Speranza
-- and in Oxford, too!
Consult the Grice Papers, Bancroft Library.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Blass on Grice
Elsewhere, I was commenting on the oeuvre of one H. D. White. He writes that his mentor on matters pragmatic was Regina Blass. Retrieving some of my posts elsewhere I report here my exchange with the lady.
Blass writes that she "would like to challenge both J. L. [Speranza]'s claim that no polysemy is involved in things like (i) vs. (ii)
(i) old (books & maps).
(old books) and maps.
examples.
"Cruse shows that items like 'book', 'map', 'CD' have FACETS. They have
[various] readings in certain contexts in which ambiguity tests are
positive. [E.g.] "book" has the reading "1. tome" and "2. text" and, as
such, a sentence [containing it] can convey different truth conditions
depending on whether [one facet or the other is] meant:
3. Did you buy an an old book?
[may get as answers]
4. Yes, I bought a novel by Charles Dickens.
5. No, the book was printed in 1999.
[I was wondering about e-books. A typical case of the text interpretant
only! "Buy? Are you crazy. What's the use of a full internet subscription
for then! I read it from Gutenberg Project!" :) JLS]
The same could apply to 'map' [where]
6. Did you buy an old map?
where a map [of pre-1974 England is meant! I like to see Rutland back
there! JLS].
[which could get as answers]
7. [Yes, I bought a map with Rutland and Huntingdonshire in it!
Lo-ve-ly! And Manchester is, as it should, in Lancashire!
8. [Well] the map was printed in 1999 [but printed by THIS ENGLAND,
that conservative publication if ever there was one, sticks to the
"Save the Old Shyres" Campaign, and so, forget about seeing
Humberside, Cleveland, and Greater London! And Yorkshire is the
greatest shire, as it always was!]
Regina writes,
"According to this test 'book' and 'map' are polysemous. However, 'book'
and 'map' can also convey both facets AT THE SAME TIME and therefore they
are not intuitively polysemous. They can also fail certain ambiguity tests.
You can say:
9. John bought an old book. So did Mary.
which could be interpreted as
10. John and Mary bought old tomes with old texts.
However, it would probably be possible to also convey that
11. John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel
and Mary an old tome with an old novel.
So the ambiguity test fails here.
[I fail to see the meaning of the first conjunct of (11), i.e.
12. John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel.
I guess the idea is that what is polysemous here is "old". i.e. an old
novel is, by anglophone standards, "OLDER" than an old tome. E.g. "Waves"
by Virginia Woolf may be said to be a "fairly new novel", but if John
bought the first edition by Hogarth Press, the tome would be "old" (or
"dated") enough - and a collector's item, at that! In general, with
Regina's examples, I was struck (not being an anglophone) that to me it
wasn't clear whether the ambiguity applied to "old" rather than to the
modified noun! JLS]
Regina writes: "To come back to your [syntactic] scope example. The facet
readings add further complication to your interpretations. Your 'old books
and maps' example will probably allow both facet readings to occur.
13. John bought old books & maps.
can be interpreted as
14. John bought old tomes & "new" maps
(content and physical make-up - or either of them)
However, [disambiguating the scope]
15. John bought old books & OLD maps.
would probably be more restricted to either a 'tome' or 'text' reading for
both.
[i.e. I see. Following, Cruse's terminology, the same "facet" would be
chosen, ceteris paribus, qua generalised conversational explicature!]
"So, since we are in fact dealing with polysemous facets we have to ask how
to approach their disambiguation in pragmatics. By the principle of
relevance the [addressee] will interpret the utterance
in the first available context consistent with the communicative principle
of relevance. If the contextual information leads to a "tome"
interpretation, the [addressee] will access encyclopaedic entries connected
to 'tome' and enrich [and disambiguate] the explicature accordingly. If it
leads to the
'text' interpretation he will enrich the explicature accordingly."
Regina adds, "I do not find Grice's answer to those problems very helpful.
After all he does not give us a *means* by which to 'avoid ambiguity', RT
does."
Well, thank you. Indeed, I like Cruse's idea of a facet and the whole idea
of interpreting the facet as modifying the truth condition(s) of a claim.
Now, as to how satisfactory Grice's original answer is, the issue is, I
find, tricky, and I would not wish to get this into a historiographical
polemic!
Regina writes, "Grice does not give us a "means" by which to avoid
ambiguity".
This is, to me, pretty ambiguous!
As I understand Grice, "avoid ambiguity" is one of the strategies of the
conversational decalogue (if we count them as being nine plus the one for
"the" being the tenth, i.e. Studies in the Way of Words, p.26 AND p.273).
As such, Grice, it seems to me, is not really WILLING to give us the
*means* (as Regina puts it) by which to avoid ambiguity. The maxim is
expressed in natural English and does not require much of an interpretation
(i.e. it does not go, "avoid Empson's seven types of ambiguity!").
As is obvious with the other maxims (including "be relevant"!), Grice seems
to be more concerned with FLOUTS to the maxim rather than the following of
it (i.e. what to avoid ambiguity would really amount to).
From Grice's two examples of FLOUTS of the "avoid ambiguity" strategy, one
can get an idea of what kind of ambiguity he was having in mind. His first
example being
16. Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be
since she [Nature] pricked thee
Out for woman's pleasure
mine be they love,
& thy love's use their treasure
W. Blake
and the second
17. Peccavi (I've Scinde),
Wrote Lord Ellen so proud.
More briefly Dalhousie
Wrote Vovi (I've Oude).
Punch, Oxford Dict. Quot.
In 16, the ambiguity resides in line 2, which can read as 18 or 19
18. Love that never can be told.
19. Love that never told can be ( = exist).
Is the utterer involving "polysemy" there? It seems to that the ambiguity
is, like in "old books & maps", of the scope, syntactic, type (which
admittedly, may yield different truth conditions). You don't seem to need
to bring in Cruse's polysemous facets or alternate readings for specific
lexical items. Just two different surface syntactic parsings (which, will
yield, admittedly, again different truth-conditions). Ie. Grice's examples
seem to aimed at illustrating the interface between syntax and pragmatics.
I.e. how alternate semantic parsings give raise to different truth
conditions (and pragmatic interpretations) without need to fulfill an
intermediate "full" lexico-semantic level. The two semantic parsings being
20. Love that never can be told by anyone.
i.e., a kind of the love that dare not speak its name: a love that IS (or
"exists"), but, for some reason, cannot be told. The example is,
admittedly, tricky since it involves the negative adverbial "never", and so
in a sense, it resembles
21. The King of France was never bald.
Does 21 presuppose (implicate, mean) that there was a king of France?
Relying on "never", one can claim that 21 does NOT presuppose (implicate,
mean) that
31. There is a king of France.
other than via a cancellable conversational implicature. Similarly, (20)
may not presuppose that such love exists. I myself opt for this latter
alternative, since I note that Blake is placing such love as object of
one's search, "NEVER SEEK TO TELL THY LOVE". Cfr.
32. Never seek the abominable Snowman.
as implicating - on occasion
33. Because your search is doomed to fail,
there not being such a man.
But I'm rambling... Now, the second "ambiguity" flout example, the
"Peccavi" couplet is so contrived, I find, and it doesn't really even
concern English, which is my topic of research! Until someone proves to me
that a similar kind of military example can be built for English, I think
Grice was being too much of a classicist there! (Recall his lectures were
given at Harvard which is reputedly the one offering the best classical
education in USA!).
=================
These above are, then, some observations regarding "avoid ambiguity". In
their essay in Werth, Sperber & Wilson argue that "avoid ambiguity" reduces
to "be relevant" - and I will not deal with this reduction here: even if
something reduces to something it doesn't mean we must stop talking about
it. E.g. Grice thinks "meaning" reduces to "intention", but most of his
essays have "meaning" in the title, not intention!
===================
Now, the other main aspect where ambiguity features large in Grice's
programme - and which I expressed in the header of this thread - is in his
"Modified Occam's Razor" which he introduces in "Further Notes" (Studies,
p.47). My focus has been the connectives, and so I will deal with that, in
particular with the first connective,
34. John bought the book & read it.
vs.
35. John read the book & bought it.
Suppose the book is "The Owl &the Pussycat", so that it is possible that
36. John had time at the bookshop to go thru all the poem by Edward Lear,
i.e. read it, to mainly note that no main errata were found, and since he
loved the illustrations, he proceeded to buy it.
i.e. (36) would be truth conditionally equivalent to
37. John read the book & THEN bought it.
On the other hand, it is possible that he did not read the poem in the
bookshop, but, as usually happens, just bought it. It was a gift anyway. It
was only after buying and giving it as a gift to his nephew that he found
himself having to read the poem, too! So both (34) and (35) would be truth
condtitionally equivalent to
38. John bought the book & then read it (to his nephew).
The idea being of course, that for an entry like
39. and.
we have two polysemous facets, as Cruse would call them, viz.
40. and. 1. = "&"
"p & q" is true iff both p & q are true
2. temporal sequence. AND THEN.
This seems simple enough to me, and what Grice is saying is, follow M.O.R.
(Modified Occam's Razor) i.e.
41. Avoid multiplying senses (or polysemous facets) without necessity.
Grice does note that the status of M.O.R. is questionable (and PhD's have
been written against it!), but his whole programme seems to depend on the
idea that it is sometimes possible to know when to apply it, and
successfully too, especially when there is an alternate explication via
conversational implicature (I'm not so sure "explicatures" play a role
here) to account for the SECOND, derived, so-called alleged polysemous facet.
==========
Now, it would be nice if we could compare the maxim "avoid ambiguity" with
M.O.R., but I'm not sure that that was Grice's idea. I would need textual
criticism. It seems that with the maxim, Grice is concerned with either
syntactic alternate parsings (or contrived examples in foreign languages),
whereas with M.O.R. he is concerned with specific lexical items, and
notably the bare connectives - as he describes them (rather than whole
syntactic paradigms, or nominal phrases, etc).
=========
One example of Grice's that may be illustrative as providing a link,
though, may be
42. He is in the grip of a vice.
This, Grice, says, is "ambiguous" - although he does not use the word
(Studies, p.25) - between 43 and 44
43. About some particular male person or animal x,
at the time of utterance, x was unable to rid
himself of a certain kind of bad character.
44. About some particular male person or animal x,
at the time of utterance, some part of x's person
was caught in a certain kind of tool or instrument.
Here I would not doubt to consider a Cruse polysemous facet - and fail!
(see below):
45. vice 1. corruption of morals
from the Latin, vitium
2. screw.
from the Latin, vitis
Now, the obvious question I'd like to ask a RTheorist is whether they would
consider "vice #1" and "vice #2" to be an example of a polysemous lexical
entry or just TWO lexical entries! (Grice did not tell me. He just
implicated his answer). Perhaps he thought it is obvious that he thought
they were two lexical entries involved). The interesting thing (to me) and
from which I infer Grice's position - philosophers seldom deal with "words"
as such! - is that when discussing M.O.R. he brings up the same example. He
writes,
"Assuming for the moment that the tests
[to differentiate "mean-n" from "mean-nn"]
are roughly adequate, what I want to do now
is NOT TO EMPHASISE the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
THESE CASES, BECAUSE THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE"
And ad nauseam, too.(So much so, taht DH Mellor says Grice died of
non-natural causes!)
BUT RATHER TO LOOK AT WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON. IS
THIS DOUBLE USE
Note the use of USE, a favourite word with Oxford philosophers, cf. G.
Ryle's essay, "Use, Usage, and Meaning" in G. Parkinson, The Theories of
Meaning. Oxford Readings in Philosophy).
of the word "mean" just LIKE THE DOUBLE USE
note again the use of "use"
of the word "vice" to refer SOMETIMES TO
SOMETHING APPROXIMATING TO A SIN AND SOMETIMES
TO A CERTAIN SORT OF INSTRUMENT USED BY CARPENTERS.
ONE IS PRETTY MUCH INCLINED TO THINK IN THE LATTER
CASE TO SAY THAT THERE ARE TWO WORDS WHICH ARE
PRONOUNCED AND WRITTEN THE SAME.
But that inclination may be a vice! I recall the dialogue between Grice and
Austin reported by Grice: Grice: I don't care what the dictionary says.
Austin: And that is where you make your big mistake!).
On general grounds of economy,
cfr. LR Horn on the London School of Parsimony! (Parsimony being the term
by which Occam's razor - to shave Plato's beard - is known in philosophical
jargon).
I am incined to think that if one can avoid saying that
the word so-and-so has THIS SENSE, THAT SENSE, and
the other sense, or THIS MEANING, and ANOTHER MEANING,
if one can allow them to be variants under a single
principle, that is the desirable thing to do: don't
multiply senses beyond necessity" (Studies, p.291).
Now, from that passage it seems pretty obvious to me that Grice is
suggesting that we take "vice 1" and vice 2" as being "TWO WORDS PRONOUNCED
AND WRITTEN THE SAME". I.e. Homonyms, rather than polysemous words (like
"row" (of chairs) and "row" in the river).
But WHAT would for Grice actually *be* an example of a polysemous word!? I
can't find one single case. One case I do recall is from Adam Kilgariff (of
U.Sussex/Brighton)'s essay in "I don't believe in word senses". He notes
that an early ediiton of the O.E.D. features:
46. horse. 1. a quadruped animal
2. a representation of a horse
(This was later "improved", and the second usage eliminated!).
===========
I believe that the notion of truth condition may (AND SHOULD) help us here
but when it comes to polysemy, the issue is tricky, I find, because of
so-called EXTENDED USAGES, which I don't strictly call polysemous. This may
even apply to "and". I.e. it may well be that the primeval (seminal) use is
the truth-functional "&" and that "and that" (temporal or causal sequence)
is an extended "USE", not a different SENSE. But how and why do senses grow
then?
===========
I think another example by Grice (Studies, p.89), with which I'll end this
sketchy notes may be illustrative here. It's his discussion of grass to
mean "lawn" or "pot":
47. If I shall then be helping the grass to grow,
I shall have no time for reading.
as meaning upon the two polysemous facets (?) of "grass" as either 48 or 49:
48. If I shall then be assisting the kind of thing
of which lawns are composed to mature, I shall
have no time for reading.
49. If I shall then be assisting the marijuana to
mature, I hsll have no time for reading.
Again, though, Grice does not use the word "ambiguity". He goes the hard
way and writes,
"It would be true to say that the word "grass" means
(loosely speaking) "lawn material" and also true to
say that the word "grass" means "marijuana". Such
meaning specifications I shall call the specifications
of the timeless meanings of an incomplete utterance
type which may be a nonsentential word or phrase or
may be a nonlinguistic utterance type which is
analogous to a word or phrase" (p.89).
=======
Trouble is, I think, that, here, we cannot strictly say, as with "vice"
that it's two words pronounced and written the same. One is an extended,
figurative use of the second, viz.
Speranza
50. grass. 1. lawn material
2. marijuana
(Incidentally, I think the same applies to cases like "gay" "1. merry. 2.
homosexual," or "turk: native of Turkey; unwanton child" [where the second
meaning, or item separated by the semi-colon may be thought of as a
metaphor - and thus a conversational implicature, Studies, p.34). So,
old-fashioned as I am, I'm quite against those dictionaries, like the new
C.O.E.D., that orders the alleged "polysemous facets" in terms of frequency
rather than history!
Sorry for the elongated ramblings. I got carried away. And thanks again to
Regina Blass for her food for thought.
Blass writes that she "would like to challenge both J. L. [Speranza]'s claim that no polysemy is involved in things like (i) vs. (ii)
(i) old (books & maps).
(old books) and maps.
examples.
"Cruse shows that items like 'book', 'map', 'CD' have FACETS. They have
[various] readings in certain contexts in which ambiguity tests are
positive. [E.g.] "book" has the reading "1. tome" and "2. text" and, as
such, a sentence [containing it] can convey different truth conditions
depending on whether [one facet or the other is] meant:
3. Did you buy an an old book?
[may get as answers]
4. Yes, I bought a novel by Charles Dickens.
5. No, the book was printed in 1999.
[I was wondering about e-books. A typical case of the text interpretant
only! "Buy? Are you crazy. What's the use of a full internet subscription
for then! I read it from Gutenberg Project!" :) JLS]
The same could apply to 'map' [where]
6. Did you buy an old map?
where a map [of pre-1974 England is meant! I like to see Rutland back
there! JLS].
[which could get as answers]
7. [Yes, I bought a map with Rutland and Huntingdonshire in it!
Lo-ve-ly! And Manchester is, as it should, in Lancashire!
8. [Well] the map was printed in 1999 [but printed by THIS ENGLAND,
that conservative publication if ever there was one, sticks to the
"Save the Old Shyres" Campaign, and so, forget about seeing
Humberside, Cleveland, and Greater London! And Yorkshire is the
greatest shire, as it always was!]
Regina writes,
"According to this test 'book' and 'map' are polysemous. However, 'book'
and 'map' can also convey both facets AT THE SAME TIME and therefore they
are not intuitively polysemous. They can also fail certain ambiguity tests.
You can say:
9. John bought an old book. So did Mary.
which could be interpreted as
10. John and Mary bought old tomes with old texts.
However, it would probably be possible to also convey that
11. John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel
and Mary an old tome with an old novel.
So the ambiguity test fails here.
[I fail to see the meaning of the first conjunct of (11), i.e.
12. John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel.
I guess the idea is that what is polysemous here is "old". i.e. an old
novel is, by anglophone standards, "OLDER" than an old tome. E.g. "Waves"
by Virginia Woolf may be said to be a "fairly new novel", but if John
bought the first edition by Hogarth Press, the tome would be "old" (or
"dated") enough - and a collector's item, at that! In general, with
Regina's examples, I was struck (not being an anglophone) that to me it
wasn't clear whether the ambiguity applied to "old" rather than to the
modified noun! JLS]
Regina writes: "To come back to your [syntactic] scope example. The facet
readings add further complication to your interpretations. Your 'old books
and maps' example will probably allow both facet readings to occur.
13. John bought old books & maps.
can be interpreted as
14. John bought old tomes & "new" maps
(content and physical make-up - or either of them)
However, [disambiguating the scope]
15. John bought old books & OLD maps.
would probably be more restricted to either a 'tome' or 'text' reading for
both.
[i.e. I see. Following, Cruse's terminology, the same "facet" would be
chosen, ceteris paribus, qua generalised conversational explicature!]
"So, since we are in fact dealing with polysemous facets we have to ask how
to approach their disambiguation in pragmatics. By the principle of
relevance the [addressee] will interpret the utterance
in the first available context consistent with the communicative principle
of relevance. If the contextual information leads to a "tome"
interpretation, the [addressee] will access encyclopaedic entries connected
to 'tome' and enrich [and disambiguate] the explicature accordingly. If it
leads to the
'text' interpretation he will enrich the explicature accordingly."
Regina adds, "I do not find Grice's answer to those problems very helpful.
After all he does not give us a *means* by which to 'avoid ambiguity', RT
does."
Well, thank you. Indeed, I like Cruse's idea of a facet and the whole idea
of interpreting the facet as modifying the truth condition(s) of a claim.
Now, as to how satisfactory Grice's original answer is, the issue is, I
find, tricky, and I would not wish to get this into a historiographical
polemic!
Regina writes, "Grice does not give us a "means" by which to avoid
ambiguity".
This is, to me, pretty ambiguous!
As I understand Grice, "avoid ambiguity" is one of the strategies of the
conversational decalogue (if we count them as being nine plus the one for
"the" being the tenth, i.e. Studies in the Way of Words, p.26 AND p.273).
As such, Grice, it seems to me, is not really WILLING to give us the
*means* (as Regina puts it) by which to avoid ambiguity. The maxim is
expressed in natural English and does not require much of an interpretation
(i.e. it does not go, "avoid Empson's seven types of ambiguity!").
As is obvious with the other maxims (including "be relevant"!), Grice seems
to be more concerned with FLOUTS to the maxim rather than the following of
it (i.e. what to avoid ambiguity would really amount to).
From Grice's two examples of FLOUTS of the "avoid ambiguity" strategy, one
can get an idea of what kind of ambiguity he was having in mind. His first
example being
16. Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be
since she [Nature] pricked thee
Out for woman's pleasure
mine be they love,
& thy love's use their treasure
W. Blake
and the second
17. Peccavi (I've Scinde),
Wrote Lord Ellen so proud.
More briefly Dalhousie
Wrote Vovi (I've Oude).
Punch, Oxford Dict. Quot.
In 16, the ambiguity resides in line 2, which can read as 18 or 19
18. Love that never can be told.
19. Love that never told can be ( = exist).
Is the utterer involving "polysemy" there? It seems to that the ambiguity
is, like in "old books & maps", of the scope, syntactic, type (which
admittedly, may yield different truth conditions). You don't seem to need
to bring in Cruse's polysemous facets or alternate readings for specific
lexical items. Just two different surface syntactic parsings (which, will
yield, admittedly, again different truth-conditions). Ie. Grice's examples
seem to aimed at illustrating the interface between syntax and pragmatics.
I.e. how alternate semantic parsings give raise to different truth
conditions (and pragmatic interpretations) without need to fulfill an
intermediate "full" lexico-semantic level. The two semantic parsings being
20. Love that never can be told by anyone.
i.e., a kind of the love that dare not speak its name: a love that IS (or
"exists"), but, for some reason, cannot be told. The example is,
admittedly, tricky since it involves the negative adverbial "never", and so
in a sense, it resembles
21. The King of France was never bald.
Does 21 presuppose (implicate, mean) that there was a king of France?
Relying on "never", one can claim that 21 does NOT presuppose (implicate,
mean) that
31. There is a king of France.
other than via a cancellable conversational implicature. Similarly, (20)
may not presuppose that such love exists. I myself opt for this latter
alternative, since I note that Blake is placing such love as object of
one's search, "NEVER SEEK TO TELL THY LOVE". Cfr.
32. Never seek the abominable Snowman.
as implicating - on occasion
33. Because your search is doomed to fail,
there not being such a man.
But I'm rambling... Now, the second "ambiguity" flout example, the
"Peccavi" couplet is so contrived, I find, and it doesn't really even
concern English, which is my topic of research! Until someone proves to me
that a similar kind of military example can be built for English, I think
Grice was being too much of a classicist there! (Recall his lectures were
given at Harvard which is reputedly the one offering the best classical
education in USA!).
=================
These above are, then, some observations regarding "avoid ambiguity". In
their essay in Werth, Sperber & Wilson argue that "avoid ambiguity" reduces
to "be relevant" - and I will not deal with this reduction here: even if
something reduces to something it doesn't mean we must stop talking about
it. E.g. Grice thinks "meaning" reduces to "intention", but most of his
essays have "meaning" in the title, not intention!
===================
Now, the other main aspect where ambiguity features large in Grice's
programme - and which I expressed in the header of this thread - is in his
"Modified Occam's Razor" which he introduces in "Further Notes" (Studies,
p.47). My focus has been the connectives, and so I will deal with that, in
particular with the first connective,
34. John bought the book & read it.
vs.
35. John read the book & bought it.
Suppose the book is "The Owl &the Pussycat", so that it is possible that
36. John had time at the bookshop to go thru all the poem by Edward Lear,
i.e. read it, to mainly note that no main errata were found, and since he
loved the illustrations, he proceeded to buy it.
i.e. (36) would be truth conditionally equivalent to
37. John read the book & THEN bought it.
On the other hand, it is possible that he did not read the poem in the
bookshop, but, as usually happens, just bought it. It was a gift anyway. It
was only after buying and giving it as a gift to his nephew that he found
himself having to read the poem, too! So both (34) and (35) would be truth
condtitionally equivalent to
38. John bought the book & then read it (to his nephew).
The idea being of course, that for an entry like
39. and.
we have two polysemous facets, as Cruse would call them, viz.
40. and. 1. = "&"
"p & q" is true iff both p & q are true
2. temporal sequence. AND THEN.
This seems simple enough to me, and what Grice is saying is, follow M.O.R.
(Modified Occam's Razor) i.e.
41. Avoid multiplying senses (or polysemous facets) without necessity.
Grice does note that the status of M.O.R. is questionable (and PhD's have
been written against it!), but his whole programme seems to depend on the
idea that it is sometimes possible to know when to apply it, and
successfully too, especially when there is an alternate explication via
conversational implicature (I'm not so sure "explicatures" play a role
here) to account for the SECOND, derived, so-called alleged polysemous facet.
==========
Now, it would be nice if we could compare the maxim "avoid ambiguity" with
M.O.R., but I'm not sure that that was Grice's idea. I would need textual
criticism. It seems that with the maxim, Grice is concerned with either
syntactic alternate parsings (or contrived examples in foreign languages),
whereas with M.O.R. he is concerned with specific lexical items, and
notably the bare connectives - as he describes them (rather than whole
syntactic paradigms, or nominal phrases, etc).
=========
One example of Grice's that may be illustrative as providing a link,
though, may be
42. He is in the grip of a vice.
This, Grice, says, is "ambiguous" - although he does not use the word
(Studies, p.25) - between 43 and 44
43. About some particular male person or animal x,
at the time of utterance, x was unable to rid
himself of a certain kind of bad character.
44. About some particular male person or animal x,
at the time of utterance, some part of x's person
was caught in a certain kind of tool or instrument.
Here I would not doubt to consider a Cruse polysemous facet - and fail!
(see below):
45. vice 1. corruption of morals
from the Latin, vitium
2. screw.
from the Latin, vitis
Now, the obvious question I'd like to ask a RTheorist is whether they would
consider "vice #1" and "vice #2" to be an example of a polysemous lexical
entry or just TWO lexical entries! (Grice did not tell me. He just
implicated his answer). Perhaps he thought it is obvious that he thought
they were two lexical entries involved). The interesting thing (to me) and
from which I infer Grice's position - philosophers seldom deal with "words"
as such! - is that when discussing M.O.R. he brings up the same example. He
writes,
"Assuming for the moment that the tests
[to differentiate "mean-n" from "mean-nn"]
are roughly adequate, what I want to do now
is NOT TO EMPHASISE the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
THESE CASES, BECAUSE THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE"
And ad nauseam, too.(So much so, taht DH Mellor says Grice died of
non-natural causes!)
BUT RATHER TO LOOK AT WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON. IS
THIS DOUBLE USE
Note the use of USE, a favourite word with Oxford philosophers, cf. G.
Ryle's essay, "Use, Usage, and Meaning" in G. Parkinson, The Theories of
Meaning. Oxford Readings in Philosophy).
of the word "mean" just LIKE THE DOUBLE USE
note again the use of "use"
of the word "vice" to refer SOMETIMES TO
SOMETHING APPROXIMATING TO A SIN AND SOMETIMES
TO A CERTAIN SORT OF INSTRUMENT USED BY CARPENTERS.
ONE IS PRETTY MUCH INCLINED TO THINK IN THE LATTER
CASE TO SAY THAT THERE ARE TWO WORDS WHICH ARE
PRONOUNCED AND WRITTEN THE SAME.
But that inclination may be a vice! I recall the dialogue between Grice and
Austin reported by Grice: Grice: I don't care what the dictionary says.
Austin: And that is where you make your big mistake!).
On general grounds of economy,
cfr. LR Horn on the London School of Parsimony! (Parsimony being the term
by which Occam's razor - to shave Plato's beard - is known in philosophical
jargon).
I am incined to think that if one can avoid saying that
the word so-and-so has THIS SENSE, THAT SENSE, and
the other sense, or THIS MEANING, and ANOTHER MEANING,
if one can allow them to be variants under a single
principle, that is the desirable thing to do: don't
multiply senses beyond necessity" (Studies, p.291).
Now, from that passage it seems pretty obvious to me that Grice is
suggesting that we take "vice 1" and vice 2" as being "TWO WORDS PRONOUNCED
AND WRITTEN THE SAME". I.e. Homonyms, rather than polysemous words (like
"row" (of chairs) and "row" in the river).
But WHAT would for Grice actually *be* an example of a polysemous word!? I
can't find one single case. One case I do recall is from Adam Kilgariff (of
U.Sussex/Brighton)'s essay in "I don't believe in word senses". He notes
that an early ediiton of the O.E.D. features:
46. horse. 1. a quadruped animal
2. a representation of a horse
(This was later "improved", and the second usage eliminated!).
===========
I believe that the notion of truth condition may (AND SHOULD) help us here
but when it comes to polysemy, the issue is tricky, I find, because of
so-called EXTENDED USAGES, which I don't strictly call polysemous. This may
even apply to "and". I.e. it may well be that the primeval (seminal) use is
the truth-functional "&" and that "and that" (temporal or causal sequence)
is an extended "USE", not a different SENSE. But how and why do senses grow
then?
===========
I think another example by Grice (Studies, p.89), with which I'll end this
sketchy notes may be illustrative here. It's his discussion of grass to
mean "lawn" or "pot":
47. If I shall then be helping the grass to grow,
I shall have no time for reading.
as meaning upon the two polysemous facets (?) of "grass" as either 48 or 49:
48. If I shall then be assisting the kind of thing
of which lawns are composed to mature, I shall
have no time for reading.
49. If I shall then be assisting the marijuana to
mature, I hsll have no time for reading.
Again, though, Grice does not use the word "ambiguity". He goes the hard
way and writes,
"It would be true to say that the word "grass" means
(loosely speaking) "lawn material" and also true to
say that the word "grass" means "marijuana". Such
meaning specifications I shall call the specifications
of the timeless meanings of an incomplete utterance
type which may be a nonsentential word or phrase or
may be a nonlinguistic utterance type which is
analogous to a word or phrase" (p.89).
=======
Trouble is, I think, that, here, we cannot strictly say, as with "vice"
that it's two words pronounced and written the same. One is an extended,
figurative use of the second, viz.
Speranza
50. grass. 1. lawn material
2. marijuana
(Incidentally, I think the same applies to cases like "gay" "1. merry. 2.
homosexual," or "turk: native of Turkey; unwanton child" [where the second
meaning, or item separated by the semi-colon may be thought of as a
metaphor - and thus a conversational implicature, Studies, p.34). So,
old-fashioned as I am, I'm quite against those dictionaries, like the new
C.O.E.D., that orders the alleged "polysemous facets" in terms of frequency
rather than history!
Sorry for the elongated ramblings. I got carried away. And thanks again to
Regina Blass for her food for thought.
The Lord's Prayer -- Implicated
Speranza
The Lord High Everything Else's Glory
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
Is "lord" a form of 'praise' or flattery?
In his amusing "The Bible and Conversational Implicature", M. M. Warner, who calls me 'too much of a Gricean to be taken seriously', finds that much of the Lord's prayer terribly hyperbolic and slightly otiose in parts, too.
But so is the Older Testament. The Old Frisian version of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer goes (from E O Robinson's Book, English and its Closest Relative):
Thit riuht skref God selua, use hera, tha thet was thet Moyses latte thet
Israheliske folk thruch thene rada se.
Note the expression:
"God selva, use hera".
Literally: God self, us herr". I.e. "God himself, our lord".
It goes on: "Thin God thet is thi ena, Thine God that is the one".
I must say that I always found the rubric, "lord's pryaer" kind of
confusing. If God = Lord, who is JESUS, really? So I guess _Lord's_ prayer
is a misnomer. It should be "Jesus's prayer".
The Lord's prayer ends, in Frisian, with "For thine is the kingdom, the
power and the glory". The Frisian word for "glory" is:
"hear-lik-heid"
Literally,
lord-like-hood.
(cfr. Middle Dutch, 'heerlijkheid', Middle German, 'Herrlichheit',
Vortigern, of
http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk
tells me
"both mean something like 'glory', but also denotes it belongs to the Lord
(Middle Dutch 'heer', Middle German 'Herr'). It is very ancient language,
but "the Power & the glory", in a sense that they are the Lord's, are
probably the nearest descriptions here."
=====
My Classical reference to Catullus: In "Learn Latin", JLS (Grice Circular)
writes:
"If you want to be a writer, learn Latin"
R. M. Brown, Virginia ranch.
Interview to The Houston Voice.
