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Scalar Implicature
In pragmatics, scalar implicature, or quantity implicature, is an implicature that attributes an ''implicit'' meaning beyond the explicit or ''literal'' meaning of an utterance, and which suggests that the utterer had a reason for not using a more informative or ''stronger'' term on the same scale. The choice of the weaker characterization suggests that, as far as the speaker knows, none of the stronger characterizations in the scale holds. This is commonly seen in the use of 'some' to suggest the meaning 'not all', even though 'some' is logically consistent with 'all'. If Bill says 'I have some of my money in cash', this utterance suggests to a hearer (though the sentence uttered does not logically imply it) that Bill does not have all his money in cash. Origin Scalar implicatures typically arise where the speaker qualifies or scales their statement with language that conveys to the listener an inference or implicature that indicates that the speaker had reasons not to use a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pragmatics
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). Pragmatics encompasses phenomena including implicature, speech acts, relevance theory, relevance and Conversation analysis, conversation,Mey, Jacob L. (1993) ''Pragmatics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). as well as nonverbal communication. Theories of pragmatics go hand-in-hand with theories of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and syntax, which examines sentence structures, principles, and relationships. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called ''pragmatic competence''. In 1938 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cooperative Principle
In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective conversational communication in common social situations—that is, how listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way. The philosopher of language Paul Grice introduced the concept in his pragmatic theory: In other words: say what you need to say, when you need to say it, and how it should be said. These are Grice's four maxims of conversation or Gricean maxims: quantity, quality, relation, and manner. They describe the rules followed by people in conversation. Applying the Gricean maxims is a way to explain the link between utterances and what is understood from them. Though phrased as a prescriptive command, the principle is intended as a description of how people normally behave in conversation. Lesley Jeffries and Daniel McIntyre (2010) describe Grice's maxims as "encapsulating the assumpt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semantics
Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction between sense and reference. Sense is given by the ideas and concepts associated with an expression while reference is the object to which an expression points. Semantics contrasts with syntax, which studies the rules that dictate how to create grammatically correct sentences, and pragmatics, which investigates how people use language in communication. Lexical semantics is the branch of semantics that studies word meaning. It examines whether words have one or several meanings and in what lexical relations they stand to one another. Phrasal semantics studies the meaning of sentences by exploring the phenomenon of compositionality or how new meanings can be created by arranging words. Formal semantics (natural language), Formal semantics relies o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pragmatics
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). Pragmatics encompasses phenomena including implicature, speech acts, relevance theory, relevance and Conversation analysis, conversation,Mey, Jacob L. (1993) ''Pragmatics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). as well as nonverbal communication. Theories of pragmatics go hand-in-hand with theories of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and syntax, which examines sentence structures, principles, and relationships. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called ''pragmatic competence''. In 1938 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Horn
Laurence Robert Horn (born 1945) is an American linguist. He is professor emeritus of linguistics in the department of linguistics at Yale University with specialties in pragmatics and semantics. He received his doctorate in 1972 from UCLA and formerly served as director of undergraduate studies, director of graduate studies, and chair of Yale's department of linguistics. In 2021, he served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. Horn's primary research program lies in classical logic, lexical semantics, and neo- Gricean pragmatic theory. He mainly focused on the exploration of natural language negation and its relation to other operators. His work in pragmatics, in particular his innovation in the theory of scalar implicature, is widely influential. He is one of the group known as ''radical pragmaticists'' in the 1970s (along with Jerrold Sadock and others) and is a veteran of the linguistics wars over generative semantics. The Horn scales are named after him (a prag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robyn Carston
Robyn Anne Carston, is a linguist and academic, who specialises in pragmatics, semantics, and the philosophy of language. Since 2005, she has been Professor (highest academic rank), Professor of Linguistics at University College London. Early life and education Carston was born in New Zealand. She studied English literature at the University of Canterbury, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) 1975. She then studied for an Honours degree#Australia, honours degree in linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a BA (Hons) degree in 1976. She moved to England to study at University College London (UCL), graduating with a Master of Arts (MA) with Distinction in Phonetics and Linguistics in 1980. She remained at UCL to undertake postgraduate research under the Doctoral supervisor, supervision of Deirdre Wilson. and got her first job as a lecturer there in 1983. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1994. Her doctoral thesis was titled "Pragma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subtrigging
