Linguistics Study Guide Pragmatics

Notes- Pragmatics Gricean Maxims / Principles of cooperative conversation • Quality: “be truthful” o it is true to the best of your knowledge o Example of using: ▪ Person A: “Why are you late?” ▪ Person B: “I’m late because the laundry machines were broken.” o Example of breaking: ▪ Person A: “You are so short.” (to a tall person) • ▪ OR ▪ Person B: “Donald Trump is so young.” Quantity: “be as informative as possible” (up to what is necessary) and “don’t be overinformative” o first part → scalar implicatures (ex: “warm” = “not hot”) o requires computation of competing utterances o Example of using: ▪ Person A: “Hey, how are you doing?” ▪ Person B: “Well it all started when I was 7….” *insert whole monologue about life story* o Example of breaking: • ▪ Person A: “Go pick up the vegetarian tomatoes.” ▪ OR “Clean up that sticky glue you just spilled.” Relevance: “be relevant” o Example of using: ▪ Person A: “I want to go get hot chocolate tonight” ▪ Person B: “I have a paper due” o Example of breaking: ▪ Person A: “Is it rainy out?” 14 ▪ • Person B: “I like the color grey.” Manner: don’t say things weirdly/out of order o “most of the time when you flout Grice's Maxim of Manner (be brief but unambiguous), you create an implicature about something else.” o Example of using: ▪ Person A: “Last night I ate chicken, did homework, and watched TV.” ▪ Person B: *assumes it took place in that order* o Example of breaking: ▪ Person A: “Yesterday, I ate dinner, did laundry, and went out to lunch.” Scalar Implicatures • scalar implicatures: an implicature that attributes an implicit meaning beyond the explicit or literal meaning of an utterance o ex: “warm” = “not hot” o requires computation of competing utterances The case of “some” • Ex 1: Jack says “How are your classes?” and Jill says “Some of them are really interesting.” o If Jack is rational, he will assume that not all of Jill’s classes are interesting to her o [[some]] = A B if and only if A ∩ B =/= ø and A⊄B … but this isn’t the only meaning • Ex 2: Jack says “How are your classes?” and Jill says “Some but not all of my courses are interesting.” (or “Some of my courses are interesting but not all”) o No feeling of redundancy even though “some” includes the meaning of “not all” o Test of re-enforceability • Some = ambiguous ?? o some1 / excSome = some and not all o some2 / incSome = at least some (possibly all) o Cancellation or reinforcing (like ex2) would be some2, the exclusive one (like ex1) would be some1 15 • The unlikeliness of ambiguity o Doesn’t explain Jill’s original response always being understood as excsome without additional context – would theoretically be ambiguous if the word is o We would need the same ambiguity with many, most, or, etc o All languages with words like this would have the same accidental homophony o The exclusive reading systematically goes away in certain contexts (for instance in contexts where the exclusive reading is plausible but absent) ▪ ex: “In order to enroll in the course, you must have studied 2 years of some language offered at Purple U.” • We read this to mean “some” as in at least one but if you read it as only one, a student might have studied more than one and wouldn’t be allowed in. • Means an amount, does not mean “not all” • Ex: “Every student who handed in some of the homeworks passed the course.” – This includes students that did all of the homeworks, making it clear that “some” doesn’t mean “not all” The case of “or” • A or B o exclusive or: A and B are mutually exclusive o inclusive or: • Ex: “Lee is going to Hawaii or to Paris” o reinforceable without redundancy: “Lee is going to Hawaii or to Paris but not both” shows that if “or” meant not both, it would be redundant • Ex: In a prix fixe menu: “For desert you can have the flan or the chocolate cake…” o “…but not both.” (no feeling of redundancy) o “…tonight is special, though, so you can have both” (no contradiction) o ^^ the above two additions show the meaning is not built into “or” • “Or” is not actually ambiguous • “Or” implicates that the “and” case is not true because the “and” case is stronger • “Or” implicates not 16 • “And/or” means the same as “or” because “or” doesn’t mean that they are mutually exclusive The case of “either” • Same as “either” – either has an stronger exclusive feel but doesn’t always have to be • Ex: “If you’ve eaten either all your peas or all your carrots you may have dessert.” – doesn’t mean you can only have dessert if you had just one or the other The case of “if/then” • The same as “every” • [[if S1 then S2]] = 1 if in all situations where [[S1]] = 1 then [[S2]] = 1 o S1 situations are a subset of S2 situations • Ex: If you climb the mountain, you will see sleet. // Every person who climbs the mountain will see sleet. o They mean the same thing Environments • Under “every” o Ex: Every student who handed in some of the homework passed. ▪ • Doesn’t exclude those who handed in all of it Under “no” o Ex: No one who hands in some of the homeworks will fall the course. ▪ those who hand in all are still guaranteed to pass o Ex: No one who passed either the midterm or the final failed the course. ▪ Xor implicature is not there—people who passed both can still pass Simple reversal under negation • Ex: “Not everyone left the party at midnight.” implies “Some people left the party at midnight.” o It implies but not entails. We know that because we can add to the sentence and make it change the meaning while maintaining truth value. 17 o If it’s not true that no one left, some had to have left • “Every” under a “not” = “some” / some = not every (???) Classifying sentences • Entailment vs implicature o entailment: definitely means something else ▪ presupposition: type of entailment where a thing is assumed beforehand • ex: “My Ferrari is red” presupposes “I have a Ferrari” • test with “hey wait?” ▪ at-issue: if A is true, then B is also true ▪ can’t be cancelled without sounding dumb o implicature: seems to mean something • ▪ cancellable/reinforceable ▪ maxims Simple alt explanation o Entailment = “includes the fact that:” ▪ Ex: I ate apples and bananas → I ate apples ▪ can’t be restated without being redundant o Presupposition = “relies on this fact being true:” ▪ Ex: “I went to Disney last week” → Disney was open last week o Implicature = “gives us the idea that:” ▪ Ex: “I ate 3 cinnamon rolls.” → I only ate 3 cinnamon rolls ▪ can be cancelled ▪ sentence 2 can be repeated without being redundant Symbols • ⊆ = subset • ⊄ = not a subset • ∩ = intersection between 2 sets • # = deviant 18 Sentence Strength • If A entails B, A is stronger • Stronger = more info, harder to be true (aka truer in less scenarios) • Temporal window = specific time in which a meaning is understood to be true o If there is a smaller temporal window, the sentence is stronger • “Ever” is only allowed when it strengthens a sentence o Ex: “Mitka ever ate” = not a good sentence because it doesn’t add anything • Downward entailing environments – strength is reversed • Implicatures disappear in downward entailing environments because DE environments reverse strength • Gricean story: If there is a competing utterance which is stronger and that utterance is not said, there has to be a reason it wasn’t said o Stronger = gives more info Misc Pragmatics • If A entails B then not B entails not A • Usually the “and” sentence entails the “or” but not always 19