H. P. Grice: By uttering x (explicitly conveying that p), the utterer conversationally implies that q -- in a PARTICULARISED fashion, or other

H. P. Grice:

From particularised to generalised, if we must be Aristotelian.


We have so far. considered only this or that case of what Grice calls a 'particularised' conversational implicatum,' i.e., that is to say, cases in which the conversational implicatum is carried by saying that p on a particular occasion, such as Collections, in the first case, and in virtue of a special feature or features of the context, this or that case in which there is no room for the idea that a conversational implicatum of this sort need normally (as per this or that conversational norm) be carried by saying or explicitly conveying that p. (e.g. that Smith has beautiful handwriting and that his English is grammatical)

But there is this or that case of what we might call a "generalized," to follow the Aristotelian analogy (he invented these terms!) conversational implicatum, with which most philosophers at Oxford are concerned, alas, and where one (usually a philosopher) can say that the use of a certain expression E, or form of words in an utterance would normally, as per a conversational norm, (in the absence of special circumstances) carry such-and-such a conversational implicatum or type of implicatum. 

A non-controversial example is perhaps hard to find, since it is ALL TOO EASY to treat a generalized conversational implicature as if it were a specimen of polysemy or conventional implicature at most (as Strawson with 'if' and 'so') and we don't want that! We are RATIONALISTS!

Grice offers an example that he hopes may be fairly non-controversial. 

In the list of formal devices, Grice mentions (Ex) and gives as the vernacular counterpart, "some (at least one)."

Indeed, the vernacular also includes:

"He's meeting a woman."

"He's meeting ONE woman."

"He's meeting some (at least one) woman."

"That was SOME party."

"He is meeting some woman" sounds rude.

"Some woman!" sounds ruder.


By uttering a sentence of the form 

X is meeting a woman this evening 

Smith is meeting one woman tonight.

Smith is meeting some (at least one) woman tonight.

Smith is meeting a woman tonight (more colloquially).

the utterer conversationally implies that the person to be met is someone other than Mrs. Smith.

But that's cancellable:

Smith is meeting some woman tonight, so we can't poker.
Who's he meeting?
His wife, obviously!

Similarly, if an utterer were to say 

Smith went into some house yesterday and found some tortoise inside the front door.


the addressee would normally be surprised if some time later the utterer reveals that "some" house is Smith's own, and indeed that "some" tortoise is his beloved pet who unequivocally runs to greet him on his way back from college.

We could produce similar linguistic phenomena involving the expressions "a garden," "a car," "a college," and so on. 

Sometimes, however, there would normally be no such implicatum:

'I have been sitting in a car all morning.'

because the TOPIC is about how boring I was, not whose car it was.

cf.

I have been sitting in some car all morning.

I have been sitting in some (at least one) car all morning, but I won't tell you whose car it was, because surely I don't want to disobey any of Grice's conversational maxims!

Sometimes there is a reverse implicatum

Unless you are a doctor or nurse in an operating room treating someone who suffered a severe accident:

'I broke a finger yesterday.'

I am inclined to think that, at Oxford, we would not lend a sympathetic ear to a philosopher (and only a philosopher -- other people are different beasts!) who suggests that there are three distinct SENSES of the form of expression 

"an X"

One in which "an" means, roughly, 

GENERIC:

'something that satisfies any condition defining the  X,' 

Another in which "an" means approximately 

'an X (in the first sense) that is ONLY REMOTELY related in a certain way to some person indicated by the context,' 

And yet another in which "an" means 

'an X (in the first sense) that is CLOSELY related in a certain way to some person indicated by the context.' 

Would we not much prefer an account on the following lines (which, of course, may be incorrect in detail): 

By using the form of expression "an X," the utterer conversationally implies that the X does not belong to or is not otherwise closely connected with some identifiable person.

The implicatum obtains because the utterer, in the circumstances, failed to be specific (or strictly, informative) in a way in which he might have been expected to be specific (or informative), with the consequence that it is likely to be assumed, by the desideratum of conversational candour, that the utterer is not in a position to be specific. 

As Urmson would say, there is a bit of a scale here:

the -- an

definite descriptor, indefinite descriptor.

Cf.

Smith is meeting some wife tonight.
Smith is meeting his wife tonight
Smith is meeting a wife tonight.
Smith is meeting the wife tonight.

"Smith is meeting the wife tonight" seems to implicate, in Northern English, or Cockney, even, the utterer's wife, for some reason, not Smith's.

A similar implicatum attaches to "Mrs." as in "Mrs. Smith," expanded as "missus"

Smith is meeting a missus tonight.
Smith is meeting HIS missus tonight.

Informal One's wife or girlfriend. Often used with the: Tell the missus I said hello.


This is a familiar implicature situation and is classifiable as a failure, for one reason or another to fulfill a conversational maxim enjoining maximal informativeness, or appropriate informativeness.



The only difficult question is why it should, in certain cases, be presumed, independently of information about this or that particular context of utterance, to use R. J. Firth's jargon, that a specification of (or information about or a conversational expansion on) the closeness or remoteness of the connection between a particular person or object and a further person who is mentioned or indicated by the utterance should be likely to be of interest to one's addressee.

Cf. 

"I've been sitting in some car all night."

Versus

"I've been sleeping on one bed all afternoon."




The answer must lie in the following region.

Transactions between a person and another person or thing closely connected with the first person are liable to be very different as regards their concomitants and results from the same sort of transactions involving only a remotely connected person or thing.

The concomitants and results, for instance, of my finding a hole in the roof of MY villa are likely to be very different from the concomitants and results of my finding a hole in the roof of someone else's villa. 

Information, like money, is often given without the giver's knowing to just what use the recipient will want to put it. 

If someone to whom a transaction is mentioned gives it further consideration, he is likely to find himself wanting the answers to further questions that the utterer may not be able to identify in advance.

If the appropriate specification will be likely to enable the addressee (or co-conversationalist) to answer a considerable variety of such questions for himself, there is a presumption that the utterer should include it in his remark; if not, then there is no such presumption. 

How's that?