Consider:
1. Isqve domvm nobis isqve dedit dominam
ad qvam commvnes exerceremvs amor
2. So a house to us, so he gave a woman,
in whom we could share the common loves. (Copley)
3. So a house to us, and so he gave a housekeeper
under which we could enjoy the common loves (Goold)
4. He gave us a house and a honey
towards whom we could exercise the common loves (Kinsey)
What the heck did Catullus mean in his dirty poem, a la Grice? Alison
Parker wrote in an essay for The Classical Association that "(1) has proved
a critical slough, mired with unnecessary emendations, and it's the poem's
addressee who gets burned. (1) has suffered badly at the hands of their
'rescuers.' A first, innocent reading might make (1)'s meaning seem fairly
clear, but they have been rendered a critical swamp-pit of perverse
quibbles on word meanings, and even dubious grammar, not forgetting a
scholarly zeal to clean the whole thing.
Some reference assignment, first: in (1) most take "domina" => "Lesbia" &
tend to follow Froehlich who changes the original "dominam" into "dominae".
Consider (2). But (3) sees her as a "housekeeper" (euphemism for
"chaperon") who covers for an adulterous tryst. In Kinsey's interpretation
(MINE TOO. JLS) the "domina" was sure brought in for a menage a trois with
Allius -- whom Catullus really loves. But is it necessary to see this as a
cheesy affair with a wanton woman in a lent-out love-nest, or should we try
to see it as a true favour from friend to friend, a real domus and a
respectable marriage? Now that IS the question. Consider "domum" here. We
shouldn't think here of
a cute condo(m)(inium).
Also, we can't say that Allius is giving Catullus a mistress. He already
has her. Allius must be giving only the cheesy love-nest. Froehlich's
illegal emendation to "dominae", as Lieberg aptly quips, is very "traurig"
(= sneaky, unhappy, what-ever). But if the "dominam" is just a scheming
"chaperone", Catullus would not
like to have HER or would he. The classical scholer [sic. JLS :)] Solmsen
tangentially remarked that the
Romans were not known for the practice of having a chaperon, but what did
he know anyways.
Consider "dedit". Some prim and propers have said the verb "to give"
(donate) implies "adoption or lawful marriage", but doesn't it. Is Catullus
leading his audience that marriage is at last on his brain? Mmmm... Recall
the missive that Catullus received from Mallius:
Dear Catullus,
Why don't you come over to my place, so we
can screw around and then you can put us to sleep
reading your poetry.
Yours,
Mallius.
And cfr. poem No. 50, where Catullus gets together with _Calvus_ for a
night of decadence. But Catullus's brother's death has changed him,
hormonally. He's just not in the mood for casual sex. Note that in 68a
Catullus himself puts aside heavy partying Mallius had accustomed him for.
And there's a silly little puer. So it would seem as though, via his bro's
death Catullus has finally given
up making love to the unsuitable sluts, plus going out with that silly
little puer. But is he real settling down? Note the "ad" (in (1) "make love
TO the domina". "Ad" towards persons is not overly common as an equivalent
to "apud" ("in the house of,", French "au Pierre LaFleur"), so it could
just mean make love TO somebody. The interpretations of "ad quam (dominam)"
as 'in which whore' or 'in the whore where...' is, admittedly, rather
shaky. Note that no sex play is necessary involved. Cfr the previous poem:
I don't jump someone else's whore
I don't hog the food or get drunk...
On the other hand, I display charm, love,
and pleasant civility.
This contrasts with Copley's translation of the same line,
That guy that beat you outa yer gal,
& is doing yer exercizes fer ya.
"But it ruins the joke here, whatever the joke is." (I AGREE. It doth seem
to kinda ruin it). But then is 'exerceret amorem' rather lofty -- kinda
'courts'- But there's a problem here, if Mollius smells, the domina (unless
she's really a one) would not have sex him. Sex the aemulus is unthinkable. As
Catullus puts it,
No pretty girl would sleep
With a smelly fellow.
Only there is one lady so lustful
that she will
"and we can guess who she is". I take "amores communes' to mean, obviously,
"mutual orgasm". Solmsen, the classical scholar, objects that in the case
of friendship and enmity, "communis" is always used for two people's
feelings for a third. But that's apples and oranges! There's the possible
objection that Catullus can't call Lesbia or anyone else his wife, because
she isn't. Our confessional poet wouldn't lie to us. Of course he can call
her whatever he likes. Is Mollius a socer? One can see Catullus as having a
joke at the addressee's expense. "Okay, okay," he says, "that was no wife,
that was my lady. -- and she isn't much
of a lady, for that matter". He's sure jerking the audience around. And
we've yet to learn that Catullus's lover is a married one and no meretrix
she -- which delighted the Roman audience even more, and we have
eleven poems about Lesbius pulcher, the darling brother. But the darling
brother -- THAT is another story".
The Lord High Everything Else's Glory
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
Is "lord" a form of 'praise' or flattery?
In his amusing "The Bible and Conversational Implicature", M. M. Warner, who calls me 'too much of a Gricean to be taken seriously', finds that much of the Lord's prayer terribly hyperbolic and slightly otiose in parts, too.
But so is the Older Testament. The Old Frisian version of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer goes (from E O Robinson's Book, English and its Closest Relative):
Thit riuht skref God selua, use hera, tha thet was thet Moyses latte thet
Israheliske folk thruch thene rada se.
Note the expression:
"God selva, use hera".
Literally: God self, us herr". I.e. "God himself, our lord".
It goes on: "Thin God thet is thi ena, Thine God that is the one".
I must say that I always found the rubric, "lord's pryaer" kind of
confusing. If God = Lord, who is JESUS, really? So I guess _Lord's_ prayer
is a misnomer. It should be "Jesus's prayer".
The Lord's prayer ends, in Frisian, with "For thine is the kingdom, the
power and the glory". The Frisian word for "glory" is:
"hear-lik-heid"
Literally,
lord-like-hood.
(cfr. Middle Dutch, 'heerlijkheid', Middle German, 'Herrlichheit',
Vortigern, of
http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk
tells me
"both mean something like 'glory', but also denotes it belongs to the Lord
(Middle Dutch 'heer', Middle German 'Herr'). It is very ancient language,
but "the Power & the glory", in a sense that they are the Lord's, are
probably the nearest descriptions here."
=====
My Classical reference to Catullus: In "Learn Latin", JLS (Grice Circular)
writes:
"If you want to be a writer, learn Latin"
R. M. Brown, Virginia ranch.
Interview to The Houston Voice.
Consider:
1. Isqve domvm nobis isqve dedit dominam
ad qvam commvnes exerceremvs amor
2. So a house to us, so he gave a woman,
in whom we could share the common loves. (Copley)
3. So a house to us, and so he gave a housekeeper
under which we could enjoy the common loves (Goold)
4. He gave us a house and a honey
towards whom we could exercise the common loves (Kinsey)
What the heck did Catullus mean in his dirty poem, a la Grice? Alison
Parker wrote in an essay for The Classical Association that "(1) has proved
a critical slough, mired with unnecessary emendations, and it's the poem's
addressee who gets burned. (1) has suffered badly at the hands of their
'rescuers.' A first, innocent reading might make (1)'s meaning seem fairly
clear, but they have been rendered a critical swamp-pit of perverse
quibbles on word meanings, and even dubious grammar, not forgetting a
scholarly zeal to clean the whole thing.
Some reference assignment, first: in (1) most take "domina" => "Lesbia" &
tend to follow Froehlich who changes the original "dominam" into "dominae".
Consider (2). But (3) sees her as a "housekeeper" (euphemism for
"chaperon") who covers for an adulterous tryst. In Kinsey's interpretation
(MINE TOO. JLS) the "domina" was sure brought in for a menage a trois with
Allius -- whom Catullus really loves. But is it necessary to see this as a
cheesy affair with a wanton woman in a lent-out love-nest, or should we try
to see it as a true favour from friend to friend, a real domus and a
respectable marriage? Now that IS the question. Consider "domum" here. We
shouldn't think here of
a cute condo(m)(inium).
Also, we can't say that Allius is giving Catullus a mistress. He already
has her. Allius must be giving only the cheesy love-nest. Froehlich's
illegal emendation to "dominae", as Lieberg aptly quips, is very "traurig"
(= sneaky, unhappy, what-ever). But if the "dominam" is just a scheming
"chaperone", Catullus would not
like to have HER or would he. The classical scholer [sic. JLS :)] Solmsen
tangentially remarked that the
Romans were not known for the practice of having a chaperon, but what did
he know anyways.
Consider "dedit". Some prim and propers have said the verb "to give"
(donate) implies "adoption or lawful marriage", but doesn't it. Is Catullus
leading his audience that marriage is at last on his brain? Mmmm... Recall
the missive that Catullus received from Mallius:
Dear Catullus,
Why don't you come over to my place, so we
can screw around and then you can put us to sleep
reading your poetry.
Yours,
Mallius.
And cfr. poem No. 50, where Catullus gets together with _Calvus_ for a
night of decadence. But Catullus's brother's death has changed him,
hormonally. He's just not in the mood for casual sex. Note that in 68a
Catullus himself puts aside heavy partying Mallius had accustomed him for.
And there's a silly little puer. So it would seem as though, via his bro's
death Catullus has finally given
up making love to the unsuitable sluts, plus going out with that silly
little puer. But is he real settling down? Note the "ad" (in (1) "make love
TO the domina". "Ad" towards persons is not overly common as an equivalent
to "apud" ("in the house of,", French "au Pierre LaFleur"), so it could
just mean make love TO somebody. The interpretations of "ad quam (dominam)"
as 'in which whore' or 'in the whore where...' is, admittedly, rather
shaky. Note that no sex play is necessary involved. Cfr the previous poem:
I don't jump someone else's whore
I don't hog the food or get drunk...
On the other hand, I display charm, love,
and pleasant civility.
This contrasts with Copley's translation of the same line,
That guy that beat you outa yer gal,
& is doing yer exercizes fer ya.
"But it ruins the joke here, whatever the joke is." (I AGREE. It doth seem
to kinda ruin it). But then is 'exerceret amorem' rather lofty -- kinda
'courts'- But there's a problem here, if Mollius smells, the domina (unless
she's really a one) would not have sex him. Sex the aemulus is unthinkable. As
Catullus puts it,
No pretty girl would sleep
With a smelly fellow.
Only there is one lady so lustful
that she will
"and we can guess who she is". I take "amores communes' to mean, obviously,
"mutual orgasm". Solmsen, the classical scholar, objects that in the case
of friendship and enmity, "communis" is always used for two people's
feelings for a third. But that's apples and oranges! There's the possible
objection that Catullus can't call Lesbia or anyone else his wife, because
she isn't. Our confessional poet wouldn't lie to us. Of course he can call
her whatever he likes. Is Mollius a socer? One can see Catullus as having a
joke at the addressee's expense. "Okay, okay," he says, "that was no wife,
that was my lady. -- and she isn't much
of a lady, for that matter". He's sure jerking the audience around. And
we've yet to learn that Catullus's lover is a married one and no meretrix
she -- which delighted the Roman audience even more, and we have
eleven poems about Lesbius pulcher, the darling brother. But the darling
brother -- THAT is another story".
Grice, "Saturday Mornings"
Speranza
“Be relevant”
Few of us have noticed that the relevance list’s posts are numbered. I have taken some trouble to find the numbering for my posts. I realize that I started contributed to the list, as far as the archives goes – they are deposited at (a) http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/ and (b) http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/– with post No. 89. The following, thus, is a precis of my contributions to a certain list which specialises in Grice, 'be relevant' (Studies in the Way of Words, p. 30). I have attached a brief descript of what each post is about, along with its online link. The tag ‘comment’ signals that it is in reply to a query, etc. in the list. It was my understanding that lists are to share, hence my often conversational posts regarding other people’s interests. I have appended the name of the original querier in cases. Enjoy!
THIS YEAR OF GRICE: 2002
Post No. 89.
Title: “… seems to be the hardest word”
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0089.html
Abstract. On the pragmatics of apologizing. In reply to query by R. Breheny, of Keynes House, Cambridge on the semantics/pragmatics of ‘sorry’.
Refs.: W. Edmondson. 'On Saying You're Sorry.' In F Coulmas, ed. Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardised Communication: Situations & Prepatterned Speech, Rasmus Rask Studies in Pragmatic Linguistics, vol. 2. Janua Linguarum Series Maior 96. The Hague: Mouton, pp. pp.273-288. Especially section, Apologies in discourse. Also in the same volume, B. Fraser, 'On Apologising.' pp.259-271.
especially section. An apology. 9 Strategies for apologising (1.announcing, 2.stating, 3.offering, 4.requesting, 5.expressing, 6.requesting forgiveness, 7.acknowledging, 8.promising, 9.offering redress. Factors influencing the choice of apologising strategy. My own approach - from a Gricean philosophy of language - would be via H. P. Grice (WoW), via S R Schiffer (Meaning - taxonomy of illocutionary acts in terms of Gricean intentions) and a look at D. Holdcroft, Words & Deeds (for a Gricean treatment of Austin's pragmatics). Fraser defines an apology as a "type of remedial action", so I'm sure there's more specific bibliography by so-called conversation-analysts alla Schegloff and Jefferson. The header is a reference to E. Taupin/Elton John's song, "Sorry seems to be the hardest word". All the references above are to the conversational "pragmatics" of sorry. I’m sorry to have to say that “sorry” has no semantics.”
* * * * * * *
Post No. 91
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0091.html
Title: The pragmatics of name-calling.
Abstract: A comment on a study by Yus on ‘a relevance-theoretic approach to insults’. I offer to order them all alphabetically.
* * * * *
Post No. 96
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0096.html
Abstrct: A defence of student cleverness against D. Hudson’s suggestion that a student has commited plagiarism..
* * * * *
Post No. 98
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0098.html
* * * * *
Post No. 99.
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0099.html
Title: Relevance-based guidelines to interpretation:
Abstract: On “When my grandmother was 80, she didn’t use glasses. She drank right out of the bottle.” Cancellability of expected inferred lexical narrowing.
* * * * *
Post No. 105
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0105.html
Title: My Way To Constable.
Abstract: Grice cited in Richards/Ogden, Meaning of Meaning – thanks to J. L. Speranza.As a philosopher with Gricean background, I always found I A Richards and C K Ogden of great interest. London-born Charles Keith (?) Ogden is usually given less importance, although it's him who (first) translated Witters "Tractatus" (Now, wasn't that a "task"!), allowing "Witters" to get a PhD in Cambridge, a Full Professorship in Philosophy, and British nationality (at a time when Wittgenstein was persecuted by the Nazis in Austria). Ogden was also the creator of "Basic English" (I have his edition of the "New Testament" in Basic English, but God! - give me King James anytime!). Cheshire-born Ian Alexander (? I'm just guessing his first names here!) Richards was associated with Robin G Collingwood, who was Oxford, rather, but, in his "THE NATURE OF HISTORY", Collingwood deals with Richards, and Ogden, and these causal theorists. There's also a forgotten member of this "group". Lady Violet Welby (I guess she was neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but, like Ogden, London!). I have somewhere her "What is Meaning". Quite a proto-Gricean this lady was! The second edn. of Ogden/Richards's book became quite a mandatory reading material for any UCL/SOAS linguist after Branislaw Malinowski published his boring Appendix there - Malinowski being associated with JR Firth and with the best tradition of English Linguistic Functionalism. Richards is more connected with Literary Criticism proper, right? (I note you are a reader in English. Richards was a Magdalenite as well, right?). He certainly influenced Sheffield-born W Empson, who has dealt at length with IA Richard's theory in some of his books (Not 7 Types of Ambiguity). In philosophical circles, Ogden/Richards are considered kind of mandatory for any serious study of meta-ethics, qua representatives of emotivism, i.e. the idea that, relevantly speaking, “ "The Meaning of Meaning" is a good book”means (no more, no less than) I approve of "The Meaning of Meaning". The main emotivist representative is an American, C L Stevenson ("Ethics and Language"), and Richards lectured a lot in USA so Stevenson may well have been influenced by him. Also other American members of what was called the school of General Semantics. There's one with a Japanese surname). My guess is, though, that the emotivist movement was quite strong in England as well, and we don't need Stevenson to bring it to history. English philosopher H.P.Grice ((H. Paul), yes, he of the "be relevant" conversational maxim) discusses Stevenson in his "Meaning" (in Studies in the Way of Words). And I've found another interesting historical connection: H. L. A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus?) Hart, who was, like Grice, an Oxonian philosopher, mentions Grice on Meaning in his (Hart's) review of John Holloway's Language & Intelligence, published for the Scotland-based "Philosophical Quarterly". (As I recall, the title of Hart's review is "Words and Signs". It's a "critical review). This has been studied as well by philosopher Peter A. Facione in USA, who has traced some very interesting proto-Gricean "doctrines"). I've never been able to trace this book by John Holloway, though, but it seems he belonged to this Emotivist School so well represented (if not started) by Ogden & Richards. Holloway (in England) and Stevenson (in USA) were, it seemed, strong adherents of the "causal theory of meaning". Both Hart and Grice tried to "refine" what they thought were too rude or rough statements, and the rest, as they say, is history.
* * * * *
Post No. 108
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0108.html
Title: More on Grice's meaning of meaning.
Abstract: I have elsewhere mentioned some links between Ogden/Richards and the English Oxford philosopher HP Grice. I was glad to see that such links have been furthered by RE Dale in an essay presented to SR Schiffer, "disciple" of Grice at Oxford for a number of years. I won't offer comments on RE Dale's essay other than pointing out that his is an analysis of *XXth century* pragmatics. I would claim - as I have elsewhere - that Grice's "insights" can be traced back, in the English-speaking world, at least to the Oxford tradition inaugurated by William of Ockham, T Hobbes, J. Locke, W. Digby, J Harris, and as developed in the XIXth c. by JS Mill. But I was happy to see a revision of Lady Victoria Welby - who's seldom acknowledged in the history of the "discipline" (the connection between Gardiner and Grice Dale notes is explicitly mentioned in the work of J Lyons). RE Dale writes: "What might Grice have had in mind when he suggested that his programme for an analysis of meaning was a matter of controversy? A good method for trying to answer this question would be to examine every place where intention-based theories are discussed, and to give special attention to all of those places where both intention-based theories and causal theories are discussed. It would, needless to say, be hard to know that one had ever successfully looked at every such place. But I have done my best and the only places in the twentieth-century literature I have been able to identify in which intention-based theories are discussed before Grice's work are these": Victoria Welby's "Meaning", AH Gardiner's "Speech and Language" and Ogden & Richards's "The Meaning of Meaning". "That's it. Perhaps I haven't looked enough, but I have looked pretty hard. And the only place I have been able to find both intention-based theories and causal theories discussed in the twentieth-century before Grice's "Meaning" is The Meaning of Meaning. So, here is a hypothesis. Grice read Ogden & Richard's "The Meaning of Meaning" and saw that its authors saw intention-based theories as "problematic" while themselves offering a "causal theory," and that is why he took his programme to be controversial.This is not at all an implausible hypothesis, I think, since "The Meaning of Meaning" has been a widely read book from the time of its publication until today. And if the hypothesis is correct, it gives all the more plausibility to the view that there is an identifiable tradition of intention-based thinking about meaning in the twentieth-century that begins with Welby, and runs through Gardiner to Grice. And if I am right about Gardiner's influence on Austin, then this tradition can be said to be responsible for an awful lot of what has been important in twentieth-century theorizing about meaning. Of course, the idea of there being an intention-based tradition is by no means false if it turns out that Grice NEVER READ OR WAS INFLUENCED by The Meaning of Meaning. But the story that includes Grice as somehow influenced by Welby and Gardiner is a much more interesting one. Why? If Grice did read "The Meaning of Meaning," all the more is there reason to give to Welby a place of importance in twentieth-century philosophy. For she must be identified as the originator in twentieth-century philosophy of the idea of seeing meaning as identifiable with a speaker's intention to affect an audience, the idea that Grice would make the cornerstone of his conception of meaning. And likewise, Gardiner should all the more be acknowledged as the important thinker he clearly was. Of course, in my view, both Welby and Gardiner should be much more recognized than they are whether or not Grice read "The Meaning of Meaning. But if Grice plausibly read that work and WAS INFLUENCED IN WORKING ON INTENTION-BASED THEORIES IN PART BECAUSE OF IT, clearly Welby and Gardiner and Ogden & Richards deserve credit as originators of the sort of theory that Grice was later to make such ingenious and influential contributions to. Grice gives reason to suspect that he took himself as engaging in a debate between causal theorists and intention-based theorists of meaning. But Grice didn't provide any clear suggestion about who the parties to this debate might have been. I identified Victoria Welby as the originator of intention-based theorizing in the twentieth-century. I noted a number of important aspects of her work including suspicion of a notion of what I called central meaning. Alan Gardiner, I suggested, synthesized important issues in Welby - whether he did so consciously or not - by developing further the speech/language distinction with a special emphasis on the non-linguistic intentions of speakers in speech. Gardiner developed a number of important themes which were widely influential later, though he was little noted, including something like the notion of the illocutionary force of an utterance and its relation to speaker's intentions, as well as the notion that a necessary condition for an act of speech - as he called it - is that the speaker should intend her or his audience to recognize her or his communicative intention in making the utterance made. This latter notion, I noted, is importantly related to Grice's analysis of the concept of speaker-meaning. I pointed out that Welby and Gardiner could be seen as taking part in a certain tradition in twentieth-century theorizing about meaning which I called the intention-based tradition. I then discussed a second tradition which I called the causal tradition. I noted the chief theorists in this tradition and I gave something of a gloss of it. I next returned to the question of where Grice might have come to learn of a debate between intention-based theorists and causal theorists. I suggest that it was through Ogden and Richards 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning which is the only place before Grice that I have been able to find a discussion of theories of both traditions." Quite a stretch, no? What people write to earn a doctorate!
Vide: "This Gricean Lady: Lady Violet Welby and the palaeo-Griceans", this blog.
* * * * *
Post No. 119
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0119.html
Abstract: Grice's subdoxastic states.
Abstract. A reference to “The pragmatics of propositional attitude reports”
* * * *
Post No. 120.
Title: Modificated Ockham.
Abstract. On my partial confusion on the different concepts of "polysemy" and "ambiguity". It was I think JD Atlas who favours the view that the Gricean programme is best interpreted as prooposing UNIGUITY (or monoguity, I forget - I prefer the latter term) PLUS Implicature. In this case, UNIGUITY opposes to POLYSEMY. The locus classicus, and within my special focus of interest, the logical connectives, the idea that - as held in Oxford e.g. by LJ Cohen, of Queen's, if not by the early Strawson of "An Intro to Logical Theory", or earlier still, by Ryle in a number of essays - that "and" has (at least) two meaning (and is thus ambiguous or multiguous, or polyguous) - "and = &" (The Russellian interpretation favoured by Grice), and "and = and then" (or, to use Ryle's example, "He died and drank the poison", "and as a consequence then"). But I suppose one can see POLYSEMY (genuine one, as in the case of Grice's example, "vice", and "row" - meaning row in a river and row of chairs, coming from different Anglo-Saxon roots) as just *one* special type of ambiguity - After all, according to Wm. Empson (and we have been talking here of the legacy of I. A. Richards) there were SEVEN! Interestingly (for me, but I have to revise Grice's arguments in detail), when Grice deals with his Modified Occam's razor (in "Further notes") - as applied to the alleged to meanings of "or" (inclusive and exclusive - he does mention the word "ambiguity" if not "polysemy". Also, when in "Meaning Revisited" (also repr. in Studies in the Way of Words), he discusses whether there are really two "senses" of "meaning" (natural and non-natural) he also appeals to the Modified Occam's Razor to conclude that there is just one meaning and, perhaps, different usages. One should consider that for Frege, as much as terms (like "vice", "row", "meaning", "bank") or predicates may be have to have senses, propositions are also said to have both sense and reference. I forget what Frege thought the sense of a proposition was, but I recall he thought the reference of a proposition was a truth value. (Dummett's book on Frege was too thick (literally) for me. :)). On the other hand, and back to Grice, there's the maxim, "avoid ambiguity" (under the Fourth and Last Category of Manner of perspicuity), but the two examples he offers there (Wm Blake's poem, and "Peccavi") could hardly be said to deal with polysemy. The first (Blake's poem) seems to be a case of syntactic scope or parsing, and the latter is so contrived, that I would hardly call it "conversational". It refers to an historical event, as my Oxford Dict of Quotations shows). My ideas have, most recently, been influenced by the English computational linguist Adam Kilgariff's PhD thesis on "Polysemy" (U Sussex, Brighton), and his article "I don't believe in word senses", and by LR Horn's dictum, "Do not spit if you can lump" - which Horn applies less liberally than I myself do! As I recall, Sperber/Wilson's first example of "disambiguation" (in their Pragamtics Microfiche essay of Grice repr. in P. Werth) concerned the item "bank". I have not analysed THAT item in due detail, since, being an etymologist extraordinaire, I find it difficult to find the two SENSES or meanings of "bank". Italian blooded as I am, I find that they are rather two "usages" of the same word - as imported into the English language! (As Eve Sweester would say, a diachronic study of "bank" would show that what is at play is really a figurative extension of one onl original sense into multiple uses, I suppose).
* * * * *
Post 121:
Title: Blass on Speranza.
Abtract: a reply to Blass's comments on Speranza. She refers to ‘scope-ambiguity’ of the type I vs. ii. old (books & maps). (old books) and maps. And comments: "Cruse shows that items like 'book', 'map', 'CD' have FACETS. They have [various] readings in certain contexts in which ambiguity tests are positive. [E.g.] "book" has the reading "1. tome" and "2. text" and, as such, a sentence [containing it] can convey different truth conditions depending on whether [one facet or the other is] meant: Did you buy an an old book? may get as answers] Yes, I bought a novel by Charles Dickens. No, the book was printed in 1999. I was wondering about e-books. A typical case of the text interpretant only! "Buy? Are you crazy. What's the use of a full internet subscription for then! I read it from Gutenberg Project!" :) JLS] The same could apply to 'map' [where] Did you buy an old map? where a map [of pre-1974 England is meant! I like to see Rutland back there! JLS]. which could get as answers] [Yes, I bought a map with Rutland and Huntingdonshire in it! Lo-ve-ly! And Manchester is, as it should, in Lancashire! [Well] the map was printed in 1999 [but printed by THIS ENGLAND, that conservative publication if ever there was one, sticks to the "Save the Old Shyres" Campaign, and so, forget about seeing Humberside, Cleveland, and Greater London! And Yorkshire is the greatest shire, as it always was!] Regina writes: "According to this test 'book' and 'map' are polysemous. However, 'book' and 'map' can also convey both facets AT THE SAME TIME and therefore they are not intuitively polysemous. They can also fail certain ambiguity tests. You can say: “ John bought an old book. So did Mary.” which could be interpreted as “ John and Mary bought old tomes with old texts”. However, it would probably be possible to also convey that John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel and Mary an old tome with an old novel. So the ambiguity test fails here. I fail to see the meaning of the first conjunct of (11), i.e. John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel. I guess the idea is that what is polysemous here is "old". i.e. an old novel is, by anglophone standards, "OLDER" than an old tome. E.g. "Waves" by Virginia Woolf may be said to be a "fairly new novel", but if John bought the first edition by Hogarth Press, the tome would be "old" (or "dated") enough - and a collector's item, at that! In general, with Regina's examples, I was struck (not being an anglophone) that to me it wasn't clear whether the ambiguity applied to "old" rather than to the modified noun! JLS] Regina writes: "To come back to your [syntactic] scope example. The facet readings add further complication to your interpretations. Your 'old books and maps' example will probably allow both facet readings to occur. John bought old books & maps. can be interpreted as John bought old tomes & "new" maps (content and physical make-up - or either of them) However, [disambiguating the scope] 15. John bought old books & OLD maps. would probably be more restricted to either a 'tome' or 'text' reading for both. [i.e. I see. Following, Cruse's terminology, the same "facet" would be chosen, ceteris paribus, qua generalised conversational explicature!] "So, since we are in fact dealing with polysemous facets we have to ask how to approach their disambiguation in pragmatics. The [addressee] will interpret the utterance in the first available context. If the contextual information leads to a "tome" interpretation, A will access encyclopaedic entries connected to 'tome' and enrich [and disambiguate] the explicature accordingly. If it leads to the 'text' interpretation he will enrich the explicature accordingly." Regina adds, "I do not find Grice's answer to those problems very helpful. After all he does not give us a *means* by which to 'avoid ambiguity'" I like Cruse's idea of a facet and the whole idea of interpreting the facet as modifying the truth condition(s) of a claim. Now, as to how satisfactory Grice's original answer is, the issue is, I find, tricky, and I would not wish to get this into a historiographical polemic! Regina writes, "Grice does not give us a "means" by which to avoid ambiguity". This is, to me, pretty ambiguous! As I understand Grice, "avoid ambiguity" is one of the strategies of the conversational decalogue (if we count them as being nine plus the one for "the" being the tenth, i.e. Studies in the Way of Words, p.26 AND p.273). As such, Grice, it seems to me, is not really WILLING to give us the *means* (as Regina puts it) by which to avoid ambiguity. The maxim is expressed in natural English and does not require much of an interpretation (i.e. it does not go, "avoid Empson's seven types of ambiguity!"). As is obvious with the other maxims (including "be relevant"!), Grice seems to be more concerned with FLOUTS to the maxim rather than the following of it (i.e. what to avoid ambiguity would really amount to). From Grice's two examples of FLOUTS of the "avoid ambiguity" strategy, one can get an idea of what kind of ambiguity he was having in mind. His first example being "Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be since she [Nature] pricked thee/ Out for woman's pleasure/ mine be they love,/& thy love's use their treasure" (W. Blake), and the second: "Peccavi (I've Scinde),/Wrote Lord Ellen so proud./More briefly Dalhousie/Wrote Vovi (I've Oude)" -- Punch, Oxford Dict. Quot. In the Blake thing, the ambiguity resides in line 2, which can read as 18 or 19 18. Love that never can be told. 19. Love that never told can be ( = exist). Is the utterer involving "polysemy" there? It seems to that the ambiguity is, like in "old books & maps", of the scope, syntactic, type (which admittedly, may yield different truth conditions). You don't seem to need to bring in Cruse's polysemous facets or alternate readings for specific lexical items. Just two different surface syntactic parsings (which, will yield, admittedly, again different truth-conditions). Ie. Grice's examples seem to aimed at illustrating the interface between syntax and pragmatics. I.e. how alternate semantic parsings give raise to different truth conditions (and pragmatic interpretations) without need to fulfill an intermediate "full" lexico-semantic level. The two semantic parsings being 20. Love that never can be told by anyone, i.e., a kind of the love that dare not speak its name: a love that IS (or "exists"), but, for some reason, cannot be told. The example is, admittedly, tricky since it involves the negative adverbial "never", and so in a sense, it resembles 21. The King of France was never bald. Does 21 presuppose (implicate, mean) that there was a king of France?
