Pragmatics: Implicature

What is said and what is meant: These are not always the same thing. The reasons for what
we say and the implications of what we say matter. Also, what we say is often ambiguous,
over-general or uninformative, when considered out of particular contexts. So, understanding
utterances involves much more than ‘decoding’ the language used

Cooperative Principle
Make your contribution such as is required at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted
purpose/ direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.
. Maxim of quality
– 1. not false
– 2. not lacking evidence.
Mita has got a first class (but I don’t believe she has)
Maxim of quantity
– 1. as informative as required for the current purposes of exchange.
– 2 do not make your contribution more informative as is required for the
current purpose of exchange.\
• Bimal has 3 children (and 5 children in total)
Maxim of relevance
Make your contribution relevant
– Pass the salt (now)
Maxim of manner
1. avoid obscurity
2. avoid ambiguity
3. be brief
4. be orderly
open the door
walk up to the door, turn the door handle clockwise as far as it will go, and then pull
gently towards you
Flouting and Exploitations
 Quality
– Did Grice develop the theory of speech act.
– Yes, and Tagore wrote Romeo and Juliet.
 Quantity
 – I am what I am
 Relevance
– This class is so boring, isn’t it?
– It’s so hot today
Types of implicatures
Conventional implicature is non-truth-conditional meaning associated with a particular
linguistic expression
 not based on cooperative principle or maxims
• encoded in the lexicon or grammar
• not dependent on context for their interpretations
Gopal is poor but honest. (contrast)
Coversational implicatures -Inferred via the cooperative principle or maxims (observed,
violated or flouted)
A: I am out of petrol.
B: There is a garage around the corner
Generalized conversational implicatures
 independent of the context
– Indefinites
A car ran over John’s foot. (not John’s car / not the speaker’s car)
– Scalar implicatures: communicated by choosing a word expressing a value
from a scale (quantity, frequency, etc.)
I’m studying linguistics and I’ve completed some of the required courses (not
all)
Particularized conversational implicatures
• dependent on a specific context
Where is the fish fry ?
The cat looks happy. (flouting relevance)
Properties of Conversational implicature
Non-conventional: A conversational implicature is not intrinsically associated with any
expression.
Context dependent: Different implicatures arise in different contexts, even if an identical
utterance is produced
 Cancellable (or defeasible) Since a conversational implicature is not an essential part
of the meaning of what is said, but is rather inferred above and beyond this, it can be
explicitly cancelled.
– I’ve read some of those books. >>(have not read them all)
– … in fact, unlike you, I’ve read them all.
 Non-detachable (usually). you don’t lose the implicature by substituting paraphrases.
– Gopal is exceptionally clever.
– Gopal is a big brain.
– Gopal is very intelligent
 Calculable : by adherence to or flouting/exploitation of the cooperative principle and
the maxims
– S saying p conversationally implicates q iff:
i) S is presumed to be observing the maxims, or at least (in case of flouting) the cooperative
principle
ii) In or to maintain this assumption it must be supposed that S thinks that q
iii ) S thinks that both S and the addressee H mutually know that H can work out that to
preserve the assumption in (i) q is in fact required.