Hell

Perhaps it's not inappropriate (why would it be?) that Dale refers to hellish stuff in his PhD disseration. Jones was looking of cases one may find of interest (before April) regarding compositionality. Let's focus on

J. Dever on

'what the hell' versus 'what the heaven'.

'what the dickens' -- "I'll keep a family audience in view; but you feel free to fill in the expletive that pleases you")


https://webspace.utexas.edu/deverj/personal/papers/compositionality.pdf

The section in Dever's paper is entitled,

"Some Problem Cases for Compositionality"

"While the results of [my previous discussion] show that when a semantic theory is sufficiently unconstrained, compositionality can be cheaply obtained, the question remains whether a satisfactory semantic theory for a natural language such as English, one properly responsive to natural constraints on semantic and syntactic facts, can be given compositional form."

"In this section we consider a problem case for the construction of compositional semantics, examining the data which resist a compositional treatment and then considering ways of overcoming that resistance."

"The goal is NOT to settle the question of whether a natural language such as English has compositional semantics, or even the smaller questions of whether the particular phenomenon discussed here (the meaning of 'what-the-hell') has a compositional semantics, but rather to see how questions of compositionality influence semantic theorizing." Or fail to!

Dever asks us to compare the following two sentences:

(1) Who bought that book, Dummett, "Frege: Philosophy of Language").

---- (Michael Wrigley, a student of Grice's at Berkeley, actually did buy the book. "No, I haven't read the book", he recalls hearing from Grice -- his advisor. "And I hope I won't" he added, in case someone should disimplicate him.

(2) Who the hell bought that book?

Dever notes

"The literature abounds in problem cases for compositionality and treatments thereof. In addition to the issues addressed below, see among many others discussion of compositionality and:

-- independence-friendly logics in
[28], [29], [30], [31], [32]

prototype theory in
[16] (ch. 5), [19], [18], [39], [53], [62];

-- idioms (such as Grice, "push up the daisies" 'be dead and buried' from circa 1860c).

in
[42], [41], [52], [71];

-- ‘unless’ in [27], [54], [66];

-- propositional attitude cases in innumerable places, but
especially [60] (ch. 4), [61] (ch. 8), [46], [8]; and Schiffer's obsession!

-- ‘any’ and other negative polarity items in [48], [47], [4], [50],
[45];

-- anaphora in [38], [24], and [34]. [36]

"also contains an overview of several compositionally-problematic
semantic phenomena."

The examples Dever draws from [10].

"The behaviour of ‘the hell’ phrases was first noted in [58]" and last by yours truly.

"The two are roughly synonymous."

VERY roughly.

"While the addition of ‘the hell’ alters the rhetorical impact of (1) "Who bought that book?" perhaps encouraging (or triggering) the

conversational implicatum

Utterer believes that it is surprising that the book was bought in the first place.

-- Dever goes on:

"the core semantic value of each is a request for information about the identity of a book buyer."

"Whatever the semantic contribution of ‘the hell’, it must be compatible with the close semantic proximity of (13) and (14)."

"However,

a. ‘who’ and

b. hell-variant:
‘who-the-hell’

--- or, as Carnap would have it in terms of a general function:

more generally,

a. ‘wh-’ and
b. ‘wh- the hell’

-- cfr. Grice's remarks on yes/no-questions and x-questions in interlude III in "Aspects of Reason" discussed elsewhere, "Who killed Cock Robin?" (Who the hell IS Cock Robin?")

-- expressions, diverge in meaning in other contexts. Thus:37

"The minimal variant of adding a
modal auxilliary causes a
difference to emerge:

(3) Who would buy that book?
-------------- "HONESTLY, who would?"

(4) Who the hell would buy that book?
---------------- "FRANKLY. Nobody should care"

"The first of these is most naturally read as a request for information, but the
second is most naturally, and perhaps obligatorily, read as an indirect assertion
that nobody would or should buy that book".

"When the original examples are embedded in an indirect question, a difference
in grammaticality emerges:

"I know who bought that book" (viz. Michael Wrigley).

"I know who the hell bought that book"

------ Where the latter is dubbed "??" (Pragmaticists are forbidden to use Chomsky's "*"s -- I learned that from my work with L. Horn)("Your example I wouldn't dub ungrammatical").

"‘Wh-the-hell’ phrases are grammatical only in negative contexts, whether overt:

"The first three of these examples are drawn from [10]; the last draws from [10] and [58].

"[10] claims that only the indirect assertion reading of (16) is available, but I find the data less univocal."

-- the hell, the dickens.
"The pressure toward the indirect-assertion reading, in my judgement, increases with the strength of the attached vulgarity."

SPERANZA's corollary.

I actually do use, what the heaven, on occasion. In church for example. If Dever is right that the pressure increases with the vulgarity, it should decrease with propriety.

---

Dever has a 'nota bene':

"In order to keep this volume suitable for a family audience, I have used ‘the-hell’
throughout, but the reader is encouraged to substitute as his imagination allows."

What the purgatory.

----

"I don’t know who the hell bought that book".

in the antecedent of a conditional:

"If anyone knows who the hell bought that book, please tell me".

or in the scope of so-called adversative attitude verbs:

"Michael refused to tell me who the hell bought that book."

"‘The-hell’ thus blocks certain scope readings of sentences with multiple quantifiers, too."

Thus:

"What did everyone buy for Michael?"

"is ambiguous between a reading on which

‘everyone’

takes wide scope, and people make separate purchases for Max, and a reading on which

‘everyone’

takes narrow scope, and there is some one thing bought by everyone for Max."

"However:

"What the hell did everyone buy for Michael?"

"allows only the second of these two readings."