Relying on "never", one can claim that 21 does NOT presuppose (implicate,
mean) that there is a king of France., other than via a cancellable conversational implicature. Similarly, (20) may not presuppose that such love exists. I myself opt for this latter alternative, since I note that Blake is placing such love as object of one's search, "NEVER SEEK TO TELL THY LOVE". Cfr. 32. Never seek the abominable Snowman. as implicating - on occasion, Because your search is doomed to fail, there not being such a man. Now, the second "ambiguity" flout example, the "Peccavi" couplet is so contrived, I find, and it doesn't really even concern English, which is my topic of research! Until someone proves to me that a similar kind of military example can be built for English, I think Grice was being too much of a classicist there! (Recall his lectures were given at Harvard which is reputedly the one offering the best classical education in USA!). In their essay in Werth, Sperber & Wilson argue that "avoid ambiguity" reduces to "be relevant" - and I will not deal with this reduction here: even if something reduces to something it doesn't mean we must stop talking about it. E.g. Grice thinks "meaning" reduces to "intention", but most of his essays have "meaning" in the title, not intention! Now, the other main aspect where ambiguity features large in Grice's programme - and which I expressed in the header of this thread - is in his "Modified Occam's Razor" (WoW 47). My focus has been the connectives, and so I will deal with that, in particular with the first connective, John bought the book & read it. John read the book & bought it. Suppose the book is "The Owl &the Pussycat", so that it is possible that John had time at the bookshop to go thru all the poem by Edward Lear, i.e. read it, to mainly note that no main errata were found, and since he loved the illustrations, he proceeded to buy it. i.e. (36) would be truth conditionally equivalent to John read the book & THEN bought it. On the other hand, it is possible that he did not read the poem in the bookshop, but, as usually happens, just bought it. It was a gift anyway. It
was only after buying and giving it as a gift to his nephew that he found
himself having to read the poem, too! So both (34) and (35) would be truth
condtitionally equivalent to John bought the book & then read it (to his nephew). The idea being of course, that for an entry like 39. and. we have two polysemous facets, as Cruse would call them, viz. and. 1. = "&" "p & q" is true iff both p & q are true
2. temporal sequence. AND THEN. This seems simple enough to me, and what Grice is saying is, follow M.O.R. (Modified Occam's Razor) i.e. Avoid multiplying senses (or polysemous facets) without necessity. Grice does note that the status of M.O.R. is questionable (and PhD's have been written against it!), but his whole programme seems to depend on the idea that it is sometimes possible to know when to apply it, and successfully too, especially when there is an alternate explication via conversational implicature (I'm not so sure "explicatures" play a role
here) to account for the SECOND, derived, so-called alleged polysemous facet. Now, it would be nice if we could compare the maxim "avoid ambiguity" with M.O.R., but I'm not sure that that was Grice's idea. I would need textual criticism. It seems that with the maxim, Grice is concerned with either syntactic alternate parsings (or contrived examples in foreign languages), whereas with M.O.R. he is concerned with specific lexical items, and notably the bare connectives - as he describes them (rather than whole syntactic paradigms, or nominal phrases, etc). One example of Grice's that may be illustrative as providing a link, though, may be, He is in the grip of a vice. This, Grice, says, is "ambiguous" - although he does not use the word (WoW: 25) - between 43 and 44. About some particular male person or animal x, at the time of utterance, x was unable to rid himself of a certain kind of bad character. 44. About some particular male person or animal x, at the time of utterance, some part of x's person was caught in a certain kind of tool or instrument. Here I would not doubt to consider a Cruse polysemous facet - and fail! (see below): 45. vice 1. corruption of morals from the Latin, vitium 2. screw.
from the Latin, vitis. Now, the obvious question I'd like to ask a RTheorist is whether they would consider "vice #1" and "vice #2" to be an example of a polysemous lexical entry or just TWO lexical entries! (Grice did not tell me. He just implicated his answer). Perhaps he thought it is obvious that he thought they were two lexical entries involved). The interesting thing (to me) and from which I infer Grice's position - philosophers seldom deal with "words" as such! - is that when discussing M.O.R. he brings up the same example. He writes, "Assuming for the moment that the tests [to differentiate "mean-n" from "mean-nn"] are roughly adequate, what I want to do now is NOT TO EMPHASISE the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THESE CASES, BECAUSE THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE" And ad nauseam, too.(So much so, taht DH Mellor says Grice died of non-natural causes!) BUT RATHER TO LOOK AT WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON. IS THIS DOUBLE USE. Note the use of USE, a favourite word with Oxford philosophers, cf. G. Ryle's essay, "Use, Usage, and Meaning" in G. Parkinson, The Theories of Meaning. Oxford Readings in Philosophy). of the word "mean" just LIKE THE DOUBLE USE note again the use of "use" of the word "vice" to refer SOMETIMES TO SOMETHING APPROXIMATING TO A SIN AND SOMETIMES TO A CERTAIN SORT OF INSTRUMENT USED BY CARPENTERS. ONE IS PRETTY MUCH INCLINED TO THINK IN THE LATTER CASE TO SAY THAT THERE ARE TWO WORDS WHICH ARE PRONOUNCED AND WRITTEN THE SAME. But that inclination may be a vice! I recall the dialogue between Grice and Austin reported by Grice: Grice: I don't care what the dictionary says. Austin: And that is where you make your big mistake!). On general grounds of economy, cfr. LR Horn on the London School of Parsimony! (Parsimony being the term by which Occam's razor - to shave Plato's beard - is known in philosophical jargon). I am incined to think that if one can avoid saying that the word so-and-so has THIS SENSE, THAT SENSE, and the other sense, or THIS MEANING, and ANOTHER MEANING, if one can allow them to be variants under a single principle, that is the desirable thing to do: don't
multiply senses beyond necessity" (WoW: 291). Now, from that passage it seems pretty obvious to me that Grice is suggesting that we take "vice 1" and vice 2" as being "TWO WORDS PRONOUNCED AND WRITTEN THE SAME". I.e. Homonyms, rather than polysemous words (like "row" (of chairs) and "row" in the river). But WHAT would for Grice actually *be* an example of a polysemous word!? I can't find one single case. One case I do recall is from Adam Kilgariff (of U.Sussex/Brighton)'s essay in "I don't believe in word senses". He notes that an early ediiton of the O.E.D. features: horse. 1. a quadruped animal, 2. a representation of a horse (This was later "improved", and the second usage eliminated!). I believe that the notion of truth condition may (AND SHOULD) help us here but when it comes to polysemy, the issue is tricky, I find, because of so-called EXTENDED USAGES, which I don't strictly call polysemous. This may even apply to "and". I.e. it may well be that the primeval (seminal) use is the truth-functional "&" and that "and that" (temporal or causal sequence) is an extended "USE", not a different SENSE. But how and why do senses grow then? I think another example by Grice (WoW: 89), with which I'll end this sketchy notes may be illustrative here. It's his discussion of grass to
mean "lawn" or "pot": If I shall then be helping the grass to grow, I shall have no time for reading. as meaning upon the two polysemous facets (?) of "grass" as either 48 or 49: 48. If I shall then be assisting the kind of thing of which lawns are composed to mature, I shall have no time for reading. 49. If I shall then be assisting the marijuana to mature, I shall have no time for reading. Again, though, Grice does not use the word "ambiguity". He goes the hard way and writes, "It would be true to say that the word "grass" means (loosely speaking) "lawn material" and also true to say that the word "grass" means "marijuana". Such meaning specifications I shall call the specifications of the timeless meanings of an incomplete utterance type which may be a nonsentential word or phrase or may be a nonlinguistic utterance type which is analogous to a word or phrase" (p.89). Trouble is, I think, that, here, we cannot strictly say, as with "vice" that it's two words pronounced and written the same. One is an extended, figurative use of the second, viz. grass. 1. lawn material 2. marijuana Incidentally, I think the same applies to cases like "gay" "1. merry. 2. homosexual," or "turk: native of Turkey; unwanton child" [where the second meaning, or item separated by the semi-colon may be thought of as a metaphor - and thus a conversational implicature, Studies, p.34). So,
old-fashioned as I am, I'm quite against those dictionaries, like the new
C.O.E.D., that orders the alleged "polysemous facets" in terms of frequency
rather than history!
* * * *
Post No. 124.
Title: Grice in Chinese.
Abstract: Xu lets us know that "in China we use something like "cognitive linguistic context". Well, that may make sense in Chinese, but not as you translate it, I'm sorry (:(), or so it seems to me (Never mind, I'm far from a purist :)). Troubles I see with your Chinese expression: 1. how come it can be linguistic AND cognitive at the same time? Are you adopting a Fodor-like theory of a Language Of Thought? "linguistic" are things like chains of phones and phonemes "cognitive" are things like beliefs and intentions (nowadays called "metarepresentations). 2. why restrict "context" to the linguistic and/or cognitive? usually other features (mainly physical, e.g. referents for deictics) are just as essential- admittedly,
as they are "cognised" by the communicators. 3. Therefore, I think "cognitive environment" is a better expression. Sperber/Wilson's Relevance (index) has entry for "cognitive environment", 38-46, ff. but not for "cognitive context". On the other hand the book does have an entry for "context", 12ff "contextual effect" and "contextualisation" but not for "environment" as such. "Cognitive environment" is first used on p.38., in section "Cognitive environments & manifestness", so it seems to be RT's preferred term of art. It is defined in claim (40) (40) a cognitive environment of an individual is a set of facts that are manifest to him. To be manifest is "to be perceptible or inferrable" (note: to be more precise "we might say that to be manifest is to be capable of being perceived or inferred without being immediately invalidated", n.28). This refinement in the note is to allow for cases where 1. the individual can perceive that p, but do not believe that p.
(e.g. Tweety perceives a cat, but does not believe there's a cat before him)
2. The individual may infer that there is a cat, but do not perceive it (e.g. Tweety just perceives "evidence" that the cat is around). As Sperber/Wilson put it, "one can mistrust one's senses, and hence perceive and yet not believe" (p.258). Recall Tweetie's monologue: "I perceive a wicked black cat before me" "I believe there is a black cat before me" "Oh, yes, there IS a black cat before me" (Tweety's example was a favourite example with my professor of epistemology. I'm afraid we worked with translations of the original English, and I trust Tweety's English is more idiomatic). Sperber/WIlson write, "once can perceive and yet not believe". (p.258). Note that for example for Grice, even though "see" (a verb of perception) is
a factive (ceteris paribus) on can have (Grice's example (Studies, p.44)): “Macbeth sees Banquo”, where Macbeth may be conscious (in Shakespeare's tragedy he isn't but never mind) that he is hallucinating, and so, he may not believe that there is
Banquo in front of him to be seen (Traditionalist Grice concludes that we
are using "see" in a "loose" way in a claim like (3)). A second case Sperber/Wilson consider is when "one infers and not believe, as when a validly inferred conclusion contradicts a strongly held belief. This points to the complexity of the cognitive environment. After a convincing and very logical lecture on the Neo Darwinist Evolutional Theory, the auditor may be led to believe that Man does Descends from the Apes (as inferred, inter alia, from Neo-Genetics, Darwin's Theory of the survival of the fittest plus Malthus's idea of geometrical increase of population vs. arithmetical increase of food). Yet, upon leaving the conference hall, he
reminds the previous Sunday Presbyterean sermon, that it, that Man was
created directly by God after his image, and so he opts for a strongly held
belief than a validly inferred conclusion. Of course, life (and thus science!) being relative, one never knows what is validly inferred and what is not! In Sperber/Wilson, the concept of COGNITIVE environment co-exists with that
of PHYSICAL environment, and indeed it may be thought of as being derivable
from that of "physical" environment PLUS rational capacities: "an individual's total congitive environment is a function" in the set-theoretical usage "of his phyiscal environment and his cognitive abilities" (p.39). The psychological (explanatory) role of cognitive environment comes in when communication enters the picture: "when you communicate" - Sperber/Wilson write - "your intention is [at least. JLS] to ALTER the cogntive environment of your addressee" (p.46)
* * * * *
Post No. 125.
Title: More on Chinese Grice: "JING" OR "HUANJING"? That is the question.
Abstract. I'm a bit confused by Xu. Xu is writing an essay in CHINESE, who you intend to present to your ENGLISH professor, and besides, the topic will be, the
implicatures in RUSSIAN! Couldn't you have chosen something, say, a bit ...
EASIER? I don't know the first thing about Chinese - other than MAK Halliday wrote
his PhD on it! - but Xu writes, "Context" is translated as "yujing", from "yu": language and "jing": environment. Cognitive is "renzhi" in Chinese. Thus, "cognitive context" became "renzhi yujing" So far so good. I have to decide to follow our English professor or to adapt another translation (for example, "renzhi
huanjing" - "huanjing" means environment). Hey hey hey. Wait a minute. You said earlier that "JING" means ENVIRONMENT and now you say that "HUANJING" means "environment". It seems to me as though, in the proceedings, you have introduced a little prefix there, namely, "HUAN". What does "HUAN" mean? (LITERALLY, I mean). "JING" and "HUANJING" can *not* mean the same thing! Trouble is, "context" is also a hateful English term. It should be "co-text" (Why the anglophones intrude an "n" there escapes me!). Also, to "worsen" the situation, "text" actually means "fabric". So we can speak of the "textual quality" of a painting, for example. It does not necessarily mean "linguistic". So, we can speak of a painting (e.g. Picasso's "GUERNICA") and its context (The Spanish Civil War). What I do like is the family of concepts: text context co-text and pre-text A "pre-text" is what stands in place of a "text", but it's not much used by linguists! (A term some of them love is "context-dependency" though!). A famous London linguist (of the SOAS), JR Firth became especially famous for his use of "context of situation". This "context" included, for him, quite a lot (Dell Hymes's use of context is quite broad, too). But, now, if, to study Russian implicatures, you only want to speak of the utterer's and the addressee's beliefs and intentions (i.e. metarepresentations or
cognitive states/processes) it doesn't really matter whether you choose
"context" or "environment", it seems to me. It's the COGNITIVE SIDE you're interested in, anyway. Not the "context/environment" side. For the most complex theory of "context" (as such) that you can ever imagine I recommend the books on Montague Grammar!
Post 130.
Title: My Grice!
Abstract: On Sidonius’s little entanglements. Grice coined "implicature" as a nominalisation of "implicating" (or of "to implicate"), i.e. as a nominalisation of a VERB. It is *utterers* who *implicate* this or that, not utterances themselves. Recall, too, that no *words* (or "sayings") are necessary. Any utterance can do (a finger sign, etc). WoW: 216. I believe the case with Wilson & Sperber's concoction of the "explicature" is similar. No explicit linguistic utterances need be involved. Similarly, "explicature" is, like "implicature", merely the handy nominalisation for what is actually a process, or, perhaps more strictly speaking, a propositional attitude (or meta-representation) which derives from an inferential process. The utterer EXPLICATES this or that. So, I would rephrase. The utterer explicates that the table, which is in the sitting room downstairs, is too wide to go thru the door. Deleting explicit mention of "speaker" and "saying" - qua general illocutionary verb. Now, is 4 or 5 NECESSARY for an understanding of (1)? I would think (4), or, as I prefer, (5), is merely a so-called representation of RT (relevance theory), i.e. a theoretical construct, but not something conversationalists need invoke. It is merely the VERBAL (or "agentive") version of (2), as it were. So, while (2) would be the EXPLICATURE (or EXPLICATUM. Cf. Grice on implicature vs. implicatum, Studies, p.24), (4), or, as I prefer (5), would formulate that nominal version (2) into what is strictly the primitive verbal version out of which (2) derives, i.e. where it is the utterer (and not the "utterance") which implicates/explicates this or that.
* * * *
Post 140.
Title: Grice Does Eng. Lit.
Abstract: B. McMahon quotes from a novel she is reading: “Jack looked at his red beard in the tableknife. Then Jack and Jill went to Sweden, to the farm” (après Barthelme) McMahon is “puzzled over where we get the expectation that conjoined sentences will describe similar events. Is it from an assumption schema? Is it because conjoining the trivial with the significant does not yield enough cognitive effects?" My mind, like Barthelme's, is a bit disturbed as I write this, so apologies for nonsequiturs. In the passage of course you'll have to distinguish between the truth-conditions, the explicature, and the conversational
implicature. Grice had problems with "then". He thought the Philonian “If p, q” was perfectly explainable via "uniguity (material implication "->") plus implicature", while “If p, THEN q” was not (Logic & Conversation, Conditionals, in Studies in the Way of Words). Then, there's the usual conversational implicature (via "be orderly") of “p & q” (Sometimes merely "p . q", i.e. "p period q". I don't think the "." is a FULL stop there since it does not create a new paragraph). as implicating a temporal/causal sequence “p and THEN [later] q”. I guess the Anglo-Saxon particle "then" was (and it IS still) tricky. Truth-conditionally, it doesn't seem to be any constraint of the type you suggest for the use of "then". But THEN English is not my Mother Tongue. It is my Father Tongue. In (1) it merely seems to mean, truth-conditionally, "later". ("I take off my trousers. Only *then* I get into the bed" ("Then" can also mean "not-now" (more generally) as in the idiom "now and THEN" - which does NOT mean, "now and LATER", but quite the opposite, "now and
EARLIER". English! Also, and perhaps more relevantly (:)), how do you know Edward's looking at his read beard in the tableknife was "trivial". Or are you suggesting his going to a Swedish farm with Pia was trivial? I think his looking at his read beard on the tableknife is terrorific and a v. effective way of starting a short story. The man must be a killer, and he obviously cannot cope with his Celtic (or Viking) ancestry ("red beard"). It's obvious that his retreating to a Swedish farm (where this Viking really belongs) must be an escapism from his murdering instincts. I hope Pia is safe.
* * * * *
Post 140:
Title: "Like" Grice.
Abstract. If “you are the cream in my coffe" are you also "like" the cream in my coffee? A person who said I was abusing a list said, as "Speranglished" by yours truly, with apologies. “The Problem of SPED (Significant Processing Effort Difference): what Does RT Predict? an apparent clash. "I. Noveck & al's claim is that a metaphorical utterance takes *more processing effort* & has more cognitive effects than a non-figurative equivalent'. Building on Gibbs they run some experiments to test the claim to find the results support it. They see this is precisely what the RT account of metaphor predicts. "Gibbs also takes the *extra processing effort* prediction to follow from RT. But, unlike Noveck et al, finds it to be *at fault* with his experimental results: psychological research shows that addressees do not devote an extra processing resource to understanding a metaphor as compared with a nonmetaphoric utterance. The RT's "metaphor -as-loose-talk" view may *not* see metaphor as a violation of communication norms (A la good ol' H P Grice. "Logic & Conversation", in Studies in the WoW:34. but still incorrectly assumes that metaphor & other tropes demand an extra cognitive effort. It is this psychological evidence that Noveck & al. are calling into question. An opposite prediction:"The opposite view, however, of what RT *predicts* about metaphor processing is to be found. In _Poetic Effects: A RT perspective_ Pilkington discusses Gibbs's and Gerrig's psycholinguistic exeriments which, Pilkington claims, show that an utterance used metaphorically does NOT necessarily take longer to process than the same utterances used literally. Excursus: Well, I guess it also has to do, inter alia, with whether English is your first language or not, or how language-aware you are. A friend of mine lives in Boston, USA, but English is not his first language, and he came to learn red herring before learning what a "herring" was) as meaning "a distraction from the topic" rather than "a special kind of fish red-smoked as used in mediaeval times by the peasants to divert the lord's dogs from the trail of the game the peasants lived on". According to Pilkington 'the RT account of metaphor interpretation is quite consistent with these psycholinguistic results'. The Puzzle. "So what's going on here? On the face of it, it looks as if someone has to be wrong about what the RT prediction is. Before I check back on what the founding parents (and the granddad? H Paul Grice. Please do! JLS) "have to say, note that talk of extra processing effort raises the question of more than what? The Distinction: TRUTH-CONDITION vs. IMPLICATURE. "What is the metaphorical utterance being compared with? I think there are 2 different comparisons at work, and this may be the source of the apparently contradictory positions. Sperber/Wilson discussing such highly conventional metaphors as “Grice is a grice” which communicates the strong implicature that “Grice is dirty” Robyn is a brave (lad, lass). say that such a metaphor must suggest some extra line of thought if their indirectness and its extra processing cost is to be justified and, of course, this holds all the more for more creative metaphors, such as 3. Robyn is a pink pantheress. The processing effort comparison here is between uttering (1) and uttering (2), or, if you like, between You are a grice. 5. You are a grubby lad! OED. grice: a piglet. Also used metaphorically to refer to a "grubby, dirty lad" - A "lad" is what ever overmetaphorical Americans would call a "kid", i.e. the offspring of a goat. :)). It is this sort of comparison that Noveck et al. have in mind. Sperber's proposal of a solution: THE PROBLEM QUESTION MAKES NO SENSE (SPED = 0), or rather, both metaphor and non-metaphor may involve the same processing effort. It's a context-sensitive thing. Consider now an example in Sperber: 6. Robyn is a territorial. "In a particular context C1 the addressee might access an interpretation along the lines that Robyn is a very dutiful loyal, obedient, a team-player, self-sacrificing but not including that Robyn a is a member of the military, is trained to kill, has weapons "This would be a case of a "loose" or metaphorical use of "territorial", or 'soldier'. In a different context C2, however, the LITERAL (truth-conditional) properties of being a member of the military, being trained to kill, etc. might be accessed instead. For Sperber, in BOTH cases the addressee follows a path of least effort in accessing the interpretation and stops when the expectation of maximal relevance is satisfied. There doesn't seem to be a prediction that there will be any significant processing effort difference (SPED) between the loose/metaphorical use in C1 and the literal (truth-conditional) use in C2. It's clear that in a some arbitrary context Cn the loose/metaphorical reading may be actually easier to access than the truth conditional one." My example of "red herring" above. Actually, few native speakers know why a red-herring is called a red herring. I had to search in the OED2 myself and I'm not native, hey!] "I think these are the sorts of comparison that Pilkington (and Gerrig) are making, and they are quite opposite to those by Gibbs and Noveck." A WAY OUT? "So is that it? Problem solved? Probably not! One assumes that not only cases such as (6) (Robyn is a soldier), but also cases like one (4) - "you're a grice" - have been tested and have given a result of no "SPED" (a word of confirmation from Gibbs and or Glucksberg would be welcome!)." Also, perhaps, to recall Grice PERE. Principle of Economy of Rational Effort. In R. Grandy & R. Warner, PGRICE, Philosophical Grounds of
Rationality, Intentions, Categories, Ends (p.83) to which Wilson & Sperber contributed. Grice thinks that implicit ratiocination is just as valid as the explicit variety). Grice writes: Where there is a ratiocinative procedure for arriving rationally at a certain outcome, a procedure which, because it is ratiocinative, involves an expenditure of time & energy, then, if there is a NON-ratiocinative & so more economical procedure which is likely, FOR THE MOST PART, to reach the same outcome as the ratiocinative procedure, then, provided the stakes ARE NOT TOO HIGH, it will be rational to employ the CHEAPER tho' somewhat LESS RELIABLE NON-RATIOCINATIVE proceudre as a substitute for ratiocination" (op. cit. p.83). RC: "If so, i.e. if no SPED is observed, this would still seem to be at odds with the RT account, unless, of course, the measures (reading times &c) used in the experiment simply can not tap the sort of effort differences at issue?" A Further Pragmatic Compliction: REFERRING vs. PREDICATING. "Furthermore, there seems to be a striking difference in the psychological processing of a metaphorical predication and a metaphorical referential expression. Whereas the predication (which all the examples so far discussed are) may take no more effort than literal paraphrases SPED = 0 a case of metaphorical reference, such as when I say of my cat (9) or my bedroom (10) 9. The princess is sleeping on a rug! This junkyard my mother shouldn't see. does take LONGER than literal reference, i.e. SPED > 0 "This is pointed out by Gibbs & Onishi/Murphy who ease the way for a metaphorical reference but had yet to admit that there just *IS* a heavier processing load for a metaphorical refererntial expression than for a corresponding literal one, such as: 11. My cat is sleeping on a rug (but is it really "mine"?) and This mess of a room my mum should not see. (but is this really "a mess of a something", or is it just a "messy" something). "Of course, there are plenty of possible explanations for this "referring/predicating" difference, some of which are discussed by Gibbs and O&M." (And another may be JR Searle's DPhil Oxon under PF Strawson, "Reference & Predication". Strawson and Grice having worked for years on the philosophical issues involved therein. JLS). A Possible Partial Solution-cum-explanation. "Now, the Noveck et al. experiments in which a metaphorical/literal processing difference (SPED) *was* found were all cases of REFERRING. Their results do reinforce Gibbs and O&M's claim (that SPED > 1), but they could be subject to an explanation for the extra effort in terms of special properties of reference that make metaphor (or non-truth conditional utterances at large) more difficult when used in this way (i.e. when used to perform the pragmatics of "referring" rather than of "predicating"). It might be of greater interest for specification of the RT prediction about non-truth-conditional utterances if an experiment is made such that it reveals a SPED > 1 when the non-truth conditional component is used in predicating a property of an already truth-conditionally determined referent. I hope these are planned! If not, should we accept it's all just contextual-dependent after all and that that is the ultimate solution and explanation?
* * * *
Post 1
Another post. Playing and Displaying "plicature". I'd call it "P". I think it would be worth revising the etym. of "imply" and "explicate". I'm afraid I'm no good at it, for the time being. I do believe in Roman (Latin) there were (at least) two verbs: im-plicare ex-plicare In standard English, it seems we only have: imply ("implicate" has a legalese use: "he was implicated in the crime" does not imply that he actually uttered anything, I would say) 2. explicate (circa: explain?). I.e. there's an asymmetry. We needed Grice to coin for us 3. implicate (HP Grice 1967, Lectures on Logic of Conversation, II, Harvard). (I write this as a lexicographer since I think it a disgrace the verb is not yet in many dictionaries). 4. explicate (D.Sperber/D.Wilson). Grice's point in coining "implicate" was obvious (to him, and to me). S/W's
point in coining "explicature" (qua product of "explicate") was also obvious
(to them, to me). Yet, I trust the Romans meant SOMETHING by plicare What they meant I cannot submit, but a look at the OED2 or Short/Lewis's Latin Dict. may clarify things for us? (Perhaps "plicare" was Roman for "mean", and so "imply" and "explicate" come out as the two main "shades" of "Gricean" utterer's meaning, as I like to call'em: to EXplicitly mean (something, that p) and to IMplicitly mean
(something, that q) - if you excuse me the split infinitives - and the
cumbersome lingo). I'm online now so shan't elaborate much, I hope! I have heard the odd
lecture, & at the odd Gricean symposium, too, that although theories of
humour are either 1. nonhumoristic, or 2. nonexistant, some people (I
recall at least one Chilean linguist) have claimed that English humour is
all-ways some flout to Grice. And I happen to (_tend to_) find flouts to
Grice funny (By "flout to Grice" I mean "& as recognised by him", i.e. the
usual mechanism of the implicature): the punchline is the "flout" -- which
is directed to the audience as from the _humorist_ (qua utterer) and not
necessarily from the "literal" _utterer_ of the line (where divergence
applies. I doubt it does). All this pretty convolutedly expressed, but I
hope intelligible. I mean: if you say "pigs", that would be the punchline to some joke
provided (or as Grice would say, "iff") "pigs" flouts "the cooperative
principle (or some of its maxims)". You find the context!
Best, Now, for the relevance-theorist, I guess relevance should figure large in
an attempt to construe (let alone explain, or is it explain, let alone
construe) "humour ala neo-Grice". Now, would _that_ mean that the funny
punchline is the irrelevant one!? Mmmm, don't think so!
JL's posts are irrelevant, but they are hardly funny (at least to me) --
they are _annoy-ing_ (and at best). Irritating or downright dumb at most...
(who _is_ JL?) Anyone!? (explicature -> please/bitte?)
Another post. Query: "So again, what is the form of a thought?" Now, _that's_ a general question, if ever I heard one. :). Sounds almost Wittgensteinian. You may like to consult the (rather obscure, but could be
worst. :)) work by Gricean author C.A.B.Peacocke, whose inaugural lecture at Oxford was precisely on questions of thought and content. Sperber recently circulated with this list biblio details on his book
on _meta-representations_. This suggests that a metarepresentation, alla Utterer Intends Addresse Believes Utterer Believes It is Raining. is a representation of a representation (a la metalanguage is language on
language). Therefore, Utterer Believes It is Raining would be a representation proper (cfr. Recanati?). Orthodox Griceans (like Peacocke) would, I believe, oppose the view that mental representations
(_so-called_) are representations proper. It's a linguistic utterance which represent MENTAL CONTENT (see A. Avramides's book on Grice for MIT). But to assume that a mental representation itself represents leads to either some sort of a regressus ad infinitum or a naive homuncular theory of psychological/propositional attitudes (see R. Cummings, _Meaning & Mental Representation_). H. P. Grice himself develops a (promising, in my view) sketch of a general theory of representation in his _Studies in the Way of Words_, Retrospective Epilogue, pp.358-9. Also of relevance here may be JR Searle's contribution to the PGRICE festchrift (*P*hilosophical *G*rounds of *R*ationality: *I*ntentions, *C*ategories, *E*nds, ed. R. Grandy, Clarendon -- to which S/W also contributed), viz. "Meaning, Communication, and Representation".
Re: Questions concerning the relationship between RT & Grice From: J L Speranza (jls@netverk.com.ar)
Date: Sun Sep 23 2001 - 14:07:43 GMT
________________________________________
J Fantin, of Sheffield, England, writes: "I am interested in the role of Grice's work within RT and the position of RT within the larger field of pragmatics. As with my previous posts, please feel free to correct me if I demonstrate an obvious lack of understanding of RT. I came to the field of pragmatics (and Grice's work) through RT and my understand of the relationship of the two is as follows. Are my
observations here correct? 1. RT builds upon and goes beyond Grice's "Cooperative Principle" and
maxims by further re-fining and postulating _relevance_ as the only
essential maxim." Wrong. RT does _not_ postulate _relevance_ as a maxim. Thus Wilson &
Sperber say: Sub-Section, "What are the differences between RT and Grice's approach"
(first edition, section, The principle of relevance, ch. relevance, pp. 161
ff) It would then be first a _principle_ not a maxim, but I'll let _that_ pass. But the important thing is: "Communicators do not _follow_ the principle of relevance, and they could not violate it even if they wanted to". So, this contrasts, blatantly, with Grice's _maxim_ of relevance, which, you may recall from reading 'Logic & Conversation' can be violated in 1. A: Mrs Smithers-Jones is an old bag.
B: The weather's been quite delightful this summer. Of course, a full-fledged interpretation of the non-monotonic process behind (1) may lead you to say that some notion of _relevance_ is NOT being
_flouted_ there, but Grice explicitly (and in the repr. in STUDIES IN THE WAY OF WORDS, too) classifies that example as one "in which an implicature is achieved by REAL, as opposed to APPARENT, VIOLATION OF THE MAXIM, BE RELEVANT", which, he says are "rare, perhaps"... (Grice, Studies, p.35).
"Through this maxim, a working theory of pragmatics can be suggested. 2. Thus, though RT has roots in Grice, it really departs from traditional Grican pragmatics. 3. Within the general field of pragmatics which is dominated by traditional Grican practitioners, RT is not widely accepted and generally rejected (e.g., Levinson, Review of _Relevance, 1989; Mey, _Pragmatics_, 1993). I do not share this belief; this is merely my observation." What belief? that RT is rejected, or the belief that you believe that RT is generally rejected? :) I take it that you mean the former, but I don't call "rejection" a belief, but an attitude. I guess you are right, that, all in all, there are more Griceans than RT-ists, but then, RT is the only one which has a mailing list, so--- look on the bright side! Also, one thing about RT, which is unlike non-RT, is like it is like a
club, so you have people! Fantin: "The reason I ask about my observations is because of a statement made byJeffrey T. Reed, in an article called 'Modern Linguistics & the NewTestament: A Basic Guide to Theory, Terminology, and Literature' in_Approaches to New Testament Study_, ed. S. E. Porter and D. Tombs(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).You and your local bibliography! :)
">Within a section on Pragmatics (234-42) in a subsection called"presupposition and implicature" (238-42),"i.e. a mere 4 pages!!!! Even Grice spends more time explaining implicature,he goes from page 24 to 40. "Reed describes Grice's "co-operative principle" and the four maxims." which he took in irony from KANT,
Since in the Intro to Kr der Rein. Vern
there are 4 categories.QUANTITY QUALITY RELATION MANNER. Incidentally, the new book with Grice, Aspect of Reason, was formerly given not only as the Locke Lectures at Oxford, but as the Immanuel Kant Memorial Lectures at Kant... RELEVANT EXPLICATURE: Grice is Kantian..."Near the end of the section, Reed states: "Indeed all of the above communicative principles may be summed up" doesn't he mean "subsumed". One thing is to be subsumed, and another to besummed up. I.e. I prefer subsumed, which implicates that I must know whatis being subsumed. But if you tell me, you can do with "be relevant", whichsums up everything Grice says, I won't be satisfied, because I may like toknow what Grice was saying in the first place. Also, as Wilson and Sperberproved in their more specific article,On Grice's Theory of Conversation1977 PRAGMATICS MICROFICHE
ed S C Levinson
--- I don't see why you see Levinson as anti RT when the man did so muchfor RT --
it is quite something to prove that something gets subsumed by somethingelse... And not everybody may be happy with the subsumption. Gricewasn't... He wrote in STUDIES, Retrospective Epilogue, now repr by KASHERamong the 19 essays dedicated to Conversational Implicature:
he is considering that maxims have to have a "degree of mutual independence" ."The force of this consideration seems to be BLUNTED by writers like WILSONand SPERBER"--- who Grice describe nevertheless as good friends in PGRICE,Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intention, Categories, Ends, ed. R.Grandy & R. Warner, Oxford, Clarendon, p.45)"...who seem to be disposed to SEVER the notion of RELEVANCE"note that he says "notion of relevance" and NOT, notably, MAXIM of relevance."...from the specification of some PARTICULAR direction of relevance"where direction is, roughly, maxim. Or at least something that directs yourbehaviour, something that you rationally or reasonably follow, which issomething that W & S are denying..."under Sperber and Wilson's single "axiom""Now that's a nice one!Axiom!I only know one axion, and I've forgotten it now...
