Context and Inference

Context and Inference

1. Every language carries an implicit division of the space around the current speaker, a division of time relative to the act of speaking, and, via pronouns, a shorthand naming system for the participants involved.

   • Languages vary in the type of semantic information that is obligatorily included in deictic terms, when semantic distinctions are obligatory in this way we will say that they are GRAMMATICALIZED.
     • A further deictic system grammaticalizes the roles of participants: the current speaker, addressee(s) and others.
       • The pronoun systems of some languages also grammaticalize information about the social identities or relationships of the participants in the conversation. Levinson call this phenomenon SOCIAL DEIXIS.

2. Much of reference involves reliance on context, together with some calculation on the part of the speaker and heaters. Clark calls SHORT-HANDS.

   • The assumptions that hearers make about a speaker´s conduct seemed to Grice to be of several different types, giving rise to different types of inference, or from the speaker´s point of view, implicatures. In identifying these, Grice called them MAXIMS:
     • • The Maxim of Quality: try to make your contribution one that is true. Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange. • The Maxim of Relevance: make your contribution relevant. • The Maxim of Manner: be perspicuous, and specifically.