In formal semantics, subtrigging is the phenomenon whereby free choice items in episodic sentences require a modifier. For instance, the following sentence is not acceptable in English. # *Any student signed the petition. However, the sentence can be repaired by adding a post-nominal modifier such as a relative clause, prepositional phrase, or locative. # Any student who went to the meeting signed the petition. (RC) # Any student at the meeting signed the petition. (PP) # Any student there signed the petition. (locative) See also * Free choice inference * Linguistic modality * Negative polarity item In grammar and linguistics, a polarity item is a lexical item that is associated with affirmation or negation. An affirmation is a positive polarity item, abbreviated PPI or AFF. A negation is a negative polarity item, abbreviated NPI or NEG. ... Notes Semantics Formal semantics (natural language) {{semantics-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strawson Entailment
In formal semantics, Strawson entailment is a variant of the concept of entailment which is insensitive to presupposition failures. Formally, a sentence ''P'' Strawson-entails a sentence ''Q'' iff ''Q'' is always true when ''P'' is true and ''Q''s presuppositions are satisfied. For example, "Maria loves every cat" Strawson-entails "Maria loves her cat" because Maria could not love every cat without loving her own, assuming that she has one. This would not be an ordinary entailment, since the first sentence could be true while the second is undefined on account of a presupposition failure; loving every cat would not guarantee that she owns a cat. Strawson entailment has played an important role in semantic theory since some natural language expressions have been argued to be sensitive to Strawson-entailment rather than pure entailment. For instance, the textbook theory of weak negative polarity items holds that they are licensed only in Strawson-downward entailing environments. Oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speech Act
In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pass them to me?" is considered a speech act as it expresses the speaker's desire to acquire the mashed potatoes, as well as presenting a request that someone pass the potatoes to them. According to Kent Bach, "almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience". The contemporary use of the term "speech act" goes back to J. L. Austin's development of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts serve their function once they are said or communica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homogeneity (linguistics)
In formal semantics, homogeneity is the phenomenon where plural expressions that seem to mean "all" negate to "none" rather than "not all". For example, the English sentence "Robin read the books" requires Robin to have read all of the books, while "Robin didn't read the books" requires her to have read none of them. Neither sentence is true if she read exactly half of the books. Homogeneity effects have been observed in a variety of languages including Japanese, Russian, and Hungarian language, Hungarian. Semanticists have proposed a variety of explanations for homogeneity, often involving a combination of presupposition, plural quantification, and trivalent logics. Because analogous effects have been observed with conditional sentence, conditionals and other Modality (linguistics), modal expressions, some semanticists have proposed that these phenomena involve pluralities of possible worlds. Overview Homogeneous interpretations arise when a plural expression seems to mean "a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entailment (pragmatics)
Linguistic entailments are entailments which arise in natural language. If a sentence ''A'' entails a sentence ''B'', sentence ''A'' cannot be true without ''B'' being true as well. For instance, the English sentence "Pat is a fluffy cat" entails the sentence "Pat is a cat" since one cannot be a fluffy cat without being a cat. On the other hand, this sentence does not entail "Pat chases mice" since it is possible (if unlikely) for a cat to not chase mice. Entailments arise from the semantics of linguistic expressions. Entailment contrasts with the pragmatic notion of implicature. While implicatures are fallible inferences, entailments are enforced by lexical meanings plus the laws of logic. Entailments also differ from presuppositions, whose truth is taken for granted. The classic example of a presupposition is the existence presupposition which arises from definite descriptions. For example, the sentence "The king of France is bald" presupposes that there is a king of France. Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Focus (linguistics)
In linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ..., focus ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical category that conveys which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. In the English language, English sentence "Mary only insulted BILL", focus is expressed Prosody (linguistics), prosodically by a pitch accent (intonation), pitch accent on "Bill" which identifies him as the only person whom Mary insulted. By contrast, in the sentence "Mary only INSULTED Bill", the verb "insult" is focused and thus expresses that Mary performed no other actions towards Bill. Focus is a cross-linguistic phenomenon and a major topic in linguistics. Research on focus spans numerous subfields including phonetics, syntax, semantics (linguistics), semantics, pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