"of relevance: Principle: The speaker tries to make the utterance asrelevant as possible to the hearer"."I do agree with this statement;"Do you, but do you know the philosophical history of the word AXIOM??? Canyou distinguish between an AXIOM and a THEOREM, and a tautology and ananalytic claim".I mean, intepretations of what Grice meant by "be relevant" are as many aswhat Jesus said when he said, "This bread will be my body, this wine willbe my blood". B F Loar, a literary executor of Grice says in MIND & MEANINGthat the cheapest (in the sense of less demanding) assumption is that "be
relevant" be interpreted as a CONTINGENT GENERALISATION OVER FUNCTIONALSTATES... p.132, n.7 -- subsection: "The epistemology of belief-desireascription" within the chapter, Objectively Determinate beliefs and ourknowleddge of them". From that to the idea of a brain wired cognitive axiomthere is what I say, a gappy."JF goes on:"however, it seems to me to be suggesting that this position is the normalposition within the field of pragmatics (remember, this is a work meant tointroduce pragmatics to biblical scholars and thus should represent thebroader field and if not it should at least note important controversy).I assume this would represent the RT's position; however, is Reed's
representation accurate here of pragmatics in general?"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Let me have that email address of Reed.Let him JOIN IN HERE FOR A WHILE!!!
"Any comments to help me clarify the role of RT within the larger field ofpragmatics would be appreciated."Well, there are good online resources that will give you a morefine-grained picture of the place of RT within pragmatics. Also, in myprevious post, I was being _tricky_ or whatever, in thinking that RT is apragmatic theory or belongs in pragmatics. RT claims to be a cognitivetheory. A psycho-semantic theory, a la Horsey, if you want...The claims that RT makes about the truth-conditional semantic vsimplicature content of an utterance are just one component of its predicament.But of course I too would love to hear from other (I mean from) RTtheorists...
Another post.
T Wharton writes re: >what Grice meant-nn >by 'what is said'. Neale (1992) points out that Grice (1975) - Essay 2 in WOW - is a (slightly) amended form of Lecture II, that Grice (1978) - Essay 3 in WOW - is a
>(slightly) amended form of Lecture III, that parts of Lectures VIII and IX
>were published as Grice (1968) - Essay 6 in WOW - and that parts of Lectures
>VI and VII were published as Grice (1969) - Essay 5 in WOW. I think you should contact Neale -- he's now at Rutgers. Levinson (_Conversational Implicature_ 2001) refers to one important paper on this: ARUNDALE, R. B. 'Studies in the way of words': Grice's new directions in
conceptualising meaning in conversational interaction. Mimeo. Department of
Communication, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Paper presented at the
International Communication Association, Chicago.
(which Levinson describes as: "the only careful collation of versions of Grice's text that I know of". You may cc. Levinson on this. He's in Nijmegen). Your remarks above seem a bit inaccurate. For one, the lectures were only seven (I would _say_), so I can't see how you can refer to Lecture VIII and
IX. Let's revise: >Grice (1975) - Essay 2 in WOW - is a (slightly)
>amended form of Lecture II. Of course the progress is: Lecture II -> Grice 1975 -> Essay 2. And note
that Grice 1975 can be Cole/Morgan _or_ Davidson/Harman, Logic of Grammar
(full ref. below). >Grice (1978) - Essay 3 in WOW - is a
>(slightly) amended form of Lecture III. Well, Levinson makes a lot of this. He notes that in the _printed_ version of Lecture III -- i.e. in Essay 3 (as different from the mimeo, which by
the way, was titled, _in toto_, _The Logic Of Conversation_), Grice omits that bit, which _is_ included in the 1978 version (Cole), about the importance (or relevance, shall we say) of _generalised conversational
implicature_. Having myself philosophical background, I find the passage
cited by Levinson (or rediscovered by Levinson, _so to say_) of great
interest not so much for what it says about generalised conversational
implicature but for "philosophy" at large, which is indeed Grice's primary
topic in what philosophers regard as mainly _methodological_ lectures.
Grice writes:"I thought that this notion of a generalised conversational implicature might be used to deal with a variety of problems, particularly in philosophical logic, but also in other areas" (We discuss those a lot in our Analytic Saturday Mornings). >parts of Lectures VIII and IX
>were published as Grice (1968) - Essay 6 in WOW - The route is as follows: Lecture VI -> Grice 1968 (_Foundations of Language_) -> Essay 6. True that I have no access to the Neale essay in
Phil-Ling, but if I am wrong tell me so! Grice explicitly says in the Preface that he resists a temptation by J. F. Bennett & proposes to reprint the lectures in their original format partly because "the scope and content
of [them] has long been fairly familiar to many philosophers" (Grice, WOW,
p.i). >parts of Lectures
>VI and VII were published as Grice (1969) - Essay 5 in WOW. I think the idea is: Lecture V -> Grice 1969 (_Philosophical Review_) -> Essay 5. I note here that more than _editing_ Grice here adds an
introductory section to that essay ('Saying & Meaning') -- a part which is most relevant to your present interest -- which is not in the _Philosophical Review_ version. >I would be very interested in insights anyone might have regarding >disparities between the original typescripts of the lectures and the
>published versions (either the original publications, or their reproductions
>in WOW -in particular, Essays 5 and 6). Well, Essay 6, the first two sections, are pretty relevant for your concern with "saying", too, of course. >Naturally, I would also be >interested to receive *any* communication regarding your views on Grice and >his notion of 'what is said'. There is an online essay on this (also in _Ling & Phil_) by J. M. Saul, who teaches philosophy at Sheffield. No doubt there are other pieces, but that must be one of the few which has "Grice" and "Say" in the title... >All definitive answers re. Grice's thinking, suggestions, clues or mere >indications of the direction in which I may seek relevance will be >gratefully received... In a post sent to this forum, I discussed what the O.E.D. has about "say"
-- which I found of great interest! It's not a particularly favourite verb with me, but you should perhaps analyse Grice's use with _his_ colleagues at one time in Oxford: -- the Saturday morning philosophers: J. L. Austin, R. M. Hare, J. O. Urmson, G. J. Warnock, to name a few. E.g. Hare wrote the T. Green Oxford thesis on the "Dictor" which resembles what Grice says on Dictive Content (in 'Retrospective Epilogue'). Bits of that thesis Hare reprints in _Practical Inferences_. A study of Austin's _locutio_ qua
"dictum" should fill a few pages, too!
>Refs: >Grice, H. P. (1968) 'Utterer's meaning, sentence meaning and word meaning'.
>Foundations of Language 4: 225-242. I find it a source of mild amusement of Grice writes in 1979: Aspects of Reason -- John Locke Lectures -- repr. OUP 2001 of this essay as "a published article the exact title of which I always fit it difficult to remember". The funnier thing is that he does not mention it -- the editor does! My hunch is that he sent the mimeo to _FL_ because he knew J. F. Staal (indeed they have joint work), and Grice was in FL's Advisory Board. >Grice, H. P. (1969) 'Utterer's meaning and intentions'. Philosophical Review >78: 147-177. A footnote to this reads to the effect that he intends to publish this in a
book to be published by Harvard -- which alas Grice never saw in print -- and that earlier version was presented in one of those famous Oberlin Colloquia. (This reminds me of two more Oxford philosophers whose views on saying may be relevant. Grice having discussed with them in this colloquium: S. N. Hampshire and O. P. Wood.). Grice no doubt chose _Philosophical Review_ because Strawson had sent to this review Grice's original 'Meaning'! (The story behind this is in R. Dale's PhD with SR
Schiffer on the Theory of Meaning, available online. >Grice, H. P. (1975) 'Logic and conversation'. In Cole, P. & J. Morgan (eds) >(1975) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. Academic Press: NY. Yes, and perhaps more quoted by philosophers is the reprint in D Davidson/G Harman, _The Logic of Grammar_, Encino: Dickenson, pp. 64.75 (Grice and Davidson were colleagues at Berkeley). Indeed, in the list of "Publications
of Grice" in PGRICE, ed. Grandy & Warner -- Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends -- to which Wilson & Sperber contributed -- the editors mention the _Encino_ reprint, not the
Cole/Morgan one. >Grice, H. P. (1978) 'Further notes on logic and conversation'. In Cole, P.
>(ed) Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics. Academic Press: NY.
>Neale, S. (1992) Paul Grice and the philosophy of language. Linguistics and
>philosophy 15.5: 509-559. Two more refs. on the _dichotomy_ meaning and saying are Furberg (M, his
book on Austin) and S. Cavell, _Must we mean what we say_... (and you
should contact the Analytic Saturday Morningers)...
Title: “No buts about it”
Post # 264.
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0264.html
Abstract. A reflection on Grice’s Great-War Song, “She was poor but she was honest/and her parents were the same/till she met a city flicker/and she lost her honest name”.
THIS YEAR OF GRICE: 2010
Post # 557
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0557.html
A commentary on the Polish encounters. I manage to quote T. Wharton who participated. Wouldn’t we all love a report by Wharton on how it felt to be in Poland?
Post # 556
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0556.html
A commentary on the procedural-conceptual distinction. Vide Allott, Key terms in pragmatics. An elaboration of basic versus resultant procedures. I manage to quote N. Allott. The post is a reply to an onlist query by a researcher at Middlesex.
Post 555http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0555.htmlA thoughtful commentary on D. S. M. Wilson’s dropping a bibliographical reference: A. Durant’s new book with Cambridge University Press. I claim that it would not be unfair to call Durant a Gricean “all sorts”.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0554.html. A reference to our list post-moderator N. Elwyn Allott’s new book with Continuum, Key Terms in Pragmatics, and a reminder that Nick is here for higher issues, not as a Swimming-Pool disciplinarian.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0546.html. An examination of the philosopher’s goal in setting a scheme, versus other goals, e.g. by linguists, anthropologists, or librarians! I manage to quote Grice, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – and H. D. White!
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0544.html. A thoughtful commentary on a pdf link shared by H. D. White to the list. White became a member of the list on account of yours truly. I manage to read his pdf, and make comments citing Darwin, Grice, and a few others – notably Strawson.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0542.html. A commentary on Alessandro Capone’s positivistic interpretation of Grice’s very first example of a conversational implicature, “He has beautiful handwriting” meaning “He is hopeless”. The meaning of “hope” in English, especially vis a vis the idiomatic cliché, “hope against hope”.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0540.htmlAbstract: Entitled, Grice on “appropriateness” an elaboration of the opening passage in the William James Memorial lectures, vis a vis work by Holdcroft, Dascal, and others.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0538.html. A reference to the A-philosophers as referred to by Grice. Does “A” stand for “appropriateness”? So it seems.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0537.htm. A brief post, where I focus on the dedicatee of Robyn Carston’s wonderful book, Thoughts and Utterances.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0536.html. Abstract: Grice’s conversational maxims are said to be ‘reciprocals’. Yet the logic of reciprocals often misleads us onto “donkey sentences” of various types. I analyse some.
Http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0535.html, Abstract: A further analysis of “hope” in Grice’s first implicatum, conversationa. “He is hopeless”. The idioms involving hope, including “hope springs eternal”. This is an application of Alessandro Capone, a list-member, and his positivistic thinking that Grice could not have been ill-meaning.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0534.html. Abstract: The post, entitled, “Byzantine”, draws from P. Wilson’s remembrance of the Grice seminars, into Grice’s feelings (Byzantine) on occasion. Inspired by a comment by list-member H. D. White.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0532.html. Abstract: On Grice on ‘sillygistic’.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0531.html. Abstract: A commentary on N. Allott’s reference to the language log entry on the “forthright negotiator” principle. I discuss it vis a vis Grice’s Subjective Understandings of things.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0530.html Abstract: My brilliant Grice limerick falling flat on a certain list.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0529.html. Abstract: My comment on N. E. Allott’s remarks on the forthright negotiator principle.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0527.html. Abstract. A Gricean analysis of the cliché, “this year of grace” – this year of Grice
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0524.html. Abstract: A funny Gricean analysis, I find, of a certain list’s guidelines for ‘subscribing’!
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0520.html. Abstract: A commentary on Grice, “He is hopeless” vis a vis infernal views, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0519.html. Abstract: Entitled, “Grice’s Very Sticky Wicket”, an analysis of Grice’s cautions on industrial logics.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0514.html. Abstract: The post, entitled, “Running away from a bull” attempts to trace Grice’s earliest account of ‘be relevant’.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0513.html. Abstract: Comment on D. Donovan on “Sticky Wicket”
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0512.html. Abstract: More on sticky wicket.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0510.html. Abstract: sticky wicket
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0509.html. Abstract: An application of Grice’s Modified Occam’s razor to possessive pronouns.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0508.html. Abtract: A Gricean analysis of the oddity of ‘for’ in ‘responsible for’.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0507.html. Abstract: on Wittgenstein’s Fork
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0506.html. Abstract: On possessive.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0505.html. Abstract: on possessive.
THIS YEAR OF GRICE: 2009.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0501.html. Non-Natural Causes
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0498.html. slave of the passions
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0497.html.
2000. Whartoniana
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0496.html. more
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0495.html more
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0493.html
more
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0492.html. “writers like Wilson and Sperber”
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0491.html. same
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0490.html. on Nowell-Smith
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0489.html. on Pears
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0488.htmlt. toulmin “non-logical goats”
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0485.html. Grice, classy
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0483.html. pinko
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0482.html. abduction of Figaro
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0481.html. ho-he-ho
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0480.html. ode on a gricean urn
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0475.html. peirce
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0474.html. Heinz meanz beanz
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0473.html. peirce
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0472.html. peirce
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0469.html. a dictionary of grice – sign
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0468.html. Schuetz
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0466.html. flouting (3 more links)
“"But"” (Comment). Reflection on 'but' motivated by Grice's remarks on "She was poor but she was honest" (Causal Theory of Perception, 1961). What type of implicature does ‘but’ generate? I argue that it is a conventional implicature, not a conversational one. The story of ‘but’ versus ‘and’ is retold, from Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory. The etymology of English ‘but’ – ‘by out’, originally – is analysed as a non-sequitur.
"... seems to be the hardest word (relevantly speaking)"
“Relevantly insulted”
“Pragmatics textbook?” (Comment). What _is_ a textbook? This query was posted before UCL specialized in their MA programme in pragmatics, online. N. E. Allott being one of the responsible for this important course.
“Looking for Mr Grice”
“Glad Yuletide”
This Year of Grice: 2001
“Ogden & Richards, Meaning of Meaning” (Comment) Commentary on query by J. Constable, of King’s, College, regarding his forthcoming edition of the classic by Richards. The personal correspondence resulted in Constable citing Grice in the new edition, including all the references given by J. L. Speranza in this post, and further one provided offlist.
“Grice's Oxford and Relevance Theory”. The local geography of Grice’s theory. An analysis of the ideas behind Grice’s “be relevant”. This was first formulated in his Oxford lectures on logic and conversation. Comparison with Strawson’s “Platitude of Relevance” in “Identifying reference and truth-values” (Theoria) and the recently deceased earlier P. H. Nowell-Smith, “be relevant to the interests of your audience”, in his Ethics, and in terms of his ‘contextual implication’.
“The pragmatics of meta-representation ascription”. We say, “Utterer said or meant that p”. This is, in the Gricean mould, a meta-representation, in that it encapsulates a reference to an intention and a belief/desire on the part of the utterer. In this post I argue for a pragmatic approach to the _ascription_ of such psychological attitudes, along Gricean requirements of informativeness, and adequacy to context. The special tricky case of referring expressions in opaque contexts. How charitable should the reporter be (“He said that _Columbus_, but he said “Jeffrey”, discovered America”)
“The oratio recta-obliqua distinction”. Following the pragmatic approach to meta-representation ascription, I consider Davidson’s account of ‘that’-clauses as originally demonstrative. In this view, every oratio obliqua is preceded by an oratio recta. This has consequences for the Gricean analysis where the oratio-obliqua seems basic (“He believes that p”).
“Quasi-Belief and the oratio recta-obliqua distinction”. Stich has considered doxastic and subdoxastic states; similarly there are boulemaic and sub-boulemaic states. In some cases of sub-doxastic states, the oratio oblique seems a stretch, which does not mean that the choice of the oratio-recta is the panacea.
“Modified Occam's Razor and Disambiguation” (2 posts). When Grice joked on Occam, “Senses should not be multiplied beyond necessity”, he knew that it all depended on what you mean by ‘necessity’ (never mind ‘sense’). Disambiguation is one of the trickiest terms used in RT. Pragmatic ambiguity, for example, is deemed inconsistent by Searle. Yet Grice does use “pragmatic ambiguity” in his account of “Aristotle on the multiplicity of being”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (1988). So where does this leave us?
“Cognitive context or cognitive environment?” (Comment, two posts). Grice was infuriated by the use of context, and would give lectures jocularly on “The general theory of context”. What do philosophers, after all, mean when they say, ‘context’? Surely, Grice says, if “context is important” _is_ important, it should deliver some philosophical generality _out_ of context. “Environment” does not fare much better, but it fits with Grice’s pirotology. A pirot is an individual in its habitat. Its habitat is its environment.
A Question About the implicature-explicature distinction. Grice unconsciously was borrowing ‘implicature’ from Sidonius, who had used it in The Loeb Classical Library. The ‘explicature’ is modeled upon the implicature. Whereas Grice is vague as to the suffix, ‘-ure’, he prefers implicatum, for what is implicated. Similarly, a case – usually a vague one – can be made for the explicatum. The explicatum is best defined negatively: as everything Grice did not favour in his use of ‘say’. He repeatedly expressed he was using ‘say’ in a “favoured sense”, which is meant to include what later theorists called the explicatum.
“ 'then'” (Comment)
“Metaphor and Effort” (Comment). Grice’s one example of metaphor, “You’re the cream in my coffee attracted his share of criticism, as it should, for what is the good of a philosopher who will go unpolemic?
“Plicatures"” (Comment)
“Gricean humour: the irrelevant punchline”
“The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory”: a study in the relevance of the Old and New Testament. I draw on work by M. M. Warner, of Grice’s original shire, Warwickshire.
“request: re: Speranza's Posts Stoopid”
“Grice’s Legacy”: a consideration of the Grice symposium on the Legacy of Grice.
“onlist apology”
“Grice as an *English* philosopher”
“The form of thoughts (Comment)”
“"Relevance" in the OED”: an application of Grice’s linguistic botanizing. It is shown that ‘relevant’, as Grice used it in ‘be relevant’ derives directly from, of all things, Scots law!
“Conversational implicature”
“English philosophers discuss ‘relevant’”
“Grice on "pragmatic"”. A discussion of the meager allusions by Grice to this branch of micro-linguistics (if a branch of microlinguistic it is).
“Grice, ‘be relevant’” (2 posts)
“Keep On Lovin' Ya: Does Relevance Subsume It All?”
“A Grice-oriented bibliography checklist”
“Yu”
“RT References”
“Images” (Comment – 2 posts)
“Grice, Hart, and Leonard”: a précis of Peter Facione’s historiographical research.
“The relevance of "innit" and "like" among London female adolescents
“Philosophy & RT: biblio refs on implicature in Levinson -- any philosopher missing?”
“Conversational Implicature Gets Scrutinised”
“Parataxis, asyndesis, and concessivity: Grice and J. C. Wilson”
“?"Some if not all of the cows were culled from the herd"”
“Grice on ‘therefore’, & more: on encoding, implicature, & the in-between”
Grice in "Kasher Number Five". My fascination at seeing most of Grice’s essays now compiled by Kasher in his pragmatics series with Croom Helm.
“Jennifer Saul thinks she has refuted RT”
“"implicature" (and "explicature") as 'process' term of art”
“"Implicature": An Etymological Entanglement”. A commentary on Sidonius’ use of ‘implicatura’ in the Loeb Classical Library, and translated as ‘entanglement’ by Woodbridge.
2002.
“The negotiation of relevance”
“Mood, Mode, and Relevance”
“Exegesis (Grice on Saying)” (Comment) My comment resulted in Wharton citing the references providing therein to his working paper, and he later acknwowledging me in his book. The reference to Abel which I provide basically guides Wharton’s brilliant exegesis. The problem with the mimeo, “The William James Lectures I-VII”, unpublished. A mimeo not in the public domain.
“The explicit-implicit distinction”
“Re: Grice HP cited by Hare RM”. A rather terse way of expressing “Hare dies” (I hate that type of headlines)
“Evidentials”
“Re: Grice HP cited by Katz JJ”. Again, my code for “Katz dies”
“Fw causal/resultative use of "and"
“Language, Bananas and Bonobos”: a comment on N. Smith.
“Fw: syntax-pragmatics interface”
“Implicature, Explicature, Impliciture, Expliciture”
“Existential import, truth-conditions, and explicature”
“The conjunction of conjunction”
“J. L. Austin Revisited”
“Pragmatics of misunderstanding”
“Metaphor and simile”: an analysis of the contrast between “You’re the cream in my coffee” and “You’re the cream in my coffee, like”.
“From Sperber and Wilson to Hoey and Wodak – and back to Grice”
“Re: RT and other theories (Comment)”
“Paradigms of Reading: Relevance Theory & Deconstruction”
“Implicature: clause, scale, rank – and beyond”: a commentary on Julia Hirschberg, “A theory of scalar implicature”, Academic Press.
“At the syntax-pragmatics interface”
“Seven types of Gricean ambiguity”
“Module and central processor”
“Grice on irony”: an analysis of “He is a fine friend”.
“Neo- vs. Post- Gricean: comment.”
“"Lexical Pragmatics"
Ψ
□□
êψτάλεΥγόμενα
“Teleo-functionalism -- in Gricean key”
εΦρώνεσις
Νουμύμενον
φαινόμενον
δεκάλογος
τέλος
♥↑“From Relation to Relevance – and back”
□□□□□πρωτήιλοςοφία
“Temporality and post-Gricean pragmatics: Comment”
“Semiotics”
“Re: Questions on Relevance”
“"Evidentials"
“Re: History of RT”
“Semantics vs. Pragmatics
“Alliteration: comment”
“”Also” and “Too””
“"unintended meaning"?
ψRe: Question
1. “Saying that”
2. “Banter”
3. “Re: Forward: 'ask for help' - unintended meaning
4. “Reference assignment and R-based narrowing: simple as that?
5. “Re: Why do human communicate? Comment on Timothy Wharton”
6. “Exhibition and Protrepsis
7. “"Too", "Even", and Contextual Relevance
____________________________________________________________________________________
2003.
1. “Fw: Relevance of Productivity in Synchronic Word formation
2. “Paul Ziff”
3. “W. Davis on Implicature”
4. “Implicature and Impliciture”
5. “Grice's Heritage”
6. “Implicature and Colouring”
7. “Circles and Gambits: Review of Carston, Utterances and Thoughts”
8. “Initial 'And'” “Fw: Q: 'Some'
9. “Fwd: verbs of knowing
10. “Donald Davidson dies
11. “metadiscourse enquiry
12. “metarepresenting Rumsfeld
13. “yet and still (2 comments)
2004.
1. “Puzzle
2. “Tautologies: 'A toothbrush is a toothbrush'
3. “co-presence and mutual manifestness (3 posts)
4. “Zeno Vendler”)
5. Re: RT list: 'World' in RT
6. Re: RT list: Direct Quotation RT list: Object-Frames and Meta-Frames
_________________
2005.
1. SALT
____________________________________________________________________________________
2008
1. Grecian Irrelevancies in Gricean Key
2. Defending the Explicature (5 posts)
3. Coloratura / Implicatura
4. There's Glory For You!
2009.
1. Plicatures Galore
2. The Reader
3. inference in encoding?
4. Wedgwood pottery 5. Ready, Steady ... 6. The Cunning of Reason: a commentary on N. E. Allott. (4 posts)
7. Earliest account of relevance (2 posts). Comment. 8. Re: Earliest account of relevance
9. The Wrongs of Grice 10. Gricefully Yours
11. ex cathedra
12. Prepositions and conceptual/procedural meaning? (2 posts)
13. The Highway Code
14. Grice on 'pragmatic'
15. Scots Grice
16. "A. P. Grice"
17. Common Or Garden
18. Foolosopher and Linguist
19. “Open texture”
20. Grice to the Mill
21. The Atlas Complex
22. Daniel Watts and the Disimplicature
23. WOW!
24. “Foolproof”
25."A few rather marked irrelevancies in his conversation": having just seen Rupert Everett and Angela Lounsbury on Broadway, I share my comments on Noel Coward as a Gricean.
26. "It is what it is"
27. "No man is an island"
28. Kjøll, The content of content
29. common-ground status
30. A horse says neigh (3 comments)
31. Grice's "evolutionary story"
32. Grice Disentangled
33. “In the Tradition of Kantotle” (3 posts)
34. "fid to one another" 33. Review of Carruthers
34. Conversational Minutiæ (3 posts)
35. Hekademos”
36. How Salient Was My Valley
37. Urmson´s Parentheticals -- Revisited
38. Aunt Matilda´s Conversational Knack -- & How To Get It
39. Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality
40. Annals of Analysis
41. A Shaggy Dog Story
42. So how does the mind work?
43. ü♂Grice on analysis and theory ♂
44. Οhe editor of Mode
45. ὸὸOn "+>" & Other Matters
46. Warm Beer At Awesome Picnics
47. Grice and the anthropologists
48. The Urmson Festchrift
49. Penny for your Thoughts?
50. Grice performs "Pavane" Grice in a Balloon
51. Levi-Strauss (Was: Grice and the anthropologists)
52. The Implicature Among the Munde
53. Kinship Terms: Levi-Strauss Goes Gricean
54. The Wild Pansy The king is dead. Long live the king
Δίμων
55. The Old Flouter (4 posts)
56. The Phenomenology of Conversation: Grice meets Schutz
57. A Dictionary of Grice
58. Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (3 posts)
59. Heinz Meanz Beanz: Reading Grice Reading Peirce
60. on a Gricean Urn
61. Yo-He-Ho
62. The Abduction of Figaro
63. Grice's pinko pragmatics
64. Gricean pragmatics as a 'class' thing, too
65. How to Grice a Toulmin Grice, HP cited by Pears, DF
66. Grice, ‘be relevant’ -- and Nowell-Smith
67. "writers like Wilson and Sperber" (2 posts)
68. Whartoniana (4 posts)
69. "Slave of the Passions"
70. "Non-Natural Causes"
2010
1. "for" (Comment) (2 posts): on an idiom, ‘responsible for’.
2. "my" (comment): the range of cases under Grice, “Personal identity”.
3. possessive pronouns and preposition "for" (Comment)
4. "possessive": a comment. The problem of grammatical terminology as essentially sloppy.
5. “Grice´s Sticky Wicket” (4 posts). A commentary on Grice’s attitude towards computers. They wouldn’t recognize ‘sticky wicket’.
6. “Running Away From A Bull” – a commentary on what may well be Grice’s first allusion to ‘be relevant’, in his 1948 “Meaning”.
7. “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate”
8. “This Year of Grice” (2 posts)
9. The 'forthright negotiator' principle”: an analysis of the wording of this alleged principle, with a focus on a couple of very Gricean counterexamples – involving ‘intended’ misunderstanding. (2 posts)
10. "There was once an Oxonian called Grice": limericks on Grice with an acknowledgment of Donal McEvoy.
11. “Grice's Sillygistic". A consideration of deductive arguments as essentially ‘trivial’ and ‘silly’, with an acknowledgement to P. A. Stone for the pun.
12. “Feeling Byzantine”: a commentary on White’s finding Grice ‘Byzantine’, with a quote on Grice confessing to feeling ‘Bizantine’ at times.
13. Speranza Sorge Eterna. More on Grice on ‘hopeless’. “He is hopeless” (‘Causal Theory of Perception’). A translation of “Hope springs eternal”
14. Donkey Sentences (2 posts). A gaffe. An offlist inadvertently commented onlist.
15. Grice on "appropriateness" (2 posts). An examination of D. Sperber’s use of ‘not … inappropriate’ vis a vis the very first paragraph of Grice, WoW, on ‘inappropriate’ (_sic_ in the negative) and the ‘appropriate-ness condition’.
16. Speranza Contra Speranza. An analysis of various puns involving ‘hope’ as used by Grice – “he is hopeless”. “hope against hope”.
17. “Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D.” (2 posts). An examination of the citation provided by White on Grice to deal with what White calls a ‘cross between an efficient press secretary and a super-knowledgeable librarian”. (White is PhD U. California/Berkeley – and had referred to Grice as ‘byzantine’).
NAME INDEX of Authors cited by J. L. Speranza. Selected. Speranza specializes in the history of philosophy in Oxford in the second half of the twentieth century.
Allott, N. E.
Grice, H. P.
Hare, R. M.
Speranza, J. L.
Strawson, P. F.
Peacocke, C. A. B.
Wharton, T.
References
Grice, H. P. (1961). The causal theory of perception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.
(1986). Reply to Richards, in R. E. Grandy and R. O. Warner, Philosophical Grounds of rationality: intentions, categories, ends. Oxford: Clarendon.
(1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press.
(1991). The conception of value. Oxford: Blackwell.
(2001). Aspects of reason. Oxford: Blackwell.
Speranza, J. L. On the way of conversation. Department of Philosophy, University of La Plata, Argentina. Cuadernos e Investigaciones 5. Proceedings of the International Philosophy Conference held at the University of Buenos Aires.
----. “German Grice”. Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia.
----. Conversational Immanuel. In M. J. Palacios, Temas actuales de filosofia: proceedings of the Argenine national congress of philosophy on “Current Issues in Philosophy”.
-----. Review of Studies in the Way of Words. Cuadernos de Filosofia, Deparment of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires.
-----. Review of Hare, Peacocke, etc. Boletin Bibliografico. Bibliographical Bulletin. Institute of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires.
-----. Mise en abyme: Grice on self-speculations. In C. Arboleda, Southern Connecticut State University.
-----. Who’s afraid of Borges the Anglo-Argentine. The Buenos Aires Herald.
-----. First time in Brazil? Abstract in M. Dascal. Abstracts of the third international conference in the philosophy of language. Held at the Department of Philosophy, Campinas, Brazil.
