Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Inferential processes
common assumption: inferential processes play a leading role in getting from the basic meaning to the implicature(s) o Blakemore goes even further: he says that implicatures do not only play a leading role when getting from the basic meaning of an utterance to the implicature(s), but also when getting from the utterance to the basic meaning in the first place
ostensive communication ordinary conversation; the communicator wants to convey something and incorporate the hearer into the communicative situation, which is recognized by the hearer(s)
Interpretations of the original underspecified linguistic input (utterance) are called explicatures. Implicated premises and implicated conclusions When Sperber and Wilson speak of implicatures, they differenciate between implicated premises and implicated conclusions. Example: Peter: Would you drive a Saab? Mary: I wouldnt drive ANY Swedish car. (Marys implicated conclusion: I would not drive a Saab.) implicated premise: A Saab is a Swedish car. implicated conclusions: not directly stated (implicated) inferential support for final implicature does not need to be known by the hearer Exercise Find the implicated premises and conclusions for the following examples! (a) (b) (c) A: Have you read the new Dan Brown book yet? B: I dont like thrillers. A: Have you been to China? B: Ive never been to Asia. A: Who ate the sausages I left on the kitchen table? B: Im a vegetarian. implicated premises: not directly stated (implicated) what are traditionally called conversational implicatures
Bibliography Saeed, John I. 2003. Semantics. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Blackwell, p. 208-210