This book revives the study of conventional implicatures in natural language semantics. H. Paul Grice first defined the concept. Since then his definition has seen much use and many redefinitions, but it has never enjoyed a stable place in linguistic theory. Christopher Potts returns to the original and uses it as a key into two presently under-studied areas of natural language: supplements (appositives, parentheticals) and expressives (e.g., honorifics, epithets). The account of both depends on a theory in which sentence meanings can be multidimensional. The theory is logically and intuitively compositional, and it minimally extends a familiar kind of intensional logic, thereby providing an adaptable, highly useful tool for semantic analysis. The result is a linguistic theory that is accessible not only to linguists of all stripes, but also philosophers of language, logicians, and computer scientists who have linguistic applications in mind.
Author(s): Christopher Potts
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 259
Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 12
1 Introduction......Page 14
2.1 A fresh look at an old definition......Page 18
2.2 A brief history......Page 21
2.3.1 Supplemental expressions......Page 26
2.3.2 Expressives......Page 29
2.4 Kinds of meaning......Page 35
2.4.1 CIs versus conversational implicatures......Page 39
2.4.2 CIs versus at-issue entailments......Page 43
2.4.3 CIs versus presuppositions......Page 45
2.4.4 CIs versus intonational meanings......Page 49
2.4.5 Closing remarks on kinds of meaning......Page 50
2.5 Indirect entailments of the CI definition......Page 54
2.5.2 Multidimensionality......Page 55
2.5.4 Comment upon an at-issue core......Page 56
2.6 Chapter summary......Page 57
3.1 Introduction......Page 60
3.2 Independence of truth values......Page 62
3.3 A meaning language distinction......Page 64
3.4 At-issue and CI types......Page 68
3.5 Linguistic motivation for the limited set of types......Page 70
3.5.1 At-issue never applies to CI......Page 71
3.5.2 CI never applies to CI......Page 73
3.6 Modes of composition......Page 74
3.6.1 At-issue functional application......Page 75
3.6.2 At-issue intersection......Page 76
3.6.3 CI application......Page 77
3.6.4 Isolated CIs......Page 78
3.6.5 Features......Page 79
3.6.6 Parsetree interpretation......Page 80
3.7 Remarks on appeals to a meaning language......Page 82
3.8.1 The discourse layer......Page 86
3.8.3 Interpretation......Page 88
3.9 The heritage function......Page 90
3.10 The ‘binding’ problem (or virtue)......Page 92
3.11 One-dimensional translations......Page 95
3.12 A note on resource sensitivity......Page 98
3.13 Chapter summary......Page 100
4.1 Remarks......Page 102
4.2 Some descriptive terminology......Page 104
4.2.1 The term ‘supplement’......Page 105
4.2.3 Relative clause nomenclature......Page 106
4.3 The analysis in brief......Page 110
4.4 A conservative syntax......Page 116
4.4.1 Adjacency......Page 117
4.4.2 Right adjunction......Page 119
4.4.3 Case marking......Page 120
4.5.1 Nondeniable meanings......Page 124
4.5.2 Antibackgrounding......Page 125
4.5.3 Nonrestrictiveness......Page 126
4.5.4 Scopelessness......Page 127
4.5.5 Definites and indefinites......Page 132
4.6.1 The anchor......Page 135
4.6.2 The appositive......Page 144
4.6.3 Comma intonation......Page 146
4.6.4 There are no inverted cases......Page 149
4.7 Supplementary adverbs......Page 151
4.7.1 Speaker-oriented adverbs......Page 152
4.7.2 Topic-oriented adverbs......Page 156
4.7.3 Utterance modifiers......Page 158
4.8 Conclusion......Page 164
5.1 Composition and denotation......Page 166
5.2 A working definition......Page 168
5.3 Expressive adjectives and epithets......Page 171
5.3.1 An undistinguished syntax......Page 176
5.3.2 Lexical meanings......Page 178
5.4 Quantifiers and a variable environment dimension......Page 186
5.5 A scope-shifting alternative......Page 190
5.6 Honorifics in Japanese......Page 192
5.6.1 Argument-oriented honorification......Page 194
5.6.2 Performative honorifics......Page 197
5.7 German Konjunktiv I......Page 199
5.8 Conclusion......Page 206
6.1 Remarks......Page 208
6.2 McCawley’s (1998) analysis......Page 209
6.3 The coordinate interpreted structure......Page 211
6.4 The transformational mapping......Page 213
6.5 The surface......Page 214
6.5.1 Trees......Page 215
6.5.2 Supplements and dominance......Page 216
6.5.3 Supplements and the supplement relation......Page 218
6.5.4 Interpreting supplement structures......Page 220
6.5.5 In sum......Page 223
7.2 Minus conventionality......Page 224
7.3 Minus commitment......Page 225
7.4 Minus speaker orientation......Page 226
7.5 Minus independence......Page 230
7.6 In sum......Page 231
A.2.1 The syntax of [omitted][sub(CI)]......Page 232
A.2.4 Intensional models for [omitted][sub(CI)]......Page 237
A.3.1 Syntax of [omitted][sub(U)]......Page 238
A.3.2 Discourse structures......Page 239
A.4 Interpretation for [omitted][sub(CI)] and [omitted][sub(U)]......Page 240
References......Page 242
I......Page 252
S......Page 253
Z......Page 254
D......Page 256
L......Page 257
S......Page 258
W......Page 259
