Our task is to reconcile several Striking Facts about language …

1

• Our task is to reconcile several Striking Facts
  about language
• Striking fact (a) If someone utters a sentence
  and you know which proposition her utterance
  expresses, then its likely that you will also
  understand which propositions other utterances of
  the same sentences express
• Striking fact (b) Linguistic abilities are
  systematicsomeone who understands an utterance
  of Leo ate John can probably also understand an
  utterance of John ate Leo
• Striking fact (c) Linguistic abilities are
  productivewe can understand utterances of an
  indefinitely large range of sentences we have
  never heard before. Example John ate Leo who
  ate Ayesha who ate
• Striking fact (d) Utterances of a sentence can be
  used to communicate an open-ended range of
  messages.
• Striking fact (e) Any fact can be relevant to
  determining which message an utterance
  communicates.

2

• an intuitive distinction.
• YOU How do you like the conference?
• ME The coffee is good.
• Intuitively, the proposition the utterer means
  to convey is about the quality of the conference,
  and she communicates this by means of an
  utterance which expresses a proposition about the
  coffee.
• proposition the utterer means to conveythe
  conference is not good
• proposition the utterance expressesthe coffee is
  good

3

• How can this distinction help us to reconcile
  the Striking Facts and so understand something
  about what makes communication by language
  possible?
• In outline, the idea will be that the
  distinction enables us to break down our task
  into two parts. First we explain how knowing the
  meaning of a sentence enables one to know which
  proposition any utterance of that sentence
  expresses. This should be comparatively easy
  because it will turn out that the meaning of a
  sentence is closely related to the proposition an
  utterance of that sentence expresses. Second, we
  explain how knowing which proposition an
  utterance expresses enables one to know what the
  utterer means to convey.

4

• we need two things
• (a) a rigorous account of the distinction between
  the proposition an utterance expresses and the
  proposition the utterer means to convey,
• and
• (b) an account of how knowing which proposition
  an utterance expresses enables one to know what
  an utterer means to convey.
• We can get both of these things from Grices
  co-operative principle.

5

• from Intolerable Cruelty
• MILES
• What do you want?
• MARYLIN
• I want to nail your ass.
• I'm reporting you to the IRS.
• MILES
• Did our marriage ever mean anything to you?
• MARYLIN
• Drop the bogus forgery charge and I'll forget
  about your generous friends slash clients.
• MILES
• That's blackmail.
• MARYLIN
• That's marriage.

6

• Cooperative Principle Make your conversational
  contribution such as is required, at the stage at
  which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
  direction of the talk exchange in which you are
  engaged. (26)
• Quantity
• 1. Make your contribution as informative as is
  required (for the current purposes of the
  exchange).
• 2. Do not make your contribution more informative
  than is required. (25)
• Qualitytry to make your contribution one that
  is true
• 1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
• 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate
  evidence. (27)
• Relationbe relevant
• MannerBe perspicuous
• 1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
• 2. Avoid ambiguity.
• 3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
• 4. Be orderly. (27)

7

• Do the Maxims identify the sense in which
  conversation is cooperative?
• This can be broken down into two parts.
• (a) Are the maxims necessary for cooperationis
  every violation of a maxim a failure to
  cooperate?
• (b), Are the maxims sufficient for
  cooperationdo failures to be conversationally
  co-operative involve violating at least one of
  these Maxims?

8

• With respect to (b), here is a conversation
  which is uncooperative, and yet no Maxim is
  obviously violated (from Intolerable Cruelty)
• MILES I'll have the tournedos of beef. And the
  lady will have the same?
• (To Marylin)
• I assume you're a carnivore.
• MARYLIN I know you do.
• Marylins contribution is informative, truthful,
  relevant and perspicuous. Yet it is clearly
  uncooperative she is wresting the conversation
  away from Miles direction.

9

• Quantity (be informative)
• MONICA Is your tongue swelling up?
• ROSS Either that or my mouth is getting smaller.
  
• Ross violates Quantity (be informative) by
  saying something which is uninformative. Its
  funny but hinders conversation.

10

• not all violations of this type appear to be
  uncooperative
• JOEY Oh mommie, oh daddie, I am a big old
  baddie! Oh mommie, oh daddie, I am a big old
  baddie!
• ROSS I guess he musta gotten the part in that
  play.
• CHANDLER Yeah, either that, or Gloria Estefan
  was right, eventually, the rhythm is going to get
  you.
• Chandler is violating a Maxim by not being
  informative but is he being uncooperative? Its
  hard to say because his conversation with Ross
  has no obvious accepted purpose or direction.

11

• This raises illustrates a feature of the Maxims.
  
• When the Maxim of Quality tells us to be
  informative, it cant mean that our utterances
  have to be informative when taken at face value.
  It must mean that what we mean to convey by those
  utterances must be informative.

12

• Quality (try to make your contribution one that
  is true)
• CHANDLER All right, look, look. What did...
  what did you get for Angela Delveccio for her
  birthday?
• JOEY She didn't have a birthday while we were
  going out.
• CHANDLER For three years?
• He does believe this but hes not trying to be
  truthful. Actually, this is not a very good
  example because Joey is not that bright.
• ROSS No big deal? Right?
• JOEY Right. No big deal.
• ROSS Okay.
• JOEY In Bizarro World!!
• Joey violates Quality (be truthful) and also
  Manner (unorderly) in order to emphasise his
  view.