• J L Speranza
o At the syntax-pragmatics interface (Sat Dec 21 2002 - 09:05:14 GMT)
o "Too", "Even", and Contextual Relevance (Sat Dec 21 2002 - 00:26:34 GMT)
o Exhibition and Protrepsis (Sat Dec 14 2002 - 17:02:45 GMT)
o Re: Why do human communicate? (Sat Dec 14 2002 - 00:22:44 GMT)
o Reference assignment and R-based narrowing: simple as that? (Wed Nov 27 2002 - 23:28:50 GMT)
o Re: Forward: 'ask for help' - unintended meaning (Mon Nov 11 2002 - 02:00:04 GMT)
o Banter (Mon Nov 04 2002 - 16:53:58 GMT)
o Saying that (Sun Oct 27 2002 - 04:13:15 GMT)
o Re: Question (Sun Oct 13 2002 - 07:13:36 GMT)
o also and too (Mon Sep 30 2002 - 05:55:02 GMT)
o "unintended meaning"? (Sat Sep 28 2002 - 16:30:09 GMT)
o Re: Alliteration (Tue Sep 17 2002 - 10:11:22 GMT)
o Semantics vs. Pragmatics (Thu Aug 22 2002 - 07:18:19 GMT)
o Re: History of RT (Sat Aug 10 2002 - 14:42:35 GMT)
o Re: Questions on Relevance (Mon Aug 05 2002 - 00:39:42 GMT)
o "Evidentials" (Fri Jul 26 2002 - 02:02:14 GMT)
o Re: temporality and post-Gricean pragmatics (Tue Jul 02 2002 - 11:27:17 GMT)
o RT vs semiotics (Tue Jul 02 2002 - 09:02:19 GMT)
o From Relation to Relevance (Sun Jun 30 2002 - 00:07:44 GMT)
o Teleo-functionalism -- in Gricean key (Sat Jun 29 2002 - 23:08:52 GMT)
o "Lexical Pragmatics" (Thu Jun 20 2002 - 02:29:15 GMT)
o Re: Neo- vs. Post- Gricean pragmatics (Tue Jun 18 2002 - 04:57:41 GMT)
o Grice on irony (Tue Jun 11 2002 - 05:35:11 GMT)
o Module and Central Processor (Mon Jun 10 2002 - 19:02:16 GMT)
o Seven Types of Gricean Ambiguity (Mon Jun 10 2002 - 17:26:38 GMT)
o Implicature: Clause, Scale, Rank, & Beyond (Tue Jun 04 2002 - 23:54:10 GMT)
o Paradigms of Reading: Relevance Theory & Deconstruction (Thu May 30 2002 - 20:41:47 GMT)
o Re: RT and other theories (Mon May 27 2002 - 15:01:15 GMT)
o From Sperber and Wilson to Hoey and Wodak (Fri May 24 2002 - 16:27:13 GMT)
o metaphor and simile (Wed May 15 2002 - 17:37:48 GMT)
o Pragmatics of misunderstanding (Wed Apr 10 2002 - 18:43:02 GMT)
o J. L. Austin Revisited (Mon Apr 08 2002 - 00:43:23 GMT)
o The Conjunction of Conjunction (Fri Apr 05 2002 - 09:36:54 GMT)
o Existential Import, Truth Conditions, and Explicature (Sat Mar 16 2002 - 10:52:25 GMT)
o Implicature, Explicature, Impliciture, Expliciture (Sat Mar 16 2002 - 09:52:56 GMT)
o Fw: syntax-pragmatics interface (Tue Feb 19 2002 - 06:40:29 GMT)
o Language, Bananas and Bonobos (Sun Feb 17 2002 - 06:18:47 GMT)
o Fw causal/resultative use of "and" (Sat Feb 16 2002 - 21:53:05 GMT)
o Re: Grice HP cited by Katz JJ (Mon Feb 11 2002 - 19:16:57 GMT)
o Evidentials and Relevance (Mon Feb 11 2002 - 16:04:15 GMT)
o Re: Grice HP cited by Hare RM (Sun Feb 10 2002 - 17:25:37 GMT)
o The explicit-implicit distinction (Wed Jan 30 2002 - 09:23:48 GMT)
o Re: "But" (Wed Jan 23 2002 - 01:28:20 GMT)
o Re: Exegesis (Grice on Saying) (Thu Jan 17 2002 - 16:50:08 GMT)
o Mood, Mode, and Relevance (Wed Jan 09 2002 - 15:47:15 GMT)
o The negotiation of relevance (Wed Jan 09 2002 - 10:31:15 GMT)
o "Implicature": an etymological entanglement (Thu Nov 29 2001 - 10:24:42 GMT)
o "implicature" (and "explicature") as 'process' term of art (Wed Nov 28 2001 - 10:43:13 GMT)
o Jennifer Saul thinks she has refuted RT (Sun Nov 25 2001 - 13:19:23 GMT)
o Grice and RT in "Kasher Number Five" (Wed Nov 21 2001 - 07:36:04 GMT)
o Grice on _therefore_, & more: on encoding, implicature, & the in-between (Tue Nov 13 2001 - 09:29:40 GMT)
o Parataxis, Asyndesis, and Concessivity (Grice & JC Wilson on) (Mon Nov 12 2001 - 17:42:57 GMT)
o ?"Some if not all of the cows were culled from the herd" (Mon Nov 12 2001 - 16:00:54 GMT)
o Conversational Implicature Gets Scrutinised (Thu Nov 15 2001 - 00:49:10 GMT)
o Philosophy & RT: biblio refs on implicature in Levinson -- any philosopher missing? (Sun Nov 11 2001 - 11:44:54 GMT)
o The relevance of "innit" and "like" among London female adolescents (Fri Nov 02 2001 - 03:01:48 GMT)
o Antecedents of RT: Grice, Hart, _and Leonard_ (Tue Oct 30 2001 - 10:36:42 GMT)
o Re: RT and images (Mon Oct 01 2001 - 05:48:01 GMT)
o Re: RT and images (Mon Oct 01 2001 - 05:42:49 GMT)
o RT References (Sun Sep 30 2001 - 11:58:47 GMT)
o Yu and Yus (Fri Sep 28 2001 - 08:46:23 GMT)
o A Grice-oriented RT bibliography checklist (Thu Sep 27 2001 - 12:27:47 GMT)
o Keep On Lovin' Ya: Does Relevance Subsume It All? (Tue Sep 25 2001 - 16:55:59 GMT)
o Re: Questions concerning the relationship between RT & Grice (Sun Sep 23 2001 - 18:36:16 GMT)
o Re: Questions concerning the relationship between RT & Grice (Sun Sep 23 2001 - 14:07:43 GMT)
o Grice and RT as "pragmatic" (Sun Sep 23 2001 - 11:30:17 GMT)
o English philosophers discuss _Relevance_ (Tue Sep 11 2001 - 03:07:36 GMT)
o RT -- "relevance" in the OED (Tue Sep 04 2001 - 21:33:29 GMT)
o RT and conversational implicature (Tue Sep 04 2001 - 18:44:29 GMT)
o Re: The form of thoughts (Sat Sep 01 2001 - 18:27:49 GMT)
o RT and English (Sat Sep 01 2001 - 16:55:22 GMT)
o onlist apology (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 18:46:21 GMT)
o Grice Legacy (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:57:31 GMT)
o request: re: Speranza's Posts Stoopid (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:45:25 GMT)
o The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 15:08:10 GMT)
o Gricean humour -- irrelevant punchline? any ideas/works? attach welcommed (Mon Aug 20 2001 - 21:03:53 GMT)
o Re: "plicatures" ? (Thu Jun 28 2001 - 09:01:00 GMT)
o Re: metaphor and effort (Wed Jun 27 2001 - 05:30:39 GMT)
o Re: 'then' (Mon Jun 04 2001 - 17:08:47 GMT)
o A Question About Implicature/Explicature (Sun May 20 2001 - 22:56:17 GMT)
o Re: Cognitive context or cognitive environment? (Fri Mar 02 2001 - 02:16:23 GMT)
o Re: Cognitive context or cognitive environment? (Thu Mar 01 2001 - 11:42:07 GMT)
o Re: RT, Modified Occam's Razor, and Disambiguation (Sun Feb 11 2001 - 07:10:34 GMT)
o Re: RT, Modified Occam's Razor, and Disambiguation (Fri Feb 23 2001 - 16:30:57 GMT)
o RT, Modified Occam's Razor, and Disambiguation (Fri Feb 23 2001 - 00:26:37 GMT)
o Quasi-Belief, the Oratio Recta/Obliqua Distinction, & RT (Wed Feb 21 2001 - 21:20:28 GMT)
o Oratio Recta/Obliqua Distinction & RT (Wed Feb 21 2001 - 21:00:54 GMT)
o The pragmatics of metarepresentation ascription and RT (Mon Feb 19 2001 - 13:44:22 GMT)
o Grice's Oxford and Relevance Theory (Sat Feb 03 2001 - 05:02:40 GMT)
o Re: Ogden & Richards, Meaning of Meaning (Sat Jan 06 2001 - 12:22:20 GMT)
o Glad Yuletide (Sat Dec 23 2000 - 23:53:24 GMT)
o Looking for Mr Grice (Tue Dec 19 2000 - 00:22:43 GMT)
o Re: Pragmatics textbook? (Fri Dec 08 2000 - 02:40:05 GMT)
o Relevantly insulted (Wed Nov 29 2000 - 03:41:55 GMT)
o ... seems to be the hardest word (relevantly speaking) (Tue Nov 07 2000 - 15:29:52 GMT)
• Jlsperanza@aol.com
o Re: RT list: SALT (Mon Feb 07 2005 - 16:42:23 GMT)
o RT list: Object-Frames and Meta-Frames (Sat Oct 23 2004 - 00:04:50 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Direct Quotation (Tue May 04 2004 - 20:59:19 GMT)
o Re: RT list: 'World' in RT (Tue Feb 17 2004 - 20:26:27 GMT)
o RT list: Zeno Vendler (Mon Jan 26 2004 - 17:37:22 GMT)
o Re: RT list: co-presence and mutual manifestness (Sat Jan 24 2004 - 18:24:24 GMT)
o Re: RT list: co-presence and mutual manifestness (Sat Jan 24 2004 - 04:59:54 GMT)
o Re: RT list: co-presence and mutual manifestness (Fri Jan 23 2004 - 00:36:54 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Tautologies: 'A toothbrush is a toothbrush' (Tue Jan 20 2004 - 15:12:01 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Puzzle (Tue Jan 20 2004 - 00:35:12 GMT)
o Re: RT list: yet and still (Fri Dec 19 2003 - 14:32:27 GMT)
o RT list: yet and still (Thu Dec 18 2003 - 15:10:11 GMT)
o Re: RT list: metarepresenting Rumsfeld (Sun Dec 07 2003 - 20:34:34 GMT)
o Re: RT list: metadiscourse enquiry (Tue Nov 04 2003 - 16:21:47 GMT)
o Donald Davidson dies (Mon Sep 01 2003 - 22:02:45 GMT)
o Fwd: verbs of knowing (Fri Apr 11 2003 - 11:37:24 GMT)
o Fw: Q: 'Some' (Wed Mar 26 2003 - 16:11:12 GMT)
o Initial 'And' (Fri Mar 14 2003 - 13:04:04 GMT)
o Circles and Gambits (Mon Feb 10 2003 - 21:52:14 GMT)
o Implicature and Colouring (Fri Jan 24 2003 - 14:14:31 GMT)
o Grice's Heritage (Tue Jan 21 2003 - 15:37:49 GMT)
o Implicature and Impliciture (Mon Jan 20 2003 - 18:18:49 GMT)
o W. Davis on Implicature (Fri Jan 17 2003 - 15:17:44 GMT)
o Paul Ziff (Tue Jan 14 2003 - 15:16:11 GMT)
o Fw: Relevance of Productivity in Synchronic Word Formation (Mon Jan 13 2003 - 18:50:52 GMT)
• jlsperanza@aol.com
o RT list: Re: conference announcement (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 20:12:58 GMT)
o Re: RT list: experiments and the conceptual/procedural distinction (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 17:57:15 GMT)
o Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 13:57:40 GMT)
o RT list: Key terms in pragmatics (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 11:32:34 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D. (Sat Jan 16 2010 - 22:07:32 GMT)
o RT list: Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D. (Sat Jan 16 2010 - 19:53:00 GMT)
o RT list: Speranza Contra Speranza (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 23:03:38 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice on "appropriateness" (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 17:18:38 GMT)
o RT list: Grice on "appropriateness" (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 16:47:43 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Donkey Sentences (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 16:37:26 GMT)
o RT list: Donkey Sentences (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 16:33:25 GMT)
o RT list: Speranza Sorge Eterna (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 14:48:04 GMT)
o RT list: Byzantine (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 18:31:47 GMT)
o RT list: Grice's "Sillygistic" (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 17:33:24 GMT)
o Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 17:17:21 GMT)
o RT list: "There was once an Oxonian called Grice" (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 17:06:05 GMT)
o Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 15:55:27 GMT)
o Re: RT list: This Year of Grice (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 15:23:50 GMT)
o RT list: This Year of Grice (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 13:10:04 GMT)
o RT list: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 05:09:42 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice's Sticky Wicket (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 05:07:27 GMT)
o RT list: Running Away From A Bull (Wed Jan 13 2010 - 17:07:58 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice's Sticky Wicket (Wed Jan 13 2010 - 14:54:46 GMT)
o RT list: Re: RT list: Grice´s Sticky Wicket (Wed Jan 13 2010 - 02:34:05 GMT)
o RT list: Grice´s Sticky Wicket (Tue Jan 12 2010 - 21:44:30 GMT)
o RT list: "my" (Mon Jan 11 2010 - 13:11:32 GMT)
o RT list: Re: "for" (Mon Jan 11 2010 - 12:47:36 GMT)
o RT list: "possessive" (Sun Jan 10 2010 - 23:30:03 GMT)
o RT list: "for" (Sun Jan 10 2010 - 23:28:49 GMT)
o Re: RT list: help on possessive pronouns and preposition "for" (Sun Jan 10 2010 - 21:14:46 GMT)
o RT list: "Non-Natural Causes" (Thu Dec 31 2009 - 22:20:43 GMT)
o RT list: "Slave of Passions" (Thu Dec 31 2009 - 20:30:20 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Whartoniana (Thu Dec 31 2009 - 19:59:49 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Whartoniana (Wed Dec 30 2009 - 04:56:40 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Whartoniana (Wed Dec 30 2009 - 02:26:07 GMT)
o RT list: Whartoniana (Mon Dec 28 2009 - 22:38:09 GMT)
o RT list: Re: "writers like Wilson and Sperber" (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 19:23:40 GMT)
o RT list: "writers like Wilson and Sperber" (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 15:18:51 GMT)
o RT list: Grice's "be relevant" -- and Nowell-Smith (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 06:34:30 GMT)
o RT list: Grice, HP cited by Pears, DF (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 04:37:39 GMT)
o RT list: How to Grice a Toulmin (Mon Dec 21 2009 - 08:35:01 GMT)
o RT list: Gricean pragmatics as a 'class' thing, too (Fri Dec 11 2009 - 13:07:31 GMT)
o RT list: Grice's pinko pragmatics (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 17:35:01 GMT)
o RT list: The Abduction of Figaro (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 10:53:24 GMT)
o RT list: Yo-He-Ho (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 10:41:29 GMT)
o RT list: Ode on a Gricean Urn (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 09:15:30 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t... (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 12:40:08 GMT)
o RT list: Heinz Meanz Beanz: Reading Grice Reading Peirce (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 12:28:57 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t... (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 11:36:34 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t... (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 10:58:15 GMT)
o RT list: A Dictionary of Grice (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 21:26:45 GMT)
o RT list: The Phenomenology of Conversation: Grice meets Schutz (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 18:58:29 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 05:16:01 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 02:52:45 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 01:24:37 GMT)
o RT list: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 00:53:13 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Breaking the Code (Thu Nov 05 2009 - 14:25:20 GMT)
o RT list: Breaking the Code (Thu Nov 05 2009 - 14:17:21 GMT)
o RT list: The king is dead. Long live the king (Thu Nov 05 2009 - 13:40:58 GMT)
o RT list: The Wild Pansy (Wed Nov 04 2009 - 21:19:22 GMT)
o RT list: Kinship Terms: Levi-Strauss Goes Gricean (Wed Nov 04 2009 - 18:41:57 GMT)
o RT list: The Implicature Among the Munde (Tue Nov 03 2009 - 23:18:00 GMT)
o RT list: Levi-Strauss (Was: Grice and the anthropologists) (Tue Nov 03 2009 - 15:47:16 GMT)
o RT list: Grice in a Balloon (Wed Oct 21 2009 - 19:02:32 BST)
o RT list: Grice performs "Pavane" (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 02:47:26 BST)
o RT list: Penny for your Thoughts? (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 02:16:22 BST)
o RT list: The Urmson Festchrift (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 01:56:07 BST)
o RT list: Grice and the anthropologists (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 00:42:21 BST)
o RT list: Re: Warm Beer At Awesome Picnics (Tue Oct 06 2009 - 18:00:12 BST)
o RT list: On "+>" & Other Matters (Tue Oct 06 2009 - 17:39:22 BST)
o RT list: The editor of Mode (Tue Oct 06 2009 - 17:08:09 BST)
o RT list: Grice on analysis and theory (Mon Sep 21 2009 - 22:59:31 BST)
o Re: RT list: So how does the mind work? (Tue Sep 08 2009 - 18:36:42 BST)
o RT list: A Shaggy Dog Story (Wed Aug 05 2009 - 17:35:44 BST)
o RT list: Annals of Analysis (Fri Jul 31 2009 - 20:51:08 BST)
o RT list: Fwd: Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality Conference, Bristol, 18th-20th September 2009 (Fri Jul 31 2009 - 19:57:40 BST)
o RT list: Aunt Matilda´s Conversational Knack -- & How To Get It (Fri Jul 31 2009 - 19:28:20 BST)
o RT list: Hekademos (Fri Jul 24 2009 - 16:29:50 BST)
o RT list: Urmson´s Parentheticals -- Revisited (Fri Jul 24 2009 - 16:16:48 BST)
o RT list: Re: How Salient Was My Valley (Fri Jul 24 2009 - 16:12:57 BST)
o Re: RT list: In the Tradition of Kantotle (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 12:39:09 BST)
o RT list: Conversational Minutiæ (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 04:29:48 BST)
o RT list: Minutiæ (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 02:42:29 BST)
o Re: RT list: In the Tradition of Kantotle (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 01:35:33 BST)
o Re: RT list: review of Carruthers (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 00:08:13 BST)
o RT list: "fid to one another" (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 20:24:55 BST)
o RT list: In the Tradition of Kantotle (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 17:07:10 BST)
o RT list: Grice Disentangled (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 15:32:03 BST)
o RT list: Grice's "evolutionary story" (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 00:50:35 BST)
o RT list: Re: A horse says neigh (Mon Jul 13 2009 - 23:22:03 BST)
o RT list: Re: A horse says neigh (Mon Jul 13 2009 - 22:15:57 BST)
o RT list: A horse says neigh (Mon Jul 13 2009 - 18:26:21 BST)
o RT list: common-ground status (Fri Jul 10 2009 - 19:45:08 BST)
o RT list: Kjøll, The content of content (Fri Jul 10 2009 - 17:26:07 BST)
o RT list: "No man is an island" (Thu Jul 09 2009 - 23:33:22 BST)
o RT list: "it is what it is" (Mon Jul 06 2009 - 01:02:33 BST)
o RT list: "a few rather marked irrelevancies in his conversation" (Sun Jul 05 2009 - 18:27:55 BST)
o RT list: foolproof (Sat Jul 04 2009 - 13:32:39 BST)
o RT list: WOW! (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 13:04:36 BST)
o RT list: Daniel Watts and the Disimplicature (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 12:59:24 BST)
o RT list: The Atlas Complex (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 12:44:20 BST)
o RT list: Grice to the Mill (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 12:33:58 BST)
o RT list: Open texture (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 00:45:38 BST)
o RT list: Foolosopher and Linguist (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 00:08:00 BST)
o RT list: Common Or Garden (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 22:44:17 BST)
o RT list: "A. P. Grice" (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 22:21:17 BST)
o RT list: Scots Grice (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 22:07:50 BST)
o RT list: Grice on 'pragmatic' (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 21:20:45 BST)
o RT list: The Highway Code (Wed Jul 01 2009 - 01:36:07 BST)
o Re: RT list: Prepositions and conceptual/procedural meaning? (Thu Jun 25 2009 - 19:21:10 BST)
o Re: RT list: Prepositions and conceptual/procedural meaning? (Thu Jun 25 2009 - 17:38:10 BST)
o RT list: ex cathedra (Mon May 18 2009 - 15:56:03 BST)
o RT list: Gricefully Yours (Mon May 18 2009 - 00:26:42 BST)
o RT list: The Wrongs of Grice (Sun May 17 2009 - 17:18:56 BST)
o RT list: Re: Earliest account of relevance (Thu Feb 19 2009 - 18:56:34 GMT)
o RT list: Earliest account of relevance (Thu Feb 19 2009 - 18:47:26 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 22:52:35 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 22:09:39 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 19:47:35 GMT)
o RT list: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 19:30:01 GMT)
o RT list: Ready, Steady ... (Mon Jan 26 2009 - 20:43:44 GMT)
o RT list: Wedgwood pottery (Fri Jan 23 2009 - 19:39:23 GMT)
o Re: RT list: inference in encoding? (Fri Jan 23 2009 - 19:36:49 GMT)
o RT list: The Reader (Wed Jan 21 2009 - 15:26:24 GMT)
o RT list: Plicatures Galore (Wed Jan 21 2009 - 15:06:46 GMT)
o RT list: There's Glory For You! (Fri Oct 10 2008 - 03:21:29 BST)
o RT list: Coloratura / Implicatura (Sat Jul 19 2008 - 00:04:26 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Sun May 04 2008 - 13:48:23 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Sun May 04 2008 - 00:53:30 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Sat May 03 2008 - 18:27:00 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Fri May 02 2008 - 15:16:52 BST)
o RT list: Defending the Explicature (Fri May 02 2008 - 02:30:00 BST)
o RT list: The Ariskantian Quartette (Fri Apr 04 2008 - 12:49:42 BST)
o RT list: Grecian Irrelevancies in Gricean Key (Sun Mar 16 2008 - 00:35:42 GMT)
o RT list: No buts about it (Sat Feb 02 2008
“Be relevant”
Few of us have noticed that the relevance list’s posts are numbered. I have taken some trouble to find the numbering for my posts. I realize that I started contributed to the list, as far as the archives goes – they are deposited at (a) http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/ and (b) http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/– with post No. 89. The following, thus, is a precis of my contributions to a certain list which specialises in Grice, 'be relevant' (Studies in the Way of Words, p. 30). I have attached a brief descript of what each post is about, along with its online link. The tag ‘comment’ signals that it is in reply to a query, etc. in the list. It was my understanding that lists are to share, hence my often conversational posts regarding other people’s interests. I have appended the name of the original querier in cases. Enjoy!
THIS YEAR OF GRICE: 2002
Post No. 89.
Title: “… seems to be the hardest word”
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0089.html
Abstract. On the pragmatics of apologizing. In reply to query by R. Breheny, of Keynes House, Cambridge on the semantics/pragmatics of ‘sorry’.
Refs.: W. Edmondson. 'On Saying You're Sorry.' In F Coulmas, ed. Conversational Routine: Explorations in Standardised Communication: Situations & Prepatterned Speech, Rasmus Rask Studies in Pragmatic Linguistics, vol. 2. Janua Linguarum Series Maior 96. The Hague: Mouton, pp. pp.273-288. Especially section, Apologies in discourse. Also in the same volume, B. Fraser, 'On Apologising.' pp.259-271.
especially section. An apology. 9 Strategies for apologising (1.announcing, 2.stating, 3.offering, 4.requesting, 5.expressing, 6.requesting forgiveness, 7.acknowledging, 8.promising, 9.offering redress. Factors influencing the choice of apologising strategy. My own approach - from a Gricean philosophy of language - would be via H. P. Grice (WoW), via S R Schiffer (Meaning - taxonomy of illocutionary acts in terms of Gricean intentions) and a look at D. Holdcroft, Words & Deeds (for a Gricean treatment of Austin's pragmatics). Fraser defines an apology as a "type of remedial action", so I'm sure there's more specific bibliography by so-called conversation-analysts alla Schegloff and Jefferson. The header is a reference to E. Taupin/Elton John's song, "Sorry seems to be the hardest word". All the references above are to the conversational "pragmatics" of sorry. I’m sorry to have to say that “sorry” has no semantics.”
* * * * * * *
Post No. 91
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0091.html
Title: The pragmatics of name-calling.
Abstract: A comment on a study by Yus on ‘a relevance-theoretic approach to insults’. I offer to order them all alphabetically.
* * * * *
Post No. 96
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0096.html
Abstrct: A defence of student cleverness against D. Hudson’s suggestion that a student has commited plagiarism..
* * * * *
Post No. 98
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0098.html
* * * * *
Post No. 99.
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0099.html
Title: Relevance-based guidelines to interpretation:
Abstract: On “When my grandmother was 80, she didn’t use glasses. She drank right out of the bottle.” Cancellability of expected inferred lexical narrowing.
* * * * *
Post No. 105
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0105.html
Title: My Way To Constable.
Abstract: Grice cited in Richards/Ogden, Meaning of Meaning – thanks to J. L. Speranza.As a philosopher with Gricean background, I always found I A Richards and C K Ogden of great interest. London-born Charles Keith (?) Ogden is usually given less importance, although it's him who (first) translated Witters "Tractatus" (Now, wasn't that a "task"!), allowing "Witters" to get a PhD in Cambridge, a Full Professorship in Philosophy, and British nationality (at a time when Wittgenstein was persecuted by the Nazis in Austria). Ogden was also the creator of "Basic English" (I have his edition of the "New Testament" in Basic English, but God! - give me King James anytime!). Cheshire-born Ian Alexander (? I'm just guessing his first names here!) Richards was associated with Robin G Collingwood, who was Oxford, rather, but, in his "THE NATURE OF HISTORY", Collingwood deals with Richards, and Ogden, and these causal theorists. There's also a forgotten member of this "group". Lady Violet Welby (I guess she was neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but, like Ogden, London!). I have somewhere her "What is Meaning". Quite a proto-Gricean this lady was! The second edn. of Ogden/Richards's book became quite a mandatory reading material for any UCL/SOAS linguist after Branislaw Malinowski published his boring Appendix there - Malinowski being associated with JR Firth and with the best tradition of English Linguistic Functionalism. Richards is more connected with Literary Criticism proper, right? (I note you are a reader in English. Richards was a Magdalenite as well, right?). He certainly influenced Sheffield-born W Empson, who has dealt at length with IA Richard's theory in some of his books (Not 7 Types of Ambiguity). In philosophical circles, Ogden/Richards are considered kind of mandatory for any serious study of meta-ethics, qua representatives of emotivism, i.e. the idea that, relevantly speaking, “ "The Meaning of Meaning" is a good book”means (no more, no less than) I approve of "The Meaning of Meaning". The main emotivist representative is an American, C L Stevenson ("Ethics and Language"), and Richards lectured a lot in USA so Stevenson may well have been influenced by him. Also other American members of what was called the school of General Semantics. There's one with a Japanese surname). My guess is, though, that the emotivist movement was quite strong in England as well, and we don't need Stevenson to bring it to history. English philosopher H.P.Grice ((H. Paul), yes, he of the "be relevant" conversational maxim) discusses Stevenson in his "Meaning" (in Studies in the Way of Words). And I've found another interesting historical connection: H. L. A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus?) Hart, who was, like Grice, an Oxonian philosopher, mentions Grice on Meaning in his (Hart's) review of John Holloway's Language & Intelligence, published for the Scotland-based "Philosophical Quarterly". (As I recall, the title of Hart's review is "Words and Signs". It's a "critical review). This has been studied as well by philosopher Peter A. Facione in USA, who has traced some very interesting proto-Gricean "doctrines"). I've never been able to trace this book by John Holloway, though, but it seems he belonged to this Emotivist School so well represented (if not started) by Ogden & Richards. Holloway (in England) and Stevenson (in USA) were, it seemed, strong adherents of the "causal theory of meaning". Both Hart and Grice tried to "refine" what they thought were too rude or rough statements, and the rest, as they say, is history.
* * * * *
Post No. 108
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0108.html
Title: More on Grice's meaning of meaning.
Abstract: I have elsewhere mentioned some links between Ogden/Richards and the English Oxford philosopher HP Grice. I was glad to see that such links have been furthered by RE Dale in an essay presented to SR Schiffer, "disciple" of Grice at Oxford for a number of years. I won't offer comments on RE Dale's essay other than pointing out that his is an analysis of *XXth century* pragmatics. I would claim - as I have elsewhere - that Grice's "insights" can be traced back, in the English-speaking world, at least to the Oxford tradition inaugurated by William of Ockham, T Hobbes, J. Locke, W. Digby, J Harris, and as developed in the XIXth c. by JS Mill. But I was happy to see a revision of Lady Victoria Welby - who's seldom acknowledged in the history of the "discipline" (the connection between Gardiner and Grice Dale notes is explicitly mentioned in the work of J Lyons). RE Dale writes: "What might Grice have had in mind when he suggested that his programme for an analysis of meaning was a matter of controversy? A good method for trying to answer this question would be to examine every place where intention-based theories are discussed, and to give special attention to all of those places where both intention-based theories and causal theories are discussed. It would, needless to say, be hard to know that one had ever successfully looked at every such place. But I have done my best and the only places in the twentieth-century literature I have been able to identify in which intention-based theories are discussed before Grice's work are these": Victoria Welby's "Meaning", AH Gardiner's "Speech and Language" and Ogden & Richards's "The Meaning of Meaning". "That's it. Perhaps I haven't looked enough, but I have looked pretty hard. And the only place I have been able to find both intention-based theories and causal theories discussed in the twentieth-century before Grice's "Meaning" is The Meaning of Meaning. So, here is a hypothesis. Grice read Ogden & Richard's "The Meaning of Meaning" and saw that its authors saw intention-based theories as "problematic" while themselves offering a "causal theory," and that is why he took his programme to be controversial.This is not at all an implausible hypothesis, I think, since "The Meaning of Meaning" has been a widely read book from the time of its publication until today. And if the hypothesis is correct, it gives all the more plausibility to the view that there is an identifiable tradition of intention-based thinking about meaning in the twentieth-century that begins with Welby, and runs through Gardiner to Grice. And if I am right about Gardiner's influence on Austin, then this tradition can be said to be responsible for an awful lot of what has been important in twentieth-century theorizing about meaning. Of course, the idea of there being an intention-based tradition is by no means false if it turns out that Grice NEVER READ OR WAS INFLUENCED by The Meaning of Meaning. But the story that includes Grice as somehow influenced by Welby and Gardiner is a much more interesting one. Why? If Grice did read "The Meaning of Meaning," all the more is there reason to give to Welby a place of importance in twentieth-century philosophy. For she must be identified as the originator in twentieth-century philosophy of the idea of seeing meaning as identifiable with a speaker's intention to affect an audience, the idea that Grice would make the cornerstone of his conception of meaning. And likewise, Gardiner should all the more be acknowledged as the important thinker he clearly was. Of course, in my view, both Welby and Gardiner should be much more recognized than they are whether or not Grice read "The Meaning of Meaning. But if Grice plausibly read that work and WAS INFLUENCED IN WORKING ON INTENTION-BASED THEORIES IN PART BECAUSE OF IT, clearly Welby and Gardiner and Ogden & Richards deserve credit as originators of the sort of theory that Grice was later to make such ingenious and influential contributions to. Grice gives reason to suspect that he took himself as engaging in a debate between causal theorists and intention-based theorists of meaning. But Grice didn't provide any clear suggestion about who the parties to this debate might have been. I identified Victoria Welby as the originator of intention-based theorizing in the twentieth-century. I noted a number of important aspects of her work including suspicion of a notion of what I called central meaning. Alan Gardiner, I suggested, synthesized important issues in Welby - whether he did so consciously or not - by developing further the speech/language distinction with a special emphasis on the non-linguistic intentions of speakers in speech. Gardiner developed a number of important themes which were widely influential later, though he was little noted, including something like the notion of the illocutionary force of an utterance and its relation to speaker's intentions, as well as the notion that a necessary condition for an act of speech - as he called it - is that the speaker should intend her or his audience to recognize her or his communicative intention in making the utterance made. This latter notion, I noted, is importantly related to Grice's analysis of the concept of speaker-meaning. I pointed out that Welby and Gardiner could be seen as taking part in a certain tradition in twentieth-century theorizing about meaning which I called the intention-based tradition. I then discussed a second tradition which I called the causal tradition. I noted the chief theorists in this tradition and I gave something of a gloss of it. I next returned to the question of where Grice might have come to learn of a debate between intention-based theorists and causal theorists. I suggest that it was through Ogden and Richards 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning which is the only place before Grice that I have been able to find a discussion of theories of both traditions." Quite a stretch, no? What people write to earn a doctorate!
Vide: "This Gricean Lady: Lady Violet Welby and the palaeo-Griceans", this blog.
* * * * *
Post No. 119
Site:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0119.html
Abstract: Grice's subdoxastic states.
Abstract. A reference to “The pragmatics of propositional attitude reports”
* * * *
Post No. 120.
Title: Modificated Ockham.
