Disimplicature

Speranza

The implicatures of majoratives. 

The purpose of this note is to argue that not all instances of expressive language suffer alike from the problem of descriptive ineffability. 

If you haven't heard of emotive or expressive language, ask C. L. Stevenson, one of Grice's favourite Yale philosophers (well, not really a Yale philosopher but his essay was published by Yale, of all publishing houses!).

If you haven't heard of descriptive ineffability, re-read T. S. Eliot's "The naming of cats."!

Descriptive ineffability refers, Grice -- who loved cats and to name them: Sausalito, Moraga, Oakland -- acccording to the place where he found them -- to the problem that utterers are never fully satisfied when they are asked to paraphrase utterances containing expressive terms such as ‘damn’ using only descriptive terms. 

Grice's favourite disimplicature is 

"Goddam sinners reconciled!"

-- "Who could possible disimplicate THAT?"


It is commonly assumed ("all too commonly," Grice adds) that descriptive ineffability is an important feature of all kinds of expressive language – derogatory language just as commendatory or valorizing language. 

Grice knew about this when he was appointed the Carus lecturer. For the Carus lectures he chose the topic of the conception (never 'concept'!) of 'value'.

However, Grice finds that "majoratives," i.e. the positive counterpart to negative expressives ("pejoratives") -- as in "Amazing Grice!" -- do NOT exhibit the characteristic of descriptive ineffability. 

This finding is important both to clarify what kind of data competing theories of expressives have to explain and to shed further light on the wider phenomenon of ineffability.