13

• Relation (be relevant)
• RACHEL Monica, what is so amazing? I gave up,
  like, everything. And for what?
• PHOEBE You are just like Jack.
• RACHEL ... Jack from downstairs?
• PHOEBE No, Jack and the Beanstalk.
• MONICA Ah, the other Jack.
• Phoebes contribution is inappropriate because
  it violates the maxim of Relation (be relevant).
  Its practically impossible to have a
  conversation with Phoebe in this mood.

14

• In summary the Maxims may capture a sense in
  which conversation is co-operative to this
  extent violations of the Maxims appear to be
  uncooperative. My discussion has not been very
  conclusive. What Ive tried to do is mainly to
  provoke you into thinking carefully about the
  question for yourself. But two points have
  emerged that will be important later
• 1. To maintain this conclusion, we have to
  recognise that the Maxims apply to what utterers
  mean to convey in speaking and not to their
  utterances when taken at face value.
• 2. We may also have to recognise that doing
  things which are uncooperative can be a means to
  being cooperative.

15

• observance of the Cooperative Principle and
  maxims is reasonable (rational) along the
  following lines that anyone who cares about the
  goals that are central to conversation/communicati
  on (such as giving and receiving information,
  influencing and being influenced by others) must
  be expected to have an interest, given suitable
  circumstances, in participation in talk exchanges
  that will be profitable only on the assumption
  that they are conducted in general accordance
  with the Cooperative Principle and the maxims.
  Grice (30)

16

• 1. Certain goals are central to
  conversation--communicating information,
  influencing and perhaps also entertaining
  certainly there are others.
• 2. Some conversations have a certain
  featurethey will be profitable only on the
  assumption that they are conducted in general
  accordance with the Cooperative Principle and the
  maxims.
• 3. If someone cares about the goals mentioned in
  (1), she must be expected to have an interest in
  taking part in conversations with the feature
  identified in (2).

17

• Conversational Implicature
• Consider an example (from Fargo)
• MARGE
• Where is everybody?
• LOU
• Well - it's cold, Margie.

18

• 1. Theres reason to presume that Lou is being
  cooperative.
• 2. Unless Lou thought that coldness were the
  reason why everybody is not here yet, Lous
  contribution would violate Quantity and Relation
  and so fail to be cooperative.
• 3. Lou thinks, and would expect Marge to
  realise he thinks, that Marge can work out that
  (2).
• Grice, 1989 527_at_301

19

• Grice calls the proposition that Marges
  colleagues are not there because its cold a
  conversational implicature. Here is the core of
  Grices theory of implicature
• to calculate a conversational implicature is to
  calculate what has to be supposed in order to
  preserve the supposition that the //p. 40//
  Cooperative Principle is being observed (3940)
• So the core idea is that a conversational
  implicature is an assumption you need to make in
  order to for it to be true that a speaker is
  sticking to C.P.

20

• In short, in some conversations supposing that
  the utterer is being cooperative requires us to
  make certain assumptions about what they think.
  Where there is reason to suppose that they are in
  fact being cooperative, these assumptions are
  conversationally implicated by their utterances.
  This gives us a mechanism by which it is possible
  to use utterances to convey propositions which do
  not correspond to anything in the meanings of
  sentences.

21

• Schematically, heres the picture were aiming
  for
• the meaning of the sentence
• determines
• the proposition the utterance expresses
• combines with the supposition that the utter is
  cooperative to determine
• the proposition the utterer means to convey

22

• The key idea for today is that we can get from
  the proposition an utterance expresses to the
  proposition the utterer means to convey by
  asking, Why would a cooperative speaker express
  the proposition that she has had breakfast? The
  answer to this question tells us what the
  utterance conversationally implicates.
• The key to Grices account of conversational
  implicature is the move away from a purely formal
  conception of linguistic communication to a
  conception which incorporates the fact that are
  intentional actions which occur in the course of
  conversations and are linked to presumptions
  about cooperation.

23

• Exercise Find at least one violation of each of
  the the Maxims in this a conversation (from
  Fargo)
• MARGE Okay, I want you to tell me what these
  fellas looked like.
• HOOKER ONE Well, the little guy, he was kinda
  funny-looking.
• MARGE In what way?
• HOOKER ONE I dunno. Just funny-looking.
• MARGE Can you be any more specific?
• HOOKER ONE I couldn't really say. He wasn't
  circumcised.
• MARGE Was he funny-looking apart from that?
• HOOKER ONE Yah.
• MARGE Is there anything else you can tell me
  about him?
• HOOKER ONE No. Like I say, he was
  funny-looking. Moren most people even.
• MARGE And what about the other fella?
• HOOKER TWO He was a little older. Looked like
  the Marlboro man.
• MARGE Yah?
• HOOKER TWO Yah. Maybe I'm sayin' that cause he
  smoked Marlboros.
• MARGE Uh-huh.
• HOOKER TWO A subconscious-type thing.
• MARGE Yah, that can happen.