25. Conventional implicature revisited
-Semantics/PragmaticsJournal paper
Eliza Kitis
(Excerpt from EK's 1982 thesis), presented at 1st IPrA conference, 1985. Published in Working Papers in Linguistics and Literature, Department of English, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, 109-25, 1989.
Abstract
This is a critique of Grice’s proposal to treat both ‘but’ and ‘therefore’ in terms of his account of conventional implicature. ‘Therefore’ and ‘but’, the two paradigms of conventional implicature on Grice’s view, are examined closely and are shown to behave in diverse ways. Firstly, ‘therefore’ is shown to have at least two distinct uses: the explanatory and the inferential. A Gricean account is shown to be unable to satisfactorily handle the inferential use of ‘therefore’. Secondly, ‘but’ and ‘therefore’, which on Grice’s view are instances of the same phenomenon, are clearly shown to exhibit dissimilarities in their behaviour, demolishing his unitary treatment. Various tests are employed to this purpose. Moreover, it is pointed out that Grice is not consistent in his claim concerning what constitutes conventional implicata. His account is found to be partly implausible, as regards his treatment of ‘therefore’, and partly inadequate, as it fails to take into account the wide ranging function of ‘but’ – his paradigm of conventional implicature – but, instead treats its variable meaning aspects as invariable, conventional implicature. (This is an excerpt from EK’s 1982 thesis, presented at 1st IPrA conference, 1985)
Keywords
- Connectives
- Discourse Markers
- H.P. Grice
- Conventional Implicature
- Implicated Meanings
- But and Therefore