Abstract. On my partial confusion on the different concepts of "polysemy" and "ambiguity". It was I think JD Atlas who favours the view that the Gricean programme is best interpreted as prooposing UNIGUITY (or monoguity, I forget - I prefer the latter term) PLUS Implicature. In this case, UNIGUITY opposes to POLYSEMY. The locus classicus, and within my special focus of interest, the logical connectives, the idea that - as held in Oxford e.g. by LJ Cohen, of Queen's, if not by the early Strawson of "An Intro to Logical Theory", or earlier still, by Ryle in a number of essays - that "and" has (at least) two meaning (and is thus ambiguous or multiguous, or polyguous) - "and = &" (The Russellian interpretation favoured by Grice), and "and = and then" (or, to use Ryle's example, "He died and drank the poison", "and as a consequence then"). But I suppose one can see POLYSEMY (genuine one, as in the case of Grice's example, "vice", and "row" - meaning row in a river and row of chairs, coming from different Anglo-Saxon roots) as just *one* special type of ambiguity - After all, according to Wm. Empson (and we have been talking here of the legacy of I. A. Richards) there were SEVEN! Interestingly (for me, but I have to revise Grice's arguments in detail), when Grice deals with his Modified Occam's razor (in "Further notes") - as applied to the alleged to meanings of "or" (inclusive and exclusive - he does mention the word "ambiguity" if not "polysemy". Also, when in "Meaning Revisited" (also repr. in Studies in the Way of Words), he discusses whether there are really two "senses" of "meaning" (natural and non-natural) he also appeals to the Modified Occam's Razor to conclude that there is just one meaning and, perhaps, different usages. One should consider that for Frege, as much as terms (like "vice", "row", "meaning", "bank") or predicates may be have to have senses, propositions are also said to have both sense and reference. I forget what Frege thought the sense of a proposition was, but I recall he thought the reference of a proposition was a truth value. (Dummett's book on Frege was too thick (literally) for me. :)). On the other hand, and back to Grice, there's the maxim, "avoid ambiguity" (under the Fourth and Last Category of Manner of perspicuity), but the two examples he offers there (Wm Blake's poem, and "Peccavi") could hardly be said to deal with polysemy. The first (Blake's poem) seems to be a case of syntactic scope or parsing, and the latter is so contrived, that I would hardly call it "conversational". It refers to an historical event, as my Oxford Dict of Quotations shows). My ideas have, most recently, been influenced by the English computational linguist Adam Kilgariff's PhD thesis on "Polysemy" (U Sussex, Brighton), and his article "I don't believe in word senses", and by LR Horn's dictum, "Do not spit if you can lump" - which Horn applies less liberally than I myself do! As I recall, Sperber/Wilson's first example of "disambiguation" (in their Pragamtics Microfiche essay of Grice repr. in P. Werth) concerned the item "bank". I have not analysed THAT item in due detail, since, being an etymologist extraordinaire, I find it difficult to find the two SENSES or meanings of "bank". Italian blooded as I am, I find that they are rather two "usages" of the same word - as imported into the English language! (As Eve Sweester would say, a diachronic study of "bank" would show that what is at play is really a figurative extension of one onl original sense into multiple uses, I suppose).
* * * * *
Post 121:
Title: Blass on Speranza.
Abtract: a reply to Blass's comments on Speranza. She refers to ‘scope-ambiguity’ of the type I vs. ii. old (books & maps). (old books) and maps. And comments: "Cruse shows that items like 'book', 'map', 'CD' have FACETS. They have [various] readings in certain contexts in which ambiguity tests are positive. [E.g.] "book" has the reading "1. tome" and "2. text" and, as such, a sentence [containing it] can convey different truth conditions depending on whether [one facet or the other is] meant: Did you buy an an old book? may get as answers] Yes, I bought a novel by Charles Dickens. No, the book was printed in 1999. I was wondering about e-books. A typical case of the text interpretant only! "Buy? Are you crazy. What's the use of a full internet subscription for then! I read it from Gutenberg Project!" :) JLS] The same could apply to 'map' [where] Did you buy an old map? where a map [of pre-1974 England is meant! I like to see Rutland back there! JLS]. which could get as answers] [Yes, I bought a map with Rutland and Huntingdonshire in it! Lo-ve-ly! And Manchester is, as it should, in Lancashire! [Well] the map was printed in 1999 [but printed by THIS ENGLAND, that conservative publication if ever there was one, sticks to the "Save the Old Shyres" Campaign, and so, forget about seeing Humberside, Cleveland, and Greater London! And Yorkshire is the greatest shire, as it always was!] Regina writes: "According to this test 'book' and 'map' are polysemous. However, 'book' and 'map' can also convey both facets AT THE SAME TIME and therefore they are not intuitively polysemous. They can also fail certain ambiguity tests. You can say: “ John bought an old book. So did Mary.” which could be interpreted as “ John and Mary bought old tomes with old texts”. However, it would probably be possible to also convey that John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel and Mary an old tome with an old novel. So the ambiguity test fails here. I fail to see the meaning of the first conjunct of (11), i.e. John bought an old tome with a fairly new novel. I guess the idea is that what is polysemous here is "old". i.e. an old novel is, by anglophone standards, "OLDER" than an old tome. E.g. "Waves" by Virginia Woolf may be said to be a "fairly new novel", but if John bought the first edition by Hogarth Press, the tome would be "old" (or "dated") enough - and a collector's item, at that! In general, with Regina's examples, I was struck (not being an anglophone) that to me it wasn't clear whether the ambiguity applied to "old" rather than to the modified noun! JLS] Regina writes: "To come back to your [syntactic] scope example. The facet readings add further complication to your interpretations. Your 'old books and maps' example will probably allow both facet readings to occur. John bought old books & maps. can be interpreted as John bought old tomes & "new" maps (content and physical make-up - or either of them) However, [disambiguating the scope] 15. John bought old books & OLD maps. would probably be more restricted to either a 'tome' or 'text' reading for both. [i.e. I see. Following, Cruse's terminology, the same "facet" would be chosen, ceteris paribus, qua generalised conversational explicature!] "So, since we are in fact dealing with polysemous facets we have to ask how to approach their disambiguation in pragmatics. The [addressee] will interpret the utterance in the first available context. If the contextual information leads to a "tome" interpretation, A will access encyclopaedic entries connected to 'tome' and enrich [and disambiguate] the explicature accordingly. If it leads to the 'text' interpretation he will enrich the explicature accordingly." Regina adds, "I do not find Grice's answer to those problems very helpful. After all he does not give us a *means* by which to 'avoid ambiguity'" I like Cruse's idea of a facet and the whole idea of interpreting the facet as modifying the truth condition(s) of a claim. Now, as to how satisfactory Grice's original answer is, the issue is, I find, tricky, and I would not wish to get this into a historiographical polemic! Regina writes, "Grice does not give us a "means" by which to avoid ambiguity". This is, to me, pretty ambiguous! As I understand Grice, "avoid ambiguity" is one of the strategies of the conversational decalogue (if we count them as being nine plus the one for "the" being the tenth, i.e. Studies in the Way of Words, p.26 AND p.273). As such, Grice, it seems to me, is not really WILLING to give us the *means* (as Regina puts it) by which to avoid ambiguity. The maxim is expressed in natural English and does not require much of an interpretation (i.e. it does not go, "avoid Empson's seven types of ambiguity!"). As is obvious with the other maxims (including "be relevant"!), Grice seems to be more concerned with FLOUTS to the maxim rather than the following of it (i.e. what to avoid ambiguity would really amount to). From Grice's two examples of FLOUTS of the "avoid ambiguity" strategy, one can get an idea of what kind of ambiguity he was having in mind. His first example being "Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be since she [Nature] pricked thee/ Out for woman's pleasure/ mine be they love,/& thy love's use their treasure" (W. Blake), and the second: "Peccavi (I've Scinde),/Wrote Lord Ellen so proud./More briefly Dalhousie/Wrote Vovi (I've Oude)" -- Punch, Oxford Dict. Quot. In the Blake thing, the ambiguity resides in line 2, which can read as 18 or 19 18. Love that never can be told. 19. Love that never told can be ( = exist). Is the utterer involving "polysemy" there? It seems to that the ambiguity is, like in "old books & maps", of the scope, syntactic, type (which admittedly, may yield different truth conditions). You don't seem to need to bring in Cruse's polysemous facets or alternate readings for specific lexical items. Just two different surface syntactic parsings (which, will yield, admittedly, again different truth-conditions). Ie. Grice's examples seem to aimed at illustrating the interface between syntax and pragmatics. I.e. how alternate semantic parsings give raise to different truth conditions (and pragmatic interpretations) without need to fulfill an intermediate "full" lexico-semantic level. The two semantic parsings being 20. Love that never can be told by anyone, i.e., a kind of the love that dare not speak its name: a love that IS (or "exists"), but, for some reason, cannot be told. The example is, admittedly, tricky since it involves the negative adverbial "never", and so in a sense, it resembles 21. The King of France was never bald. Does 21 presuppose (implicate, mean) that there was a king of France?
Relying on "never", one can claim that 21 does NOT presuppose (implicate,
mean) that there is a king of France., other than via a cancellable conversational implicature. Similarly, (20) may not presuppose that such love exists. I myself opt for this latter alternative, since I note that Blake is placing such love as object of one's search, "NEVER SEEK TO TELL THY LOVE". Cfr. 32. Never seek the abominable Snowman. as implicating - on occasion, Because your search is doomed to fail, there not being such a man. Now, the second "ambiguity" flout example, the "Peccavi" couplet is so contrived, I find, and it doesn't really even concern English, which is my topic of research! Until someone proves to me that a similar kind of military example can be built for English, I think Grice was being too much of a classicist there! (Recall his lectures were given at Harvard which is reputedly the one offering the best classical education in USA!). In their essay in Werth, Sperber & Wilson argue that "avoid ambiguity" reduces to "be relevant" - and I will not deal with this reduction here: even if something reduces to something it doesn't mean we must stop talking about it. E.g. Grice thinks "meaning" reduces to "intention", but most of his essays have "meaning" in the title, not intention! Now, the other main aspect where ambiguity features large in Grice's programme - and which I expressed in the header of this thread - is in his "Modified Occam's Razor" (WoW 47). My focus has been the connectives, and so I will deal with that, in particular with the first connective, John bought the book & read it. John read the book & bought it. Suppose the book is "The Owl &the Pussycat", so that it is possible that John had time at the bookshop to go thru all the poem by Edward Lear, i.e. read it, to mainly note that no main errata were found, and since he loved the illustrations, he proceeded to buy it. i.e. (36) would be truth conditionally equivalent to John read the book & THEN bought it. On the other hand, it is possible that he did not read the poem in the bookshop, but, as usually happens, just bought it. It was a gift anyway. It
was only after buying and giving it as a gift to his nephew that he found
himself having to read the poem, too! So both (34) and (35) would be truth
condtitionally equivalent to John bought the book & then read it (to his nephew). The idea being of course, that for an entry like 39. and. we have two polysemous facets, as Cruse would call them, viz. and. 1. = "&" "p & q" is true iff both p & q are true
2. temporal sequence. AND THEN. This seems simple enough to me, and what Grice is saying is, follow M.O.R. (Modified Occam's Razor) i.e. Avoid multiplying senses (or polysemous facets) without necessity. Grice does note that the status of M.O.R. is questionable (and PhD's have been written against it!), but his whole programme seems to depend on the idea that it is sometimes possible to know when to apply it, and successfully too, especially when there is an alternate explication via conversational implicature (I'm not so sure "explicatures" play a role
here) to account for the SECOND, derived, so-called alleged polysemous facet. Now, it would be nice if we could compare the maxim "avoid ambiguity" with M.O.R., but I'm not sure that that was Grice's idea. I would need textual criticism. It seems that with the maxim, Grice is concerned with either syntactic alternate parsings (or contrived examples in foreign languages), whereas with M.O.R. he is concerned with specific lexical items, and notably the bare connectives - as he describes them (rather than whole syntactic paradigms, or nominal phrases, etc). One example of Grice's that may be illustrative as providing a link, though, may be, He is in the grip of a vice. This, Grice, says, is "ambiguous" - although he does not use the word (WoW: 25) - between 43 and 44. About some particular male person or animal x, at the time of utterance, x was unable to rid himself of a certain kind of bad character. 44. About some particular male person or animal x, at the time of utterance, some part of x's person was caught in a certain kind of tool or instrument. Here I would not doubt to consider a Cruse polysemous facet - and fail! (see below): 45. vice 1. corruption of morals from the Latin, vitium 2. screw.
from the Latin, vitis. Now, the obvious question I'd like to ask a RTheorist is whether they would consider "vice #1" and "vice #2" to be an example of a polysemous lexical entry or just TWO lexical entries! (Grice did not tell me. He just implicated his answer). Perhaps he thought it is obvious that he thought they were two lexical entries involved). The interesting thing (to me) and from which I infer Grice's position - philosophers seldom deal with "words" as such! - is that when discussing M.O.R. he brings up the same example. He writes, "Assuming for the moment that the tests [to differentiate "mean-n" from "mean-nn"] are roughly adequate, what I want to do now is NOT TO EMPHASISE the DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THESE CASES, BECAUSE THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE" And ad nauseam, too.(So much so, taht DH Mellor says Grice died of non-natural causes!) BUT RATHER TO LOOK AT WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON. IS THIS DOUBLE USE. Note the use of USE, a favourite word with Oxford philosophers, cf. G. Ryle's essay, "Use, Usage, and Meaning" in G. Parkinson, The Theories of Meaning. Oxford Readings in Philosophy). of the word "mean" just LIKE THE DOUBLE USE note again the use of "use" of the word "vice" to refer SOMETIMES TO SOMETHING APPROXIMATING TO A SIN AND SOMETIMES TO A CERTAIN SORT OF INSTRUMENT USED BY CARPENTERS. ONE IS PRETTY MUCH INCLINED TO THINK IN THE LATTER CASE TO SAY THAT THERE ARE TWO WORDS WHICH ARE PRONOUNCED AND WRITTEN THE SAME. But that inclination may be a vice! I recall the dialogue between Grice and Austin reported by Grice: Grice: I don't care what the dictionary says. Austin: And that is where you make your big mistake!). On general grounds of economy, cfr. LR Horn on the London School of Parsimony! (Parsimony being the term by which Occam's razor - to shave Plato's beard - is known in philosophical jargon). I am incined to think that if one can avoid saying that the word so-and-so has THIS SENSE, THAT SENSE, and the other sense, or THIS MEANING, and ANOTHER MEANING, if one can allow them to be variants under a single principle, that is the desirable thing to do: don't
multiply senses beyond necessity" (WoW: 291). Now, from that passage it seems pretty obvious to me that Grice is suggesting that we take "vice 1" and vice 2" as being "TWO WORDS PRONOUNCED AND WRITTEN THE SAME". I.e. Homonyms, rather than polysemous words (like "row" (of chairs) and "row" in the river). But WHAT would for Grice actually *be* an example of a polysemous word!? I can't find one single case. One case I do recall is from Adam Kilgariff (of U.Sussex/Brighton)'s essay in "I don't believe in word senses". He notes that an early ediiton of the O.E.D. features: horse. 1. a quadruped animal, 2. a representation of a horse (This was later "improved", and the second usage eliminated!). I believe that the notion of truth condition may (AND SHOULD) help us here but when it comes to polysemy, the issue is tricky, I find, because of so-called EXTENDED USAGES, which I don't strictly call polysemous. This may even apply to "and". I.e. it may well be that the primeval (seminal) use is the truth-functional "&" and that "and that" (temporal or causal sequence) is an extended "USE", not a different SENSE. But how and why do senses grow then? I think another example by Grice (WoW: 89), with which I'll end this sketchy notes may be illustrative here. It's his discussion of grass to
mean "lawn" or "pot": If I shall then be helping the grass to grow, I shall have no time for reading. as meaning upon the two polysemous facets (?) of "grass" as either 48 or 49: 48. If I shall then be assisting the kind of thing of which lawns are composed to mature, I shall have no time for reading. 49. If I shall then be assisting the marijuana to mature, I shall have no time for reading. Again, though, Grice does not use the word "ambiguity". He goes the hard way and writes, "It would be true to say that the word "grass" means (loosely speaking) "lawn material" and also true to say that the word "grass" means "marijuana". Such meaning specifications I shall call the specifications of the timeless meanings of an incomplete utterance type which may be a nonsentential word or phrase or may be a nonlinguistic utterance type which is analogous to a word or phrase" (p.89). Trouble is, I think, that, here, we cannot strictly say, as with "vice" that it's two words pronounced and written the same. One is an extended, figurative use of the second, viz. grass. 1. lawn material 2. marijuana Incidentally, I think the same applies to cases like "gay" "1. merry. 2. homosexual," or "turk: native of Turkey; unwanton child" [where the second meaning, or item separated by the semi-colon may be thought of as a metaphor - and thus a conversational implicature, Studies, p.34). So,
old-fashioned as I am, I'm quite against those dictionaries, like the new
C.O.E.D., that orders the alleged "polysemous facets" in terms of frequency
rather than history!
* * * *
Post No. 124.
Title: Grice in Chinese.
Abstract: Xu lets us know that "in China we use something like "cognitive linguistic context". Well, that may make sense in Chinese, but not as you translate it, I'm sorry (:(), or so it seems to me (Never mind, I'm far from a purist :)). Troubles I see with your Chinese expression: 1. how come it can be linguistic AND cognitive at the same time? Are you adopting a Fodor-like theory of a Language Of Thought? "linguistic" are things like chains of phones and phonemes "cognitive" are things like beliefs and intentions (nowadays called "metarepresentations). 2. why restrict "context" to the linguistic and/or cognitive? usually other features (mainly physical, e.g. referents for deictics) are just as essential- admittedly,
as they are "cognised" by the communicators. 3. Therefore, I think "cognitive environment" is a better expression. Sperber/Wilson's Relevance (index) has entry for "cognitive environment", 38-46, ff. but not for "cognitive context". On the other hand the book does have an entry for "context", 12ff "contextual effect" and "contextualisation" but not for "environment" as such. "Cognitive environment" is first used on p.38., in section "Cognitive environments & manifestness", so it seems to be RT's preferred term of art. It is defined in claim (40) (40) a cognitive environment of an individual is a set of facts that are manifest to him. To be manifest is "to be perceptible or inferrable" (note: to be more precise "we might say that to be manifest is to be capable of being perceived or inferred without being immediately invalidated", n.28). This refinement in the note is to allow for cases where 1. the individual can perceive that p, but do not believe that p.
(e.g. Tweety perceives a cat, but does not believe there's a cat before him)
2. The individual may infer that there is a cat, but do not perceive it (e.g. Tweety just perceives "evidence" that the cat is around). As Sperber/Wilson put it, "one can mistrust one's senses, and hence perceive and yet not believe" (p.258). Recall Tweetie's monologue: "I perceive a wicked black cat before me" "I believe there is a black cat before me" "Oh, yes, there IS a black cat before me" (Tweety's example was a favourite example with my professor of epistemology. I'm afraid we worked with translations of the original English, and I trust Tweety's English is more idiomatic). Sperber/WIlson write, "once can perceive and yet not believe". (p.258). Note that for example for Grice, even though "see" (a verb of perception) is
a factive (ceteris paribus) on can have (Grice's example (Studies, p.44)): “Macbeth sees Banquo”, where Macbeth may be conscious (in Shakespeare's tragedy he isn't but never mind) that he is hallucinating, and so, he may not believe that there is
Banquo in front of him to be seen (Traditionalist Grice concludes that we
are using "see" in a "loose" way in a claim like (3)). A second case Sperber/Wilson consider is when "one infers and not believe, as when a validly inferred conclusion contradicts a strongly held belief. This points to the complexity of the cognitive environment. After a convincing and very logical lecture on the Neo Darwinist Evolutional Theory, the auditor may be led to believe that Man does Descends from the Apes (as inferred, inter alia, from Neo-Genetics, Darwin's Theory of the survival of the fittest plus Malthus's idea of geometrical increase of population vs. arithmetical increase of food). Yet, upon leaving the conference hall, he
reminds the previous Sunday Presbyterean sermon, that it, that Man was
created directly by God after his image, and so he opts for a strongly held
belief than a validly inferred conclusion. Of course, life (and thus science!) being relative, one never knows what is validly inferred and what is not! In Sperber/Wilson, the concept of COGNITIVE environment co-exists with that
of PHYSICAL environment, and indeed it may be thought of as being derivable
from that of "physical" environment PLUS rational capacities: "an individual's total congitive environment is a function" in the set-theoretical usage "of his phyiscal environment and his cognitive abilities" (p.39). The psychological (explanatory) role of cognitive environment comes in when communication enters the picture: "when you communicate" - Sperber/Wilson write - "your intention is [at least. JLS] to ALTER the cogntive environment of your addressee" (p.46)
* * * * *
Post No. 125.
Title: More on Chinese Grice: "JING" OR "HUANJING"? That is the question.
Abstract. I'm a bit confused by Xu. Xu is writing an essay in CHINESE, who you intend to present to your ENGLISH professor, and besides, the topic will be, the
implicatures in RUSSIAN! Couldn't you have chosen something, say, a bit ...
EASIER? I don't know the first thing about Chinese - other than MAK Halliday wrote
his PhD on it! - but Xu writes, "Context" is translated as "yujing", from "yu": language and "jing": environment. Cognitive is "renzhi" in Chinese. Thus, "cognitive context" became "renzhi yujing" So far so good. I have to decide to follow our English professor or to adapt another translation (for example, "renzhi
huanjing" - "huanjing" means environment). Hey hey hey. Wait a minute. You said earlier that "JING" means ENVIRONMENT and now you say that "HUANJING" means "environment". It seems to me as though, in the proceedings, you have introduced a little prefix there, namely, "HUAN". What does "HUAN" mean? (LITERALLY, I mean). "JING" and "HUANJING" can *not* mean the same thing! Trouble is, "context" is also a hateful English term. It should be "co-text" (Why the anglophones intrude an "n" there escapes me!). Also, to "worsen" the situation, "text" actually means "fabric". So we can speak of the "textual quality" of a painting, for example. It does not necessarily mean "linguistic". So, we can speak of a painting (e.g. Picasso's "GUERNICA") and its context (The Spanish Civil War). What I do like is the family of concepts: text context co-text and pre-text A "pre-text" is what stands in place of a "text", but it's not much used by linguists! (A term some of them love is "context-dependency" though!). A famous London linguist (of the SOAS), JR Firth became especially famous for his use of "context of situation". This "context" included, for him, quite a lot (Dell Hymes's use of context is quite broad, too). But, now, if, to study Russian implicatures, you only want to speak of the utterer's and the addressee's beliefs and intentions (i.e. metarepresentations or
cognitive states/processes) it doesn't really matter whether you choose
"context" or "environment", it seems to me. It's the COGNITIVE SIDE you're interested in, anyway. Not the "context/environment" side. For the most complex theory of "context" (as such) that you can ever imagine I recommend the books on Montague Grammar!
Post 130.
Title: My Grice!
Abstract: On Sidonius’s little entanglements. Grice coined "implicature" as a nominalisation of "implicating" (or of "to implicate"), i.e. as a nominalisation of a VERB. It is *utterers* who *implicate* this or that, not utterances themselves. Recall, too, that no *words* (or "sayings") are necessary. Any utterance can do (a finger sign, etc). WoW: 216. I believe the case with Wilson & Sperber's concoction of the "explicature" is similar. No explicit linguistic utterances need be involved. Similarly, "explicature" is, like "implicature", merely the handy nominalisation for what is actually a process, or, perhaps more strictly speaking, a propositional attitude (or meta-representation) which derives from an inferential process. The utterer EXPLICATES this or that. So, I would rephrase. The utterer explicates that the table, which is in the sitting room downstairs, is too wide to go thru the door. Deleting explicit mention of "speaker" and "saying" - qua general illocutionary verb. Now, is 4 or 5 NECESSARY for an understanding of (1)? I would think (4), or, as I prefer, (5), is merely a so-called representation of RT (relevance theory), i.e. a theoretical construct, but not something conversationalists need invoke. It is merely the VERBAL (or "agentive") version of (2), as it were. So, while (2) would be the EXPLICATURE (or EXPLICATUM. Cf. Grice on implicature vs. implicatum, Studies, p.24), (4), or, as I prefer (5), would formulate that nominal version (2) into what is strictly the primitive verbal version out of which (2) derives, i.e. where it is the utterer (and not the "utterance") which implicates/explicates this or that.
* * * *
Post 140.
Title: Grice Does Eng. Lit.
Abstract: B. McMahon quotes from a novel she is reading: “Jack looked at his red beard in the tableknife. Then Jack and Jill went to Sweden, to the farm” (après Barthelme) McMahon is “puzzled over where we get the expectation that conjoined sentences will describe similar events. Is it from an assumption schema? Is it because conjoining the trivial with the significant does not yield enough cognitive effects?" My mind, like Barthelme's, is a bit disturbed as I write this, so apologies for nonsequiturs. In the passage of course you'll have to distinguish between the truth-conditions, the explicature, and the conversational
implicature. Grice had problems with "then". He thought the Philonian “If p, q” was perfectly explainable via "uniguity (material implication "->") plus implicature", while “If p, THEN q” was not (Logic & Conversation, Conditionals, in Studies in the Way of Words). Then, there's the usual conversational implicature (via "be orderly") of “p & q” (Sometimes merely "p . q", i.e. "p period q". I don't think the "." is a FULL stop there since it does not create a new paragraph). as implicating a temporal/causal sequence “p and THEN [later] q”. I guess the Anglo-Saxon particle "then" was (and it IS still) tricky. Truth-conditionally, it doesn't seem to be any constraint of the type you suggest for the use of "then". But THEN English is not my Mother Tongue. It is my Father Tongue. In (1) it merely seems to mean, truth-conditionally, "later". ("I take off my trousers. Only *then* I get into the bed" ("Then" can also mean "not-now" (more generally) as in the idiom "now and THEN" - which does NOT mean, "now and LATER", but quite the opposite, "now and
EARLIER". English! Also, and perhaps more relevantly (:)), how do you know Edward's looking at his read beard in the tableknife was "trivial". Or are you suggesting his going to a Swedish farm with Pia was trivial? I think his looking at his read beard on the tableknife is terrorific and a v. effective way of starting a short story. The man must be a killer, and he obviously cannot cope with his Celtic (or Viking) ancestry ("red beard"). It's obvious that his retreating to a Swedish farm (where this Viking really belongs) must be an escapism from his murdering instincts. I hope Pia is safe.
* * * * *
Post 140:
Title: "Like" Grice.
Abstract. If “you are the cream in my coffe" are you also "like" the cream in my coffee? A person who said I was abusing a list said, as "Speranglished" by yours truly, with apologies. “The Problem of SPED (Significant Processing Effort Difference): what Does RT Predict? an apparent clash. "I. Noveck & al's claim is that a metaphorical utterance takes *more processing effort* & has more cognitive effects than a non-figurative equivalent'. Building on Gibbs they run some experiments to test the claim to find the results support it. They see this is precisely what the RT account of metaphor predicts. "Gibbs also takes the *extra processing effort* prediction to follow from RT. But, unlike Noveck et al, finds it to be *at fault* with his experimental results: psychological research shows that addressees do not devote an extra processing resource to understanding a metaphor as compared with a nonmetaphoric utterance. The RT's "metaphor -as-loose-talk" view may *not* see metaphor as a violation of communication norms (A la good ol' H P Grice. "Logic & Conversation", in Studies in the WoW:34. but still incorrectly assumes that metaphor & other tropes demand an extra cognitive effort. It is this psychological evidence that Noveck & al. are calling into question. An opposite prediction:"The opposite view, however, of what RT *predicts* about metaphor processing is to be found. In _Poetic Effects: A RT perspective_ Pilkington discusses Gibbs's and Gerrig's psycholinguistic exeriments which, Pilkington claims, show that an utterance used metaphorically does NOT necessarily take longer to process than the same utterances used literally. Excursus: Well, I guess it also has to do, inter alia, with whether English is your first language or not, or how language-aware you are. A friend of mine lives in Boston, USA, but English is not his first language, and he came to learn red herring before learning what a "herring" was) as meaning "a distraction from the topic" rather than "a special kind of fish red-smoked as used in mediaeval times by the peasants to divert the lord's dogs from the trail of the game the peasants lived on". According to Pilkington 'the RT account of metaphor interpretation is quite consistent with these psycholinguistic results'. The Puzzle. "So what's going on here? On the face of it, it looks as if someone has to be wrong about what the RT prediction is. Before I check back on what the founding parents (and the granddad? H Paul Grice. Please do! JLS) "have to say, note that talk of extra processing effort raises the question of more than what? The Distinction: TRUTH-CONDITION vs. IMPLICATURE. "What is the metaphorical utterance being compared with? I think there are 2 different comparisons at work, and this may be the source of the apparently contradictory positions. Sperber/Wilson discussing such highly conventional metaphors as “Grice is a grice” which communicates the strong implicature that “Grice is dirty” Robyn is a brave (lad, lass). say that such a metaphor must suggest some extra line of thought if their indirectness and its extra processing cost is to be justified and, of course, this holds all the more for more creative metaphors, such as 3. Robyn is a pink pantheress. The processing effort comparison here is between uttering (1) and uttering (2), or, if you like, between You are a grice. 5. You are a grubby lad! OED. grice: a piglet. Also used metaphorically to refer to a "grubby, dirty lad" - A "lad" is what ever overmetaphorical Americans would call a "kid", i.e. the offspring of a goat. :)). It is this sort of comparison that Noveck et al. have in mind. Sperber's proposal of a solution: THE PROBLEM QUESTION MAKES NO SENSE (SPED = 0), or rather, both metaphor and non-metaphor may involve the same processing effort. It's a context-sensitive thing. Consider now an example in Sperber: 6. Robyn is a territorial. "In a particular context C1 the addressee might access an interpretation along the lines that Robyn is a very dutiful loyal, obedient, a team-player, self-sacrificing but not including that Robyn a is a member of the military, is trained to kill, has weapons "This would be a case of a "loose" or metaphorical use of "territorial", or 'soldier'. In a different context C2, however, the LITERAL (truth-conditional) properties of being a member of the military, being trained to kill, etc. might be accessed instead. For Sperber, in BOTH cases the addressee follows a path of least effort in accessing the interpretation and stops when the expectation of maximal relevance is satisfied. There doesn't seem to be a prediction that there will be any significant processing effort difference (SPED) between the loose/metaphorical use in C1 and the literal (truth-conditional) use in C2. It's clear that in a some arbitrary context Cn the loose/metaphorical reading may be actually easier to access than the truth conditional one." My example of "red herring" above. Actually, few native speakers know why a red-herring is called a red herring. I had to search in the OED2 myself and I'm not native, hey!] "I think these are the sorts of comparison that Pilkington (and Gerrig) are making, and they are quite opposite to those by Gibbs and Noveck." A WAY OUT? "So is that it? Problem solved? Probably not! One assumes that not only cases such as (6) (Robyn is a soldier), but also cases like one (4) - "you're a grice" - have been tested and have given a result of no "SPED" (a word of confirmation from Gibbs and or Glucksberg would be welcome!)." Also, perhaps, to recall Grice PERE. Principle of Economy of Rational Effort. In R. Grandy & R. Warner, PGRICE, Philosophical Grounds of
Rationality, Intentions, Categories, Ends (p.83) to which Wilson & Sperber contributed. Grice thinks that implicit ratiocination is just as valid as the explicit variety). Grice writes: Where there is a ratiocinative procedure for arriving rationally at a certain outcome, a procedure which, because it is ratiocinative, involves an expenditure of time & energy, then, if there is a NON-ratiocinative & so more economical procedure which is likely, FOR THE MOST PART, to reach the same outcome as the ratiocinative procedure, then, provided the stakes ARE NOT TOO HIGH, it will be rational to employ the CHEAPER tho' somewhat LESS RELIABLE NON-RATIOCINATIVE proceudre as a substitute for ratiocination" (op. cit. p.83). RC: "If so, i.e. if no SPED is observed, this would still seem to be at odds with the RT account, unless, of course, the measures (reading times &c) used in the experiment simply can not tap the sort of effort differences at issue?" A Further Pragmatic Compliction: REFERRING vs. PREDICATING. "Furthermore, there seems to be a striking difference in the psychological processing of a metaphorical predication and a metaphorical referential expression. Whereas the predication (which all the examples so far discussed are) may take no more effort than literal paraphrases SPED = 0 a case of metaphorical reference, such as when I say of my cat (9) or my bedroom (10) 9. The princess is sleeping on a rug! This junkyard my mother shouldn't see. does take LONGER than literal reference, i.e. SPED > 0 "This is pointed out by Gibbs & Onishi/Murphy who ease the way for a metaphorical reference but had yet to admit that there just *IS* a heavier processing load for a metaphorical refererntial expression than for a corresponding literal one, such as: 11. My cat is sleeping on a rug (but is it really "mine"?) and This mess of a room my mum should not see. (but is this really "a mess of a something", or is it just a "messy" something). "Of course, there are plenty of possible explanations for this "referring/predicating" difference, some of which are discussed by Gibbs and O&M." (And another may be JR Searle's DPhil Oxon under PF Strawson, "Reference & Predication". Strawson and Grice having worked for years on the philosophical issues involved therein. JLS). A Possible Partial Solution-cum-explanation. "Now, the Noveck et al. experiments in which a metaphorical/literal processing difference (SPED) *was* found were all cases of REFERRING. Their results do reinforce Gibbs and O&M's claim (that SPED > 1), but they could be subject to an explanation for the extra effort in terms of special properties of reference that make metaphor (or non-truth conditional utterances at large) more difficult when used in this way (i.e. when used to perform the pragmatics of "referring" rather than of "predicating"). It might be of greater interest for specification of the RT prediction about non-truth-conditional utterances if an experiment is made such that it reveals a SPED > 1 when the non-truth conditional component is used in predicating a property of an already truth-conditionally determined referent. I hope these are planned! If not, should we accept it's all just contextual-dependent after all and that that is the ultimate solution and explanation?