"‘Wh- the hell’ phrases, unlike normal ‘wh-’ phrases, cannot enter into anaphoric
attachments."

Thus:

"Someone_i walked in the park, but I don’t know who_i.

is acceptable, but:

"Someone_i walked in the park, but I don’t know who the hell_i.

is not.

Cfr. J, "A conversational left-over: a Gricean account of Chomskyan traces".

"Similarly, ‘which’ phrases, which require an anaphoric link to a contextually
provided range of salient objects, do not allow

‘the hell’

modification."

39See [47].

"Which-the-hell book did you read that in?"

"The puzzle for compositional semantics is to show how

‘the-hell’

can systematically contribute to the meanings of larger expressions in a way that allows its impact to be minimal, if anything at all, in (14), but much greater in the other cases set out above."

A Solution:41

"A simple ‘who’ question can have its interpretation influenced by linking the range of admissible answers to a contextually-provided domain."

Thus consider the following dialogue:

(5)

A:

Various friends of mine voted for each of the different presidential
candidates in the 2000 election.

B:

Really? Who voted for David McReynolds?

--

Here, as Dever notes,

"B’s question is NOT answered by specifying an
arbitrary McReynolds voter (and does
not require listing all such voters)."

"Rather, it calls for a (or all) McReynolds voters among A’s friends."

"In another context, however,

"Who voted for David McReynolds?"

-- CAN receive an unlinked reading, in which it calls for the total list of McReynolds voters."

"Suppose the semantic function [meaning] of

‘the hell’

is to require that the range of admissible answers to a wh-question include novel answers, i.e. ones not already provided as possible by contextual linkages of the sort just discussed."

"When a wh-question is an unlinked one, as on one natural reading of (13), adding ‘the hell’ has no effect, because when unlinked, ALL answers are novel."

"But when the wh-question is a linked one, adding

‘the hell’

has a semantic impact. Thus consider:

"Note: A compositional semantics need account for the failures of grammaticality such as

"I know who the hell bought that book."

and

"Which the hell book did you read that in?"

"only if Syntax is not thoroughly autonomous."

"It is tempting to think that grammatical failures due to failures of anaphoric linkage, at least, have a semantic explanation."

"The following solution is a simplified and modified version of the proposal of [
10].

Any shortcomings of it are due to the present alterations.

(6)

A:

Various friends of mine voted for each of the different presidential
candidates in the 2000 election.

B:

Really? Who THE HELL, if I may know, voted for David McReynolds?

"This dialogue, unlike the first,
triggers the implicatum that

B expects ALL of A’s friends
NOT to have voted for McReynolds."

"If the effect of adding ‘the-hell’ is
to insist on the admissibility of novel answers
(here, people other than those B counts as A’s friends),
the implicatum is to be expected."

"The various effects of ‘the hell’ noted above now fall out."

"‘Wh- the hell’ phrases refuse anaphoric linkage because that linkage dictates the
range over which the wh- phrase ranges, which contradicts the novelty requirement
imposed by ‘the hell’.

‘Which’ phrases, which always require anaphoric/contextual linkage, can thus never combine with ‘the hell’."

"A question of the form

"Who would buy that book?"

takes as answer pairs of people and possible situations.

"Given the broad total range of possible situations,"

-- cfr. Jones on this.

"such a question is typically linked to a contextually-provided range of admissible
situations."

"Adding ‘the hell’ to form

"Who the-hell would buy that book?"

"requires the admissibility of novel answers, and thus defeats any contextually provided restriction on admissible situations."

"But once all possible situations are provided, the question becomes trivialized.

"Anyone would, in some situation, buy the book."

"The asking of trivial questions, though, is pragmatically proscribed,

"Although note the acceptability of:

--- "Someone walked in the park, but I don’t know who the hell it was."

"Thus:

"JL, if it has a mention of Grice"

"J, if autographed copies are available" (and the book is by Hegel), etc.

"Thus ruling out answers such as

"Brian, if we threaten to kidnap his dog if he doesn’t."

"and an alternative communicative explanation is favoured, such as the explanation
that the utterer is emphasizing the remoteness of any situation in which the
book IS bought."

"The requirement of novelty
imposed by ‘the-hell’ is impossible to fulfill when
the ‘wh- the hell’ phrase is simply
imbedded in an operator of positive epistemic
commitment."

"To say that

I know who the hell bought the book

is to undermine, by my knowledge, the requisite novelty of the admissible book buyers."

It does not fulfil what Grice WoW:I calls 'appropriateness condition C'.

"Similarly
an epistemically positive operator in the antecedent of a conditional, such as the
earlier."

"If anyone knows who-the-hell
bought the book, please tell me."

"creates no conflict with the novelty requirement, since the function of the antecedent is to entertain hypothetical situations."

"Operators of negative epistemic
commitment, such as ‘refused to tell’, for similar reasons allow ‘the hell’ modification."

"The novelty requirement thus explains the distributional facts noted
above."

"The novelty requirement makes

‘wh- the hell’

phrases negative polarity items,
where various sorts of negation license the introduction of novelties."

"Suppose
that negative polarity items are subject to:

(Immediate Scope Constraint)

"A negative polarity item can appear only in the
immediate scope of its licensing negative item."

Consider again:

"What-the-hell did everyone buy for Michael?

See [50] for formulation and defense of the Immediate Scope Constraint.
and assume that the licensing item is the marker of interrogative force.

"If

everyone

is raised to give it scope over ‘what the hell’, it intervenes between ‘what the hell’ and its licenser, violating the Immediate Scope Constraint."

"The unavailability of a reading wide-scoped for ’everyone’ is thus explained."

-- But should we let this other Gricean sleeping dog lie?