HERBERT PAUL GRICE, "CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE," THE OXFORD LECTURES, 1966, BANC MSS 90/135c

Speranza

In this paper I argue against a criticism by Matthew Weiner to Grice’s thesis that cancellability is a necessary condition for conversational implicature. I argue that the purported counterexamples fail because the supposed failed cancellation in the cases Weiner presents is not meant as a cancellation but as a reinforcement of the implicature. I moreover point out that there are special situations in which the supposed cancellation may really work as a cancellation.