* * * *
Post 1
Another post. Playing and Displaying "plicature". I'd call it "P". I think it would be worth revising the etym. of "imply" and "explicate". I'm afraid I'm no good at it, for the time being. I do believe in Roman (Latin) there were (at least) two verbs: im-plicare ex-plicare In standard English, it seems we only have: imply ("implicate" has a legalese use: "he was implicated in the crime" does not imply that he actually uttered anything, I would say) 2. explicate (circa: explain?). I.e. there's an asymmetry. We needed Grice to coin for us 3. implicate (HP Grice 1967, Lectures on Logic of Conversation, II, Harvard). (I write this as a lexicographer since I think it a disgrace the verb is not yet in many dictionaries). 4. explicate (D.Sperber/D.Wilson). Grice's point in coining "implicate" was obvious (to him, and to me). S/W's
point in coining "explicature" (qua product of "explicate") was also obvious
(to them, to me). Yet, I trust the Romans meant SOMETHING by plicare What they meant I cannot submit, but a look at the OED2 or Short/Lewis's Latin Dict. may clarify things for us? (Perhaps "plicare" was Roman for "mean", and so "imply" and "explicate" come out as the two main "shades" of "Gricean" utterer's meaning, as I like to call'em: to EXplicitly mean (something, that p) and to IMplicitly mean
(something, that q) - if you excuse me the split infinitives - and the
cumbersome lingo). I'm online now so shan't elaborate much, I hope! I have heard the odd
lecture, & at the odd Gricean symposium, too, that although theories of
humour are either 1. nonhumoristic, or 2. nonexistant, some people (I
recall at least one Chilean linguist) have claimed that English humour is
all-ways some flout to Grice. And I happen to (_tend to_) find flouts to
Grice funny (By "flout to Grice" I mean "& as recognised by him", i.e. the
usual mechanism of the implicature): the punchline is the "flout" -- which
is directed to the audience as from the _humorist_ (qua utterer) and not
necessarily from the "literal" _utterer_ of the line (where divergence
applies. I doubt it does). All this pretty convolutedly expressed, but I
hope intelligible. I mean: if you say "pigs", that would be the punchline to some joke
provided (or as Grice would say, "iff") "pigs" flouts "the cooperative
principle (or some of its maxims)". You find the context!
Best, Now, for the relevance-theorist, I guess relevance should figure large in
an attempt to construe (let alone explain, or is it explain, let alone
construe) "humour ala neo-Grice". Now, would _that_ mean that the funny
punchline is the irrelevant one!? Mmmm, don't think so!
JL's posts are irrelevant, but they are hardly funny (at least to me) --
they are _annoy-ing_ (and at best). Irritating or downright dumb at most...
(who _is_ JL?) Anyone!? (explicature -> please/bitte?)
Another post. Query: "So again, what is the form of a thought?" Now, _that's_ a general question, if ever I heard one. :). Sounds almost Wittgensteinian. You may like to consult the (rather obscure, but could be
worst. :)) work by Gricean author C.A.B.Peacocke, whose inaugural lecture at Oxford was precisely on questions of thought and content. Sperber recently circulated with this list biblio details on his book
on _meta-representations_. This suggests that a metarepresentation, alla Utterer Intends Addresse Believes Utterer Believes It is Raining. is a representation of a representation (a la metalanguage is language on
language). Therefore, Utterer Believes It is Raining would be a representation proper (cfr. Recanati?). Orthodox Griceans (like Peacocke) would, I believe, oppose the view that mental representations
(_so-called_) are representations proper. It's a linguistic utterance which represent MENTAL CONTENT (see A. Avramides's book on Grice for MIT). But to assume that a mental representation itself represents leads to either some sort of a regressus ad infinitum or a naive homuncular theory of psychological/propositional attitudes (see R. Cummings, _Meaning & Mental Representation_). H. P. Grice himself develops a (promising, in my view) sketch of a general theory of representation in his _Studies in the Way of Words_, Retrospective Epilogue, pp.358-9. Also of relevance here may be JR Searle's contribution to the PGRICE festchrift (*P*hilosophical *G*rounds of *R*ationality: *I*ntentions, *C*ategories, *E*nds, ed. R. Grandy, Clarendon -- to which S/W also contributed), viz. "Meaning, Communication, and Representation".
Re: Questions concerning the relationship between RT & Grice From: J L Speranza (jls@netverk.com.ar)
Date: Sun Sep 23 2001 - 14:07:43 GMT
________________________________________
J Fantin, of Sheffield, England, writes: "I am interested in the role of Grice's work within RT and the position of RT within the larger field of pragmatics. As with my previous posts, please feel free to correct me if I demonstrate an obvious lack of understanding of RT. I came to the field of pragmatics (and Grice's work) through RT and my understand of the relationship of the two is as follows. Are my
observations here correct? 1. RT builds upon and goes beyond Grice's "Cooperative Principle" and
maxims by further re-fining and postulating _relevance_ as the only
essential maxim." Wrong. RT does _not_ postulate _relevance_ as a maxim. Thus Wilson &
Sperber say: Sub-Section, "What are the differences between RT and Grice's approach"
(first edition, section, The principle of relevance, ch. relevance, pp. 161
ff) It would then be first a _principle_ not a maxim, but I'll let _that_ pass. But the important thing is: "Communicators do not _follow_ the principle of relevance, and they could not violate it even if they wanted to". So, this contrasts, blatantly, with Grice's _maxim_ of relevance, which, you may recall from reading 'Logic & Conversation' can be violated in 1. A: Mrs Smithers-Jones is an old bag.
B: The weather's been quite delightful this summer. Of course, a full-fledged interpretation of the non-monotonic process behind (1) may lead you to say that some notion of _relevance_ is NOT being
_flouted_ there, but Grice explicitly (and in the repr. in STUDIES IN THE WAY OF WORDS, too) classifies that example as one "in which an implicature is achieved by REAL, as opposed to APPARENT, VIOLATION OF THE MAXIM, BE RELEVANT", which, he says are "rare, perhaps"... (Grice, Studies, p.35).
"Through this maxim, a working theory of pragmatics can be suggested. 2. Thus, though RT has roots in Grice, it really departs from traditional Grican pragmatics. 3. Within the general field of pragmatics which is dominated by traditional Grican practitioners, RT is not widely accepted and generally rejected (e.g., Levinson, Review of _Relevance, 1989; Mey, _Pragmatics_, 1993). I do not share this belief; this is merely my observation." What belief? that RT is rejected, or the belief that you believe that RT is generally rejected? :) I take it that you mean the former, but I don't call "rejection" a belief, but an attitude. I guess you are right, that, all in all, there are more Griceans than RT-ists, but then, RT is the only one which has a mailing list, so--- look on the bright side! Also, one thing about RT, which is unlike non-RT, is like it is like a
club, so you have people! Fantin: "The reason I ask about my observations is because of a statement made byJeffrey T. Reed, in an article called 'Modern Linguistics & the NewTestament: A Basic Guide to Theory, Terminology, and Literature' in_Approaches to New Testament Study_, ed. S. E. Porter and D. Tombs(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).You and your local bibliography! :)
">Within a section on Pragmatics (234-42) in a subsection called"presupposition and implicature" (238-42),"i.e. a mere 4 pages!!!! Even Grice spends more time explaining implicature,he goes from page 24 to 40. "Reed describes Grice's "co-operative principle" and the four maxims." which he took in irony from KANT,
Since in the Intro to Kr der Rein. Vern
there are 4 categories.QUANTITY QUALITY RELATION MANNER. Incidentally, the new book with Grice, Aspect of Reason, was formerly given not only as the Locke Lectures at Oxford, but as the Immanuel Kant Memorial Lectures at Kant... RELEVANT EXPLICATURE: Grice is Kantian..."Near the end of the section, Reed states: "Indeed all of the above communicative principles may be summed up" doesn't he mean "subsumed". One thing is to be subsumed, and another to besummed up. I.e. I prefer subsumed, which implicates that I must know whatis being subsumed. But if you tell me, you can do with "be relevant", whichsums up everything Grice says, I won't be satisfied, because I may like toknow what Grice was saying in the first place. Also, as Wilson and Sperberproved in their more specific article,On Grice's Theory of Conversation1977 PRAGMATICS MICROFICHE
ed S C Levinson
--- I don't see why you see Levinson as anti RT when the man did so muchfor RT --
it is quite something to prove that something gets subsumed by somethingelse... And not everybody may be happy with the subsumption. Gricewasn't... He wrote in STUDIES, Retrospective Epilogue, now repr by KASHERamong the 19 essays dedicated to Conversational Implicature:
he is considering that maxims have to have a "degree of mutual independence" ."The force of this consideration seems to be BLUNTED by writers like WILSONand SPERBER"--- who Grice describe nevertheless as good friends in PGRICE,Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intention, Categories, Ends, ed. R.Grandy & R. Warner, Oxford, Clarendon, p.45)"...who seem to be disposed to SEVER the notion of RELEVANCE"note that he says "notion of relevance" and NOT, notably, MAXIM of relevance."...from the specification of some PARTICULAR direction of relevance"where direction is, roughly, maxim. Or at least something that directs yourbehaviour, something that you rationally or reasonably follow, which issomething that W & S are denying..."under Sperber and Wilson's single "axiom""Now that's a nice one!Axiom!I only know one axion, and I've forgotten it now...
"of relevance: Principle: The speaker tries to make the utterance asrelevant as possible to the hearer"."I do agree with this statement;"Do you, but do you know the philosophical history of the word AXIOM??? Canyou distinguish between an AXIOM and a THEOREM, and a tautology and ananalytic claim".I mean, intepretations of what Grice meant by "be relevant" are as many aswhat Jesus said when he said, "This bread will be my body, this wine willbe my blood". B F Loar, a literary executor of Grice says in MIND & MEANINGthat the cheapest (in the sense of less demanding) assumption is that "be
relevant" be interpreted as a CONTINGENT GENERALISATION OVER FUNCTIONALSTATES... p.132, n.7 -- subsection: "The epistemology of belief-desireascription" within the chapter, Objectively Determinate beliefs and ourknowleddge of them". From that to the idea of a brain wired cognitive axiomthere is what I say, a gappy."JF goes on:"however, it seems to me to be suggesting that this position is the normalposition within the field of pragmatics (remember, this is a work meant tointroduce pragmatics to biblical scholars and thus should represent thebroader field and if not it should at least note important controversy).I assume this would represent the RT's position; however, is Reed's
representation accurate here of pragmatics in general?"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Let me have that email address of Reed.Let him JOIN IN HERE FOR A WHILE!!!
"Any comments to help me clarify the role of RT within the larger field ofpragmatics would be appreciated."Well, there are good online resources that will give you a morefine-grained picture of the place of RT within pragmatics. Also, in myprevious post, I was being _tricky_ or whatever, in thinking that RT is apragmatic theory or belongs in pragmatics. RT claims to be a cognitivetheory. A psycho-semantic theory, a la Horsey, if you want...The claims that RT makes about the truth-conditional semantic vsimplicature content of an utterance are just one component of its predicament.But of course I too would love to hear from other (I mean from) RTtheorists...
Another post.
T Wharton writes re: >what Grice meant-nn >by 'what is said'. Neale (1992) points out that Grice (1975) - Essay 2 in WOW - is a (slightly) amended form of Lecture II, that Grice (1978) - Essay 3 in WOW - is a
>(slightly) amended form of Lecture III, that parts of Lectures VIII and IX
>were published as Grice (1968) - Essay 6 in WOW - and that parts of Lectures
>VI and VII were published as Grice (1969) - Essay 5 in WOW. I think you should contact Neale -- he's now at Rutgers. Levinson (_Conversational Implicature_ 2001) refers to one important paper on this: ARUNDALE, R. B. 'Studies in the way of words': Grice's new directions in
conceptualising meaning in conversational interaction. Mimeo. Department of
Communication, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Paper presented at the
International Communication Association, Chicago.
(which Levinson describes as: "the only careful collation of versions of Grice's text that I know of". You may cc. Levinson on this. He's in Nijmegen). Your remarks above seem a bit inaccurate. For one, the lectures were only seven (I would _say_), so I can't see how you can refer to Lecture VIII and
IX. Let's revise: >Grice (1975) - Essay 2 in WOW - is a (slightly)
>amended form of Lecture II. Of course the progress is: Lecture II -> Grice 1975 -> Essay 2. And note
that Grice 1975 can be Cole/Morgan _or_ Davidson/Harman, Logic of Grammar
(full ref. below). >Grice (1978) - Essay 3 in WOW - is a
>(slightly) amended form of Lecture III. Well, Levinson makes a lot of this. He notes that in the _printed_ version of Lecture III -- i.e. in Essay 3 (as different from the mimeo, which by
the way, was titled, _in toto_, _The Logic Of Conversation_), Grice omits that bit, which _is_ included in the 1978 version (Cole), about the importance (or relevance, shall we say) of _generalised conversational
implicature_. Having myself philosophical background, I find the passage
cited by Levinson (or rediscovered by Levinson, _so to say_) of great
interest not so much for what it says about generalised conversational
implicature but for "philosophy" at large, which is indeed Grice's primary
topic in what philosophers regard as mainly _methodological_ lectures.
Grice writes:"I thought that this notion of a generalised conversational implicature might be used to deal with a variety of problems, particularly in philosophical logic, but also in other areas" (We discuss those a lot in our Analytic Saturday Mornings). >parts of Lectures VIII and IX
>were published as Grice (1968) - Essay 6 in WOW - The route is as follows: Lecture VI -> Grice 1968 (_Foundations of Language_) -> Essay 6. True that I have no access to the Neale essay in
Phil-Ling, but if I am wrong tell me so! Grice explicitly says in the Preface that he resists a temptation by J. F. Bennett & proposes to reprint the lectures in their original format partly because "the scope and content
of [them] has long been fairly familiar to many philosophers" (Grice, WOW,
p.i). >parts of Lectures
>VI and VII were published as Grice (1969) - Essay 5 in WOW. I think the idea is: Lecture V -> Grice 1969 (_Philosophical Review_) -> Essay 5. I note here that more than _editing_ Grice here adds an
introductory section to that essay ('Saying & Meaning') -- a part which is most relevant to your present interest -- which is not in the _Philosophical Review_ version. >I would be very interested in insights anyone might have regarding >disparities between the original typescripts of the lectures and the
>published versions (either the original publications, or their reproductions
>in WOW -in particular, Essays 5 and 6). Well, Essay 6, the first two sections, are pretty relevant for your concern with "saying", too, of course. >Naturally, I would also be >interested to receive *any* communication regarding your views on Grice and >his notion of 'what is said'. There is an online essay on this (also in _Ling & Phil_) by J. M. Saul, who teaches philosophy at Sheffield. No doubt there are other pieces, but that must be one of the few which has "Grice" and "Say" in the title... >All definitive answers re. Grice's thinking, suggestions, clues or mere >indications of the direction in which I may seek relevance will be >gratefully received... In a post sent to this forum, I discussed what the O.E.D. has about "say"
-- which I found of great interest! It's not a particularly favourite verb with me, but you should perhaps analyse Grice's use with _his_ colleagues at one time in Oxford: -- the Saturday morning philosophers: J. L. Austin, R. M. Hare, J. O. Urmson, G. J. Warnock, to name a few. E.g. Hare wrote the T. Green Oxford thesis on the "Dictor" which resembles what Grice says on Dictive Content (in 'Retrospective Epilogue'). Bits of that thesis Hare reprints in _Practical Inferences_. A study of Austin's _locutio_ qua
"dictum" should fill a few pages, too!
>Refs: >Grice, H. P. (1968) 'Utterer's meaning, sentence meaning and word meaning'.
>Foundations of Language 4: 225-242. I find it a source of mild amusement of Grice writes in 1979: Aspects of Reason -- John Locke Lectures -- repr. OUP 2001 of this essay as "a published article the exact title of which I always fit it difficult to remember". The funnier thing is that he does not mention it -- the editor does! My hunch is that he sent the mimeo to _FL_ because he knew J. F. Staal (indeed they have joint work), and Grice was in FL's Advisory Board. >Grice, H. P. (1969) 'Utterer's meaning and intentions'. Philosophical Review >78: 147-177. A footnote to this reads to the effect that he intends to publish this in a
book to be published by Harvard -- which alas Grice never saw in print -- and that earlier version was presented in one of those famous Oberlin Colloquia. (This reminds me of two more Oxford philosophers whose views on saying may be relevant. Grice having discussed with them in this colloquium: S. N. Hampshire and O. P. Wood.). Grice no doubt chose _Philosophical Review_ because Strawson had sent to this review Grice's original 'Meaning'! (The story behind this is in R. Dale's PhD with SR
Schiffer on the Theory of Meaning, available online. >Grice, H. P. (1975) 'Logic and conversation'. In Cole, P. & J. Morgan (eds) >(1975) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts. Academic Press: NY. Yes, and perhaps more quoted by philosophers is the reprint in D Davidson/G Harman, _The Logic of Grammar_, Encino: Dickenson, pp. 64.75 (Grice and Davidson were colleagues at Berkeley). Indeed, in the list of "Publications
of Grice" in PGRICE, ed. Grandy & Warner -- Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends -- to which Wilson & Sperber contributed -- the editors mention the _Encino_ reprint, not the
Cole/Morgan one. >Grice, H. P. (1978) 'Further notes on logic and conversation'. In Cole, P.
>(ed) Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics. Academic Press: NY.
>Neale, S. (1992) Paul Grice and the philosophy of language. Linguistics and
>philosophy 15.5: 509-559. Two more refs. on the _dichotomy_ meaning and saying are Furberg (M, his
book on Austin) and S. Cavell, _Must we mean what we say_... (and you
should contact the Analytic Saturday Morningers)...
Title: “No buts about it”
Post # 264.
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives/0264.html
Abstract. A reflection on Grice’s Great-War Song, “She was poor but she was honest/and her parents were the same/till she met a city flicker/and she lost her honest name”.
THIS YEAR OF GRICE: 2010
Post # 557
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0557.html
A commentary on the Polish encounters. I manage to quote T. Wharton who participated. Wouldn’t we all love a report by Wharton on how it felt to be in Poland?
Post # 556
Site: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0556.html
A commentary on the procedural-conceptual distinction. Vide Allott, Key terms in pragmatics. An elaboration of basic versus resultant procedures. I manage to quote N. Allott. The post is a reply to an onlist query by a researcher at Middlesex.
Post 555http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0555.htmlA thoughtful commentary on D. S. M. Wilson’s dropping a bibliographical reference: A. Durant’s new book with Cambridge University Press. I claim that it would not be unfair to call Durant a Gricean “all sorts”.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0554.html. A reference to our list post-moderator N. Elwyn Allott’s new book with Continuum, Key Terms in Pragmatics, and a reminder that Nick is here for higher issues, not as a Swimming-Pool disciplinarian.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0546.html. An examination of the philosopher’s goal in setting a scheme, versus other goals, e.g. by linguists, anthropologists, or librarians! I manage to quote Grice, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – and H. D. White!
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0544.html. A thoughtful commentary on a pdf link shared by H. D. White to the list. White became a member of the list on account of yours truly. I manage to read his pdf, and make comments citing Darwin, Grice, and a few others – notably Strawson.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0542.html. A commentary on Alessandro Capone’s positivistic interpretation of Grice’s very first example of a conversational implicature, “He has beautiful handwriting” meaning “He is hopeless”. The meaning of “hope” in English, especially vis a vis the idiomatic cliché, “hope against hope”.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0540.htmlAbstract: Entitled, Grice on “appropriateness” an elaboration of the opening passage in the William James Memorial lectures, vis a vis work by Holdcroft, Dascal, and others.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0538.html. A reference to the A-philosophers as referred to by Grice. Does “A” stand for “appropriateness”? So it seems.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0537.htm. A brief post, where I focus on the dedicatee of Robyn Carston’s wonderful book, Thoughts and Utterances.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0536.html. Abstract: Grice’s conversational maxims are said to be ‘reciprocals’. Yet the logic of reciprocals often misleads us onto “donkey sentences” of various types. I analyse some.
Http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0535.html, Abstract: A further analysis of “hope” in Grice’s first implicatum, conversationa. “He is hopeless”. The idioms involving hope, including “hope springs eternal”. This is an application of Alessandro Capone, a list-member, and his positivistic thinking that Grice could not have been ill-meaning.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0534.html. Abstract: The post, entitled, “Byzantine”, draws from P. Wilson’s remembrance of the Grice seminars, into Grice’s feelings (Byzantine) on occasion. Inspired by a comment by list-member H. D. White.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0532.html. Abstract: On Grice on ‘sillygistic’.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0531.html. Abstract: A commentary on N. Allott’s reference to the language log entry on the “forthright negotiator” principle. I discuss it vis a vis Grice’s Subjective Understandings of things.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0530.html Abstract: My brilliant Grice limerick falling flat on a certain list.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0529.html. Abstract: My comment on N. E. Allott’s remarks on the forthright negotiator principle.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0527.html. Abstract. A Gricean analysis of the cliché, “this year of grace” – this year of Grice
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0524.html. Abstract: A funny Gricean analysis, I find, of a certain list’s guidelines for ‘subscribing’!
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0520.html. Abstract: A commentary on Grice, “He is hopeless” vis a vis infernal views, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0519.html. Abstract: Entitled, “Grice’s Very Sticky Wicket”, an analysis of Grice’s cautions on industrial logics.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0514.html. Abstract: The post, entitled, “Running away from a bull” attempts to trace Grice’s earliest account of ‘be relevant’.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0513.html. Abstract: Comment on D. Donovan on “Sticky Wicket”
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0512.html. Abstract: More on sticky wicket.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0510.html. Abstract: sticky wicket
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0509.html. Abstract: An application of Grice’s Modified Occam’s razor to possessive pronouns.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0508.html. Abtract: A Gricean analysis of the oddity of ‘for’ in ‘responsible for’.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0507.html. Abstract: on Wittgenstein’s Fork
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0506.html. Abstract: On possessive.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0505.html. Abstract: on possessive.
THIS YEAR OF GRICE: 2009.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0501.html. Non-Natural Causes
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0498.html. slave of the passions
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0497.html.
2000. Whartoniana
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0496.html. more
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0495.html more
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0493.html
more
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0492.html. “writers like Wilson and Sperber”
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0491.html. same
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0490.html. on Nowell-Smith
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0489.html. on Pears
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0488.htmlt. toulmin “non-logical goats”
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0485.html. Grice, classy
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0483.html. pinko
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0482.html. abduction of Figaro
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0481.html. ho-he-ho
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0480.html. ode on a gricean urn
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0475.html. peirce
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0474.html. Heinz meanz beanz
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0473.html. peirce
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0472.html. peirce
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0469.html. a dictionary of grice – sign
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0468.html. Schuetz
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/robyn/relevance/relevance_archives_new/0466.html. flouting (3 more links)
“"But"” (Comment). Reflection on 'but' motivated by Grice's remarks on "She was poor but she was honest" (Causal Theory of Perception, 1961). What type of implicature does ‘but’ generate? I argue that it is a conventional implicature, not a conversational one. The story of ‘but’ versus ‘and’ is retold, from Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory. The etymology of English ‘but’ – ‘by out’, originally – is analysed as a non-sequitur.
"... seems to be the hardest word (relevantly speaking)"
“Relevantly insulted”
“Pragmatics textbook?” (Comment). What _is_ a textbook? This query was posted before UCL specialized in their MA programme in pragmatics, online. N. E. Allott being one of the responsible for this important course.
“Looking for Mr Grice”
“Glad Yuletide”
This Year of Grice: 2001
“Ogden & Richards, Meaning of Meaning” (Comment) Commentary on query by J. Constable, of King’s, College, regarding his forthcoming edition of the classic by Richards. The personal correspondence resulted in Constable citing Grice in the new edition, including all the references given by J. L. Speranza in this post, and further one provided offlist.
“Grice's Oxford and Relevance Theory”. The local geography of Grice’s theory. An analysis of the ideas behind Grice’s “be relevant”. This was first formulated in his Oxford lectures on logic and conversation. Comparison with Strawson’s “Platitude of Relevance” in “Identifying reference and truth-values” (Theoria) and the recently deceased earlier P. H. Nowell-Smith, “be relevant to the interests of your audience”, in his Ethics, and in terms of his ‘contextual implication’.
“The pragmatics of meta-representation ascription”. We say, “Utterer said or meant that p”. This is, in the Gricean mould, a meta-representation, in that it encapsulates a reference to an intention and a belief/desire on the part of the utterer. In this post I argue for a pragmatic approach to the _ascription_ of such psychological attitudes, along Gricean requirements of informativeness, and adequacy to context. The special tricky case of referring expressions in opaque contexts. How charitable should the reporter be (“He said that _Columbus_, but he said “Jeffrey”, discovered America”)
“The oratio recta-obliqua distinction”. Following the pragmatic approach to meta-representation ascription, I consider Davidson’s account of ‘that’-clauses as originally demonstrative. In this view, every oratio obliqua is preceded by an oratio recta. This has consequences for the Gricean analysis where the oratio-obliqua seems basic (“He believes that p”).
“Quasi-Belief and the oratio recta-obliqua distinction”. Stich has considered doxastic and subdoxastic states; similarly there are boulemaic and sub-boulemaic states. In some cases of sub-doxastic states, the oratio oblique seems a stretch, which does not mean that the choice of the oratio-recta is the panacea.
“Modified Occam's Razor and Disambiguation” (2 posts). When Grice joked on Occam, “Senses should not be multiplied beyond necessity”, he knew that it all depended on what you mean by ‘necessity’ (never mind ‘sense’). Disambiguation is one of the trickiest terms used in RT. Pragmatic ambiguity, for example, is deemed inconsistent by Searle. Yet Grice does use “pragmatic ambiguity” in his account of “Aristotle on the multiplicity of being”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (1988). So where does this leave us?
“Cognitive context or cognitive environment?” (Comment, two posts). Grice was infuriated by the use of context, and would give lectures jocularly on “The general theory of context”. What do philosophers, after all, mean when they say, ‘context’? Surely, Grice says, if “context is important” _is_ important, it should deliver some philosophical generality _out_ of context. “Environment” does not fare much better, but it fits with Grice’s pirotology. A pirot is an individual in its habitat. Its habitat is its environment.
A Question About the implicature-explicature distinction. Grice unconsciously was borrowing ‘implicature’ from Sidonius, who had used it in The Loeb Classical Library. The ‘explicature’ is modeled upon the implicature. Whereas Grice is vague as to the suffix, ‘-ure’, he prefers implicatum, for what is implicated. Similarly, a case – usually a vague one – can be made for the explicatum. The explicatum is best defined negatively: as everything Grice did not favour in his use of ‘say’. He repeatedly expressed he was using ‘say’ in a “favoured sense”, which is meant to include what later theorists called the explicatum.
“ 'then'” (Comment)
“Metaphor and Effort” (Comment). Grice’s one example of metaphor, “You’re the cream in my coffee attracted his share of criticism, as it should, for what is the good of a philosopher who will go unpolemic?
“Plicatures"” (Comment)
“Gricean humour: the irrelevant punchline”
“The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory”: a study in the relevance of the Old and New Testament. I draw on work by M. M. Warner, of Grice’s original shire, Warwickshire.
“request: re: Speranza's Posts Stoopid”
“Grice’s Legacy”: a consideration of the Grice symposium on the Legacy of Grice.
“onlist apology”
“Grice as an *English* philosopher”
“The form of thoughts (Comment)”
“"Relevance" in the OED”: an application of Grice’s linguistic botanizing. It is shown that ‘relevant’, as Grice used it in ‘be relevant’ derives directly from, of all things, Scots law!
“Conversational implicature”
“English philosophers discuss ‘relevant’”
“Grice on "pragmatic"”. A discussion of the meager allusions by Grice to this branch of micro-linguistics (if a branch of microlinguistic it is).
“Grice, ‘be relevant’” (2 posts)
“Keep On Lovin' Ya: Does Relevance Subsume It All?”
“A Grice-oriented bibliography checklist”
“Yu”
“RT References”
“Images” (Comment – 2 posts)
“Grice, Hart, and Leonard”: a précis of Peter Facione’s historiographical research.
“The relevance of "innit" and "like" among London female adolescents
“Philosophy & RT: biblio refs on implicature in Levinson -- any philosopher missing?”
“Conversational Implicature Gets Scrutinised”
“Parataxis, asyndesis, and concessivity: Grice and J. C. Wilson”
“?"Some if not all of the cows were culled from the herd"”
“Grice on ‘therefore’, & more: on encoding, implicature, & the in-between”
Grice in "Kasher Number Five". My fascination at seeing most of Grice’s essays now compiled by Kasher in his pragmatics series with Croom Helm.
“Jennifer Saul thinks she has refuted RT”
“"implicature" (and "explicature") as 'process' term of art”
“"Implicature": An Etymological Entanglement”. A commentary on Sidonius’ use of ‘implicatura’ in the Loeb Classical Library, and translated as ‘entanglement’ by Woodbridge.
2002.
“The negotiation of relevance”
“Mood, Mode, and Relevance”
“Exegesis (Grice on Saying)” (Comment) My comment resulted in Wharton citing the references providing therein to his working paper, and he later acknwowledging me in his book. The reference to Abel which I provide basically guides Wharton’s brilliant exegesis. The problem with the mimeo, “The William James Lectures I-VII”, unpublished. A mimeo not in the public domain.
“The explicit-implicit distinction”
“Re: Grice HP cited by Hare RM”. A rather terse way of expressing “Hare dies” (I hate that type of headlines)
“Evidentials”
“Re: Grice HP cited by Katz JJ”. Again, my code for “Katz dies”
“Fw causal/resultative use of "and"
“Language, Bananas and Bonobos”: a comment on N. Smith.
“Fw: syntax-pragmatics interface”
“Implicature, Explicature, Impliciture, Expliciture”
“Existential import, truth-conditions, and explicature”
“The conjunction of conjunction”
“J. L. Austin Revisited”
“Pragmatics of misunderstanding”
“Metaphor and simile”: an analysis of the contrast between “You’re the cream in my coffee” and “You’re the cream in my coffee, like”.
“From Sperber and Wilson to Hoey and Wodak – and back to Grice”
“Re: RT and other theories (Comment)”
“Paradigms of Reading: Relevance Theory & Deconstruction”
“Implicature: clause, scale, rank – and beyond”: a commentary on Julia Hirschberg, “A theory of scalar implicature”, Academic Press.
