetic, phonemic, allophonetic, etc., transcriptions, 'verbal' seems ok. Note that Wharton's book's title is "nonverbal", which may confuse people.

Grice wrote "Logic and Conversation". When I was researching that, I got in contact with ethnomethodologists of conversation who had studied 'nonverbal' channeling in conversational moves (Grice's area). Notably, eye contact, request for 'conversational floor' via gaze (Goodwin, I think the main researcher on that area is). So one has to be careful with 'verbal'.

There are verbal aspects with are what phoneticians call 'suprasegmental'. It may be possible to see that:

"Fire."

versus

"Fire!"

implicates some suprasegmental feature. It is the spontaneous character, of the noun phrase, as per a cry, that communicates, "We are in danger here". Note that a still different suprasegmental:

"Fire?"

may mean, 'have you got a match or light?'.

Ditto

"Help!"

cannot but mean, "I want help".

But:

A: What is he always asking for?
--- B: Help. (falling intonation).

is a different, er, animal.

And so on.

Thanks for the input!

Again, the specific analysis of "Hawk!" is in Green et al, online, "Lionspeak".

Grice is sceptic that hawks CAN mean, but then blame Schiffer, who convinced Grice that m-intentions are too complex for us to freely ascribe to -- squirrels. He sometimes speaks of 'squarrels', though. Plus, he speaks of parrots, and pirots. And I am open-minded enough to think that he (Grice) was, too!

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