IMPLICATURE/CONTEXT

IMPLICATURE/CONTEXT

1. natural meaning: carries no human intentionality, literal of the sentence

   • non-natural meaning: carries human intentionality, recognizes the speaker's comm intentions

2. Implicature: bridges the gap bt what is said and what was meant

   • Conversational implicature: An inference triggered by the flouting of the maxims of Grice's Cooperative Principle
     • generalized conversational implicature: triggered without the need for a special context (swim 1 km)
     • particularized conversational implicature: context-dependent inferences needed for understanding the utterance
   • conventional implicature: derives from conventional meaning, not cancellable because is contained in the semantic features of the words (poor but honest)
   • scalar implicature: by choosing an item from the scale the ones above/below do not obtain (some)

3. Cooperative Principle

   • Quantity m: make your contribution as informative as is required but do not make them more informative than required
     • Horn's Q principle: make your contribution sufficient, say as much as you can
   • Quality m: make your contributions true, don't say what you believe is false not for what you lack evidence
   • Relation m: be relevant, contributions related to purpose of exchange
     • Horn's R principle: make your contribution necessary, say no more than you must
   • Manner m: be perspicuous, brief, orderly and avoid ambiguity and obscurity of expression
   • Levinson
     • entailment: context-free and non-inferential
     • Utterance-type meaning: context-free but inferential; expectable, conventional but inferred and defeasible.
     • utterance-token: context-sensitive and inferential, an instance of utt whose one-off inferred interpretation depends upon its context
     • Q-Principle: S select the informationally strongest paradigmatic alternative consistent with the facts. H take it that he S made the strongest statement consistent with what he knows (I should be back)
     • I-Principle: S say as little as necessary. H amplify the context by finding the most specific interpretation
     • M-Principle: S indicate an abnormal, non-stereotypical situation by using a marked expression. H what is said in an abnormal way indicates an abnormal situation
   • flouting a maxim: when S blatantly fails to observe a maxim, causing the H to look for a deeper meaning in the utt

4. Optimality

   • pragmatic strengthening to enable S/H to convey/recover meanings not explicitly stated
   • for each meaning there must be an optimal form for which the speaker strives; for each form there must be an optimal meaning for which the hearer strives
   • obtain by appliying Q and I/R rpinciples, which act as constraints and take precedence