“At the syntax-pragmatics interface”
“Seven types of Gricean ambiguity”
“Module and central processor”
“Grice on irony”: an analysis of “He is a fine friend”.
“Neo- vs. Post- Gricean: comment.”
“"Lexical Pragmatics"
Ψ
□□
êψτάλεΥγόμενα
“Teleo-functionalism -- in Gricean key”
εΦρώνεσις
Νουμύμενον
φαινόμενον
δεκάλογος
τέλος
♥↑“From Relation to Relevance – and back”
□□□□□πρωτήιλοςοφία
“Temporality and post-Gricean pragmatics: Comment”
“Semiotics”
“Re: Questions on Relevance”
“"Evidentials"
“Re: History of RT”
“Semantics vs. Pragmatics
“Alliteration: comment”
“”Also” and “Too””
“"unintended meaning"?
ψRe: Question
1. “Saying that”
2. “Banter”
3. “Re: Forward: 'ask for help' - unintended meaning
4. “Reference assignment and R-based narrowing: simple as that?
5. “Re: Why do human communicate? Comment on Timothy Wharton”
6. “Exhibition and Protrepsis
7. “"Too", "Even", and Contextual Relevance
____________________________________________________________________________________
2003.
1. “Fw: Relevance of Productivity in Synchronic Word formation
2. “Paul Ziff”
3. “W. Davis on Implicature”
4. “Implicature and Impliciture”
5. “Grice's Heritage”
6. “Implicature and Colouring”
7. “Circles and Gambits: Review of Carston, Utterances and Thoughts”
8. “Initial 'And'” “Fw: Q: 'Some'
9. “Fwd: verbs of knowing
10. “Donald Davidson dies
11. “metadiscourse enquiry
12. “metarepresenting Rumsfeld
13. “yet and still (2 comments)
2004.
1. “Puzzle
2. “Tautologies: 'A toothbrush is a toothbrush'
3. “co-presence and mutual manifestness (3 posts)
4. “Zeno Vendler”)
5. Re: RT list: 'World' in RT
6. Re: RT list: Direct Quotation RT list: Object-Frames and Meta-Frames
_________________
2005.
1. SALT
____________________________________________________________________________________
2008
1. Grecian Irrelevancies in Gricean Key
2. Defending the Explicature (5 posts)
3. Coloratura / Implicatura
4. There's Glory For You!
2009.
1. Plicatures Galore
2. The Reader
3. inference in encoding?
4. Wedgwood pottery 5. Ready, Steady ... 6. The Cunning of Reason: a commentary on N. E. Allott. (4 posts)
7. Earliest account of relevance (2 posts). Comment. 8. Re: Earliest account of relevance
9. The Wrongs of Grice 10. Gricefully Yours
11. ex cathedra
12. Prepositions and conceptual/procedural meaning? (2 posts)
13. The Highway Code
14. Grice on 'pragmatic'
15. Scots Grice
16. "A. P. Grice"
17. Common Or Garden
18. Foolosopher and Linguist
19. “Open texture”
20. Grice to the Mill
21. The Atlas Complex
22. Daniel Watts and the Disimplicature
23. WOW!
24. “Foolproof”
25."A few rather marked irrelevancies in his conversation": having just seen Rupert Everett and Angela Lounsbury on Broadway, I share my comments on Noel Coward as a Gricean.
26. "It is what it is"
27. "No man is an island"
28. Kjøll, The content of content
29. common-ground status
30. A horse says neigh (3 comments)
31. Grice's "evolutionary story"
32. Grice Disentangled
33. “In the Tradition of Kantotle” (3 posts)
34. "fid to one another" 33. Review of Carruthers
34. Conversational Minutiæ (3 posts)
35. Hekademos”
36. How Salient Was My Valley
37. Urmson´s Parentheticals -- Revisited
38. Aunt Matilda´s Conversational Knack -- & How To Get It
39. Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality
40. Annals of Analysis
41. A Shaggy Dog Story
42. So how does the mind work?
43. ü♂Grice on analysis and theory ♂
44. Οhe editor of Mode
45. ὸὸOn "+>" & Other Matters
46. Warm Beer At Awesome Picnics
47. Grice and the anthropologists
48. The Urmson Festchrift
49. Penny for your Thoughts?
50. Grice performs "Pavane" Grice in a Balloon
51. Levi-Strauss (Was: Grice and the anthropologists)
52. The Implicature Among the Munde
53. Kinship Terms: Levi-Strauss Goes Gricean
54. The Wild Pansy The king is dead. Long live the king
Δίμων
55. The Old Flouter (4 posts)
56. The Phenomenology of Conversation: Grice meets Schutz
57. A Dictionary of Grice
58. Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (3 posts)
59. Heinz Meanz Beanz: Reading Grice Reading Peirce
60. on a Gricean Urn
61. Yo-He-Ho
62. The Abduction of Figaro
63. Grice's pinko pragmatics
64. Gricean pragmatics as a 'class' thing, too
65. How to Grice a Toulmin Grice, HP cited by Pears, DF
66. Grice, ‘be relevant’ -- and Nowell-Smith
67. "writers like Wilson and Sperber" (2 posts)
68. Whartoniana (4 posts)
69. "Slave of the Passions"
70. "Non-Natural Causes"
2010
1. "for" (Comment) (2 posts): on an idiom, ‘responsible for’.
2. "my" (comment): the range of cases under Grice, “Personal identity”.
3. possessive pronouns and preposition "for" (Comment)
4. "possessive": a comment. The problem of grammatical terminology as essentially sloppy.
5. “Grice´s Sticky Wicket” (4 posts). A commentary on Grice’s attitude towards computers. They wouldn’t recognize ‘sticky wicket’.
6. “Running Away From A Bull” – a commentary on what may well be Grice’s first allusion to ‘be relevant’, in his 1948 “Meaning”.
7. “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate”
8. “This Year of Grice” (2 posts)
9. The 'forthright negotiator' principle”: an analysis of the wording of this alleged principle, with a focus on a couple of very Gricean counterexamples – involving ‘intended’ misunderstanding. (2 posts)
10. "There was once an Oxonian called Grice": limericks on Grice with an acknowledgment of Donal McEvoy.
11. “Grice's Sillygistic". A consideration of deductive arguments as essentially ‘trivial’ and ‘silly’, with an acknowledgement to P. A. Stone for the pun.
12. “Feeling Byzantine”: a commentary on White’s finding Grice ‘Byzantine’, with a quote on Grice confessing to feeling ‘Bizantine’ at times.
13. Speranza Sorge Eterna. More on Grice on ‘hopeless’. “He is hopeless” (‘Causal Theory of Perception’). A translation of “Hope springs eternal”
14. Donkey Sentences (2 posts). A gaffe. An offlist inadvertently commented onlist.
15. Grice on "appropriateness" (2 posts). An examination of D. Sperber’s use of ‘not … inappropriate’ vis a vis the very first paragraph of Grice, WoW, on ‘inappropriate’ (_sic_ in the negative) and the ‘appropriate-ness condition’.
16. Speranza Contra Speranza. An analysis of various puns involving ‘hope’ as used by Grice – “he is hopeless”. “hope against hope”.
17. “Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D.” (2 posts). An examination of the citation provided by White on Grice to deal with what White calls a ‘cross between an efficient press secretary and a super-knowledgeable librarian”. (White is PhD U. California/Berkeley – and had referred to Grice as ‘byzantine’).
NAME INDEX of Authors cited by J. L. Speranza. Selected. Speranza specializes in the history of philosophy in Oxford in the second half of the twentieth century.
Allott, N. E.
Grice, H. P.
Hare, R. M.
Speranza, J. L.
Strawson, P. F.
Peacocke, C. A. B.
Wharton, T.
References
Grice, H. P. (1961). The causal theory of perception. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.
(1986). Reply to Richards, in R. E. Grandy and R. O. Warner, Philosophical Grounds of rationality: intentions, categories, ends. Oxford: Clarendon.
(1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, Mass. & London: Harvard University Press.
(1991). The conception of value. Oxford: Blackwell.
(2001). Aspects of reason. Oxford: Blackwell.
Speranza, J. L. On the way of conversation. Department of Philosophy, University of La Plata, Argentina. Cuadernos e Investigaciones 5. Proceedings of the International Philosophy Conference held at the University of Buenos Aires.
----. “German Grice”. Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia.
----. Conversational Immanuel. In M. J. Palacios, Temas actuales de filosofia: proceedings of the Argenine national congress of philosophy on “Current Issues in Philosophy”.
-----. Review of Studies in the Way of Words. Cuadernos de Filosofia, Deparment of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires.
-----. Review of Hare, Peacocke, etc. Boletin Bibliografico. Bibliographical Bulletin. Institute of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires.
-----. Mise en abyme: Grice on self-speculations. In C. Arboleda, Southern Connecticut State University.
-----. Who’s afraid of Borges the Anglo-Argentine. The Buenos Aires Herald.
-----. First time in Brazil? Abstract in M. Dascal. Abstracts of the third international conference in the philosophy of language. Held at the Department of Philosophy, Campinas, Brazil.
• J L Speranza
o At the syntax-pragmatics interface (Sat Dec 21 2002 - 09:05:14 GMT)
o "Too", "Even", and Contextual Relevance (Sat Dec 21 2002 - 00:26:34 GMT)
o Exhibition and Protrepsis (Sat Dec 14 2002 - 17:02:45 GMT)
o Re: Why do human communicate? (Sat Dec 14 2002 - 00:22:44 GMT)
o Reference assignment and R-based narrowing: simple as that? (Wed Nov 27 2002 - 23:28:50 GMT)
o Re: Forward: 'ask for help' - unintended meaning (Mon Nov 11 2002 - 02:00:04 GMT)
o Banter (Mon Nov 04 2002 - 16:53:58 GMT)
o Saying that (Sun Oct 27 2002 - 04:13:15 GMT)
o Re: Question (Sun Oct 13 2002 - 07:13:36 GMT)
o also and too (Mon Sep 30 2002 - 05:55:02 GMT)
o "unintended meaning"? (Sat Sep 28 2002 - 16:30:09 GMT)
o Re: Alliteration (Tue Sep 17 2002 - 10:11:22 GMT)
o Semantics vs. Pragmatics (Thu Aug 22 2002 - 07:18:19 GMT)
o Re: History of RT (Sat Aug 10 2002 - 14:42:35 GMT)
o Re: Questions on Relevance (Mon Aug 05 2002 - 00:39:42 GMT)
o "Evidentials" (Fri Jul 26 2002 - 02:02:14 GMT)
o Re: temporality and post-Gricean pragmatics (Tue Jul 02 2002 - 11:27:17 GMT)
o RT vs semiotics (Tue Jul 02 2002 - 09:02:19 GMT)
o From Relation to Relevance (Sun Jun 30 2002 - 00:07:44 GMT)
o Teleo-functionalism -- in Gricean key (Sat Jun 29 2002 - 23:08:52 GMT)
o "Lexical Pragmatics" (Thu Jun 20 2002 - 02:29:15 GMT)
o Re: Neo- vs. Post- Gricean pragmatics (Tue Jun 18 2002 - 04:57:41 GMT)
o Grice on irony (Tue Jun 11 2002 - 05:35:11 GMT)
o Module and Central Processor (Mon Jun 10 2002 - 19:02:16 GMT)
o Seven Types of Gricean Ambiguity (Mon Jun 10 2002 - 17:26:38 GMT)
o Implicature: Clause, Scale, Rank, & Beyond (Tue Jun 04 2002 - 23:54:10 GMT)
o Paradigms of Reading: Relevance Theory & Deconstruction (Thu May 30 2002 - 20:41:47 GMT)
o Re: RT and other theories (Mon May 27 2002 - 15:01:15 GMT)
o From Sperber and Wilson to Hoey and Wodak (Fri May 24 2002 - 16:27:13 GMT)
o metaphor and simile (Wed May 15 2002 - 17:37:48 GMT)
o Pragmatics of misunderstanding (Wed Apr 10 2002 - 18:43:02 GMT)
o J. L. Austin Revisited (Mon Apr 08 2002 - 00:43:23 GMT)
o The Conjunction of Conjunction (Fri Apr 05 2002 - 09:36:54 GMT)
o Existential Import, Truth Conditions, and Explicature (Sat Mar 16 2002 - 10:52:25 GMT)
o Implicature, Explicature, Impliciture, Expliciture (Sat Mar 16 2002 - 09:52:56 GMT)
o Fw: syntax-pragmatics interface (Tue Feb 19 2002 - 06:40:29 GMT)
o Language, Bananas and Bonobos (Sun Feb 17 2002 - 06:18:47 GMT)
o Fw causal/resultative use of "and" (Sat Feb 16 2002 - 21:53:05 GMT)
o Re: Grice HP cited by Katz JJ (Mon Feb 11 2002 - 19:16:57 GMT)
o Evidentials and Relevance (Mon Feb 11 2002 - 16:04:15 GMT)
o Re: Grice HP cited by Hare RM (Sun Feb 10 2002 - 17:25:37 GMT)
o The explicit-implicit distinction (Wed Jan 30 2002 - 09:23:48 GMT)
o Re: "But" (Wed Jan 23 2002 - 01:28:20 GMT)
o Re: Exegesis (Grice on Saying) (Thu Jan 17 2002 - 16:50:08 GMT)
o Mood, Mode, and Relevance (Wed Jan 09 2002 - 15:47:15 GMT)
o The negotiation of relevance (Wed Jan 09 2002 - 10:31:15 GMT)
o "Implicature": an etymological entanglement (Thu Nov 29 2001 - 10:24:42 GMT)
o "implicature" (and "explicature") as 'process' term of art (Wed Nov 28 2001 - 10:43:13 GMT)
o Jennifer Saul thinks she has refuted RT (Sun Nov 25 2001 - 13:19:23 GMT)
o Grice and RT in "Kasher Number Five" (Wed Nov 21 2001 - 07:36:04 GMT)
o Grice on _therefore_, & more: on encoding, implicature, & the in-between (Tue Nov 13 2001 - 09:29:40 GMT)
o Parataxis, Asyndesis, and Concessivity (Grice & JC Wilson on) (Mon Nov 12 2001 - 17:42:57 GMT)
o ?"Some if not all of the cows were culled from the herd" (Mon Nov 12 2001 - 16:00:54 GMT)
o Conversational Implicature Gets Scrutinised (Thu Nov 15 2001 - 00:49:10 GMT)
o Philosophy & RT: biblio refs on implicature in Levinson -- any philosopher missing? (Sun Nov 11 2001 - 11:44:54 GMT)
o The relevance of "innit" and "like" among London female adolescents (Fri Nov 02 2001 - 03:01:48 GMT)
o Antecedents of RT: Grice, Hart, _and Leonard_ (Tue Oct 30 2001 - 10:36:42 GMT)
o Re: RT and images (Mon Oct 01 2001 - 05:48:01 GMT)
o Re: RT and images (Mon Oct 01 2001 - 05:42:49 GMT)
o RT References (Sun Sep 30 2001 - 11:58:47 GMT)
o Yu and Yus (Fri Sep 28 2001 - 08:46:23 GMT)
o A Grice-oriented RT bibliography checklist (Thu Sep 27 2001 - 12:27:47 GMT)
o Keep On Lovin' Ya: Does Relevance Subsume It All? (Tue Sep 25 2001 - 16:55:59 GMT)
o Re: Questions concerning the relationship between RT & Grice (Sun Sep 23 2001 - 18:36:16 GMT)
o Re: Questions concerning the relationship between RT & Grice (Sun Sep 23 2001 - 14:07:43 GMT)
o Grice and RT as "pragmatic" (Sun Sep 23 2001 - 11:30:17 GMT)
o English philosophers discuss _Relevance_ (Tue Sep 11 2001 - 03:07:36 GMT)
o RT -- "relevance" in the OED (Tue Sep 04 2001 - 21:33:29 GMT)
o RT and conversational implicature (Tue Sep 04 2001 - 18:44:29 GMT)
o Re: The form of thoughts (Sat Sep 01 2001 - 18:27:49 GMT)
o RT and English (Sat Sep 01 2001 - 16:55:22 GMT)
o onlist apology (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 18:46:21 GMT)
o Grice Legacy (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:57:31 GMT)
o request: re: Speranza's Posts Stoopid (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:45:25 GMT)
o The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory (Tue Aug 21 2001 - 15:08:10 GMT)
o Gricean humour -- irrelevant punchline? any ideas/works? attach welcommed (Mon Aug 20 2001 - 21:03:53 GMT)
o Re: "plicatures" ? (Thu Jun 28 2001 - 09:01:00 GMT)
o Re: metaphor and effort (Wed Jun 27 2001 - 05:30:39 GMT)
o Re: 'then' (Mon Jun 04 2001 - 17:08:47 GMT)
o A Question About Implicature/Explicature (Sun May 20 2001 - 22:56:17 GMT)
o Re: Cognitive context or cognitive environment? (Fri Mar 02 2001 - 02:16:23 GMT)
o Re: Cognitive context or cognitive environment? (Thu Mar 01 2001 - 11:42:07 GMT)
o Re: RT, Modified Occam's Razor, and Disambiguation (Sun Feb 11 2001 - 07:10:34 GMT)
o Re: RT, Modified Occam's Razor, and Disambiguation (Fri Feb 23 2001 - 16:30:57 GMT)
o RT, Modified Occam's Razor, and Disambiguation (Fri Feb 23 2001 - 00:26:37 GMT)
o Quasi-Belief, the Oratio Recta/Obliqua Distinction, & RT (Wed Feb 21 2001 - 21:20:28 GMT)
o Oratio Recta/Obliqua Distinction & RT (Wed Feb 21 2001 - 21:00:54 GMT)
o The pragmatics of metarepresentation ascription and RT (Mon Feb 19 2001 - 13:44:22 GMT)
o Grice's Oxford and Relevance Theory (Sat Feb 03 2001 - 05:02:40 GMT)
o Re: Ogden & Richards, Meaning of Meaning (Sat Jan 06 2001 - 12:22:20 GMT)
o Glad Yuletide (Sat Dec 23 2000 - 23:53:24 GMT)
o Looking for Mr Grice (Tue Dec 19 2000 - 00:22:43 GMT)
o Re: Pragmatics textbook? (Fri Dec 08 2000 - 02:40:05 GMT)
o Relevantly insulted (Wed Nov 29 2000 - 03:41:55 GMT)
o ... seems to be the hardest word (relevantly speaking) (Tue Nov 07 2000 - 15:29:52 GMT)
• Jlsperanza@aol.com
o Re: RT list: SALT (Mon Feb 07 2005 - 16:42:23 GMT)
o RT list: Object-Frames and Meta-Frames (Sat Oct 23 2004 - 00:04:50 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Direct Quotation (Tue May 04 2004 - 20:59:19 GMT)
o Re: RT list: 'World' in RT (Tue Feb 17 2004 - 20:26:27 GMT)
o RT list: Zeno Vendler (Mon Jan 26 2004 - 17:37:22 GMT)
o Re: RT list: co-presence and mutual manifestness (Sat Jan 24 2004 - 18:24:24 GMT)
o Re: RT list: co-presence and mutual manifestness (Sat Jan 24 2004 - 04:59:54 GMT)
o Re: RT list: co-presence and mutual manifestness (Fri Jan 23 2004 - 00:36:54 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Tautologies: 'A toothbrush is a toothbrush' (Tue Jan 20 2004 - 15:12:01 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Puzzle (Tue Jan 20 2004 - 00:35:12 GMT)
o Re: RT list: yet and still (Fri Dec 19 2003 - 14:32:27 GMT)
o RT list: yet and still (Thu Dec 18 2003 - 15:10:11 GMT)
o Re: RT list: metarepresenting Rumsfeld (Sun Dec 07 2003 - 20:34:34 GMT)
o Re: RT list: metadiscourse enquiry (Tue Nov 04 2003 - 16:21:47 GMT)
o Donald Davidson dies (Mon Sep 01 2003 - 22:02:45 GMT)
o Fwd: verbs of knowing (Fri Apr 11 2003 - 11:37:24 GMT)
o Fw: Q: 'Some' (Wed Mar 26 2003 - 16:11:12 GMT)
o Initial 'And' (Fri Mar 14 2003 - 13:04:04 GMT)
o Circles and Gambits (Mon Feb 10 2003 - 21:52:14 GMT)
o Implicature and Colouring (Fri Jan 24 2003 - 14:14:31 GMT)
o Grice's Heritage (Tue Jan 21 2003 - 15:37:49 GMT)
o Implicature and Impliciture (Mon Jan 20 2003 - 18:18:49 GMT)
o W. Davis on Implicature (Fri Jan 17 2003 - 15:17:44 GMT)
o Paul Ziff (Tue Jan 14 2003 - 15:16:11 GMT)
o Fw: Relevance of Productivity in Synchronic Word Formation (Mon Jan 13 2003 - 18:50:52 GMT)
• jlsperanza@aol.com
o RT list: Re: conference announcement (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 20:12:58 GMT)
o Re: RT list: experiments and the conceptual/procedural distinction (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 17:57:15 GMT)
o Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 13:57:40 GMT)
o RT list: Key terms in pragmatics (Sat Jan 23 2010 - 11:32:34 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D. (Sat Jan 16 2010 - 22:07:32 GMT)
o RT list: Grice, H. P. -- cited by White, H. D. (Sat Jan 16 2010 - 19:53:00 GMT)
o RT list: Speranza Contra Speranza (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 23:03:38 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice on "appropriateness" (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 17:18:38 GMT)
o RT list: Grice on "appropriateness" (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 16:47:43 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Donkey Sentences (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 16:37:26 GMT)
o RT list: Donkey Sentences (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 16:33:25 GMT)
o RT list: Speranza Sorge Eterna (Fri Jan 15 2010 - 14:48:04 GMT)
o RT list: Byzantine (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 18:31:47 GMT)
o RT list: Grice's "Sillygistic" (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 17:33:24 GMT)
o Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 17:17:21 GMT)
o RT list: "There was once an Oxonian called Grice" (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 17:06:05 GMT)
o Re: RT list: the 'forthright negotiator' principle (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 15:55:27 GMT)
o Re: RT list: This Year of Grice (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 15:23:50 GMT)
o RT list: This Year of Grice (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 13:10:04 GMT)
o RT list: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 05:09:42 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice's Sticky Wicket (Thu Jan 14 2010 - 05:07:27 GMT)
o RT list: Running Away From A Bull (Wed Jan 13 2010 - 17:07:58 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Grice's Sticky Wicket (Wed Jan 13 2010 - 14:54:46 GMT)
o RT list: Re: RT list: Grice´s Sticky Wicket (Wed Jan 13 2010 - 02:34:05 GMT)
o RT list: Grice´s Sticky Wicket (Tue Jan 12 2010 - 21:44:30 GMT)
o RT list: "my" (Mon Jan 11 2010 - 13:11:32 GMT)
o RT list: Re: "for" (Mon Jan 11 2010 - 12:47:36 GMT)
o RT list: "possessive" (Sun Jan 10 2010 - 23:30:03 GMT)
o RT list: "for" (Sun Jan 10 2010 - 23:28:49 GMT)
o Re: RT list: help on possessive pronouns and preposition "for" (Sun Jan 10 2010 - 21:14:46 GMT)
o RT list: "Non-Natural Causes" (Thu Dec 31 2009 - 22:20:43 GMT)
o RT list: "Slave of Passions" (Thu Dec 31 2009 - 20:30:20 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Whartoniana (Thu Dec 31 2009 - 19:59:49 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Whartoniana (Wed Dec 30 2009 - 04:56:40 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Whartoniana (Wed Dec 30 2009 - 02:26:07 GMT)
o RT list: Whartoniana (Mon Dec 28 2009 - 22:38:09 GMT)
o RT list: Re: "writers like Wilson and Sperber" (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 19:23:40 GMT)
o RT list: "writers like Wilson and Sperber" (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 15:18:51 GMT)
o RT list: Grice's "be relevant" -- and Nowell-Smith (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 06:34:30 GMT)
o RT list: Grice, HP cited by Pears, DF (Fri Dec 25 2009 - 04:37:39 GMT)
o RT list: How to Grice a Toulmin (Mon Dec 21 2009 - 08:35:01 GMT)
o RT list: Gricean pragmatics as a 'class' thing, too (Fri Dec 11 2009 - 13:07:31 GMT)
o RT list: Grice's pinko pragmatics (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 17:35:01 GMT)
o RT list: The Abduction of Figaro (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 10:53:24 GMT)
o RT list: Yo-He-Ho (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 10:41:29 GMT)
o RT list: Ode on a Gricean Urn (Thu Dec 10 2009 - 09:15:30 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t... (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 12:40:08 GMT)
o RT list: Heinz Meanz Beanz: Reading Grice Reading Peirce (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 12:28:57 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t... (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 11:36:34 GMT)
o Re: RT list: Did Peirce offer an inferential theory of communication (prior t... (Wed Dec 09 2009 - 10:58:15 GMT)
o RT list: A Dictionary of Grice (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 21:26:45 GMT)
o RT list: The Phenomenology of Conversation: Grice meets Schutz (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 18:58:29 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 05:16:01 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 02:52:45 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 01:24:37 GMT)
o RT list: The Old Flouter (Wed Dec 02 2009 - 00:53:13 GMT)
o RT list: Re: Breaking the Code (Thu Nov 05 2009 - 14:25:20 GMT)
o RT list: Breaking the Code (Thu Nov 05 2009 - 14:17:21 GMT)
o RT list: The king is dead. Long live the king (Thu Nov 05 2009 - 13:40:58 GMT)
o RT list: The Wild Pansy (Wed Nov 04 2009 - 21:19:22 GMT)
o RT list: Kinship Terms: Levi-Strauss Goes Gricean (Wed Nov 04 2009 - 18:41:57 GMT)
o RT list: The Implicature Among the Munde (Tue Nov 03 2009 - 23:18:00 GMT)
o RT list: Levi-Strauss (Was: Grice and the anthropologists) (Tue Nov 03 2009 - 15:47:16 GMT)
o RT list: Grice in a Balloon (Wed Oct 21 2009 - 19:02:32 BST)
o RT list: Grice performs "Pavane" (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 02:47:26 BST)
o RT list: Penny for your Thoughts? (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 02:16:22 BST)
o RT list: The Urmson Festchrift (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 01:56:07 BST)
o RT list: Grice and the anthropologists (Wed Oct 07 2009 - 00:42:21 BST)
o RT list: Re: Warm Beer At Awesome Picnics (Tue Oct 06 2009 - 18:00:12 BST)
o RT list: On "+>" & Other Matters (Tue Oct 06 2009 - 17:39:22 BST)
o RT list: The editor of Mode (Tue Oct 06 2009 - 17:08:09 BST)
o RT list: Grice on analysis and theory (Mon Sep 21 2009 - 22:59:31 BST)
o Re: RT list: So how does the mind work? (Tue Sep 08 2009 - 18:36:42 BST)
o RT list: A Shaggy Dog Story (Wed Aug 05 2009 - 17:35:44 BST)
o RT list: Annals of Analysis (Fri Jul 31 2009 - 20:51:08 BST)
o RT list: Fwd: Evolution, Cooperation and Rationality Conference, Bristol, 18th-20th September 2009 (Fri Jul 31 2009 - 19:57:40 BST)
o RT list: Aunt Matilda´s Conversational Knack -- & How To Get It (Fri Jul 31 2009 - 19:28:20 BST)
o RT list: Hekademos (Fri Jul 24 2009 - 16:29:50 BST)
o RT list: Urmson´s Parentheticals -- Revisited (Fri Jul 24 2009 - 16:16:48 BST)
o RT list: Re: How Salient Was My Valley (Fri Jul 24 2009 - 16:12:57 BST)
o Re: RT list: In the Tradition of Kantotle (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 12:39:09 BST)
o RT list: Conversational Minutiæ (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 04:29:48 BST)
o RT list: Minutiæ (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 02:42:29 BST)
o Re: RT list: In the Tradition of Kantotle (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 01:35:33 BST)
o Re: RT list: review of Carruthers (Sat Jul 18 2009 - 00:08:13 BST)
o RT list: "fid to one another" (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 20:24:55 BST)
o RT list: In the Tradition of Kantotle (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 17:07:10 BST)
o RT list: Grice Disentangled (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 15:32:03 BST)
o RT list: Grice's "evolutionary story" (Wed Jul 15 2009 - 00:50:35 BST)
o RT list: Re: A horse says neigh (Mon Jul 13 2009 - 23:22:03 BST)
o RT list: Re: A horse says neigh (Mon Jul 13 2009 - 22:15:57 BST)
o RT list: A horse says neigh (Mon Jul 13 2009 - 18:26:21 BST)
o RT list: common-ground status (Fri Jul 10 2009 - 19:45:08 BST)
o RT list: Kjøll, The content of content (Fri Jul 10 2009 - 17:26:07 BST)
o RT list: "No man is an island" (Thu Jul 09 2009 - 23:33:22 BST)
o RT list: "it is what it is" (Mon Jul 06 2009 - 01:02:33 BST)
o RT list: "a few rather marked irrelevancies in his conversation" (Sun Jul 05 2009 - 18:27:55 BST)
o RT list: foolproof (Sat Jul 04 2009 - 13:32:39 BST)
o RT list: WOW! (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 13:04:36 BST)
o RT list: Daniel Watts and the Disimplicature (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 12:59:24 BST)
o RT list: The Atlas Complex (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 12:44:20 BST)
o RT list: Grice to the Mill (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 12:33:58 BST)
o RT list: Open texture (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 00:45:38 BST)
o RT list: Foolosopher and Linguist (Fri Jul 03 2009 - 00:08:00 BST)
o RT list: Common Or Garden (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 22:44:17 BST)
o RT list: "A. P. Grice" (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 22:21:17 BST)
o RT list: Scots Grice (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 22:07:50 BST)
o RT list: Grice on 'pragmatic' (Thu Jul 02 2009 - 21:20:45 BST)
o RT list: The Highway Code (Wed Jul 01 2009 - 01:36:07 BST)
o Re: RT list: Prepositions and conceptual/procedural meaning? (Thu Jun 25 2009 - 19:21:10 BST)
o Re: RT list: Prepositions and conceptual/procedural meaning? (Thu Jun 25 2009 - 17:38:10 BST)
o RT list: ex cathedra (Mon May 18 2009 - 15:56:03 BST)
o RT list: Gricefully Yours (Mon May 18 2009 - 00:26:42 BST)
o RT list: The Wrongs of Grice (Sun May 17 2009 - 17:18:56 BST)
o RT list: Re: Earliest account of relevance (Thu Feb 19 2009 - 18:56:34 GMT)
o RT list: Earliest account of relevance (Thu Feb 19 2009 - 18:47:26 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 22:52:35 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 22:09:39 GMT)
o RT list: Re: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 19:47:35 GMT)
o RT list: The Cunning of Reason (Wed Feb 18 2009 - 19:30:01 GMT)
o RT list: Ready, Steady ... (Mon Jan 26 2009 - 20:43:44 GMT)
o RT list: Wedgwood pottery (Fri Jan 23 2009 - 19:39:23 GMT)
o Re: RT list: inference in encoding? (Fri Jan 23 2009 - 19:36:49 GMT)
o RT list: The Reader (Wed Jan 21 2009 - 15:26:24 GMT)
o RT list: Plicatures Galore (Wed Jan 21 2009 - 15:06:46 GMT)
o RT list: There's Glory For You! (Fri Oct 10 2008 - 03:21:29 BST)
o RT list: Coloratura / Implicatura (Sat Jul 19 2008 - 00:04:26 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Sun May 04 2008 - 13:48:23 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Sun May 04 2008 - 00:53:30 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Sat May 03 2008 - 18:27:00 BST)
o Re: RT list: Defending the Explicature (Fri May 02 2008 - 15:16:52 BST)
o RT list: Defending the Explicature (Fri May 02 2008 - 02:30:00 BST)
o RT list: The Ariskantian Quartette (Fri Apr 04 2008 - 12:49:42 BST)
o RT list: Grecian Irrelevancies in Gricean Key (Sun Mar 16 2008 - 00:35:42 GMT)
o RT list: No buts about it (Sat Feb 02 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
