They are inferences that depend on the

Definition existence of comunicational norms for the

use of language.

Try to be truthful when comunicating

Quality b. Y to X: “What’s the evidence for that?”

a. X to Y: “The Greens will get more votes in

Example
the next election.”

c. Y to Z: “X believes that, come election

time, the Greens will get more votes.”

Give appropriate amounts of information,

not too little and not too much.
a. “Are you from America?” b. “No” followed
Quantity Example of low end: by silence +> ‘I am not willing to talk to you
any further

Implicature from the quantity maxim

Conversational implicature
There are sets of words that can be ranked
I believe … +> ‘I’m not certain enough to say
Comunicational norms according to informativeness (for instance
that I know …’
excellent > good > OK)
Utterances should be clear: brief, orderly and
not obscure

Manner

a. Helen switched the lights off. b. Helen

‘What is said in an abnormal way indicates
Implicatures from manner caused the lights to go off. +> ‘She did it in an
an abnormal situation’
unusual way’

Contributions should be relevant to the

assumed current goals of the people
involved.

Relevance
“What’s the date?” can reasonably be
answered “Early nineteenth century” if the
Implicature from relevance questioner is interested in something that
you know to be a relic from Napoleonic
Pragmatics

times.
Contrast between relevance- and quantity-
General points about implicature
maxim implicatures depend on scales.

Presuppositions are not affected by negation

Presuppositions distinguished from of the asserted part of a sentence, and
entailment questioning the main drift of a sentence
leaves the presuppositions intact too.
Presuppositions

Using tell to report gleaning information

The tell test from someone when that information was
presupposed is misleading.

Basic units of linguistic interaction – such as

give a warning to, greet, apply for, tell what,
Definition
confirm an appointment – (the acts, not the
labels)

When a sentence type is used in the

Indirect speech acts performance of speech acts different from
their default kind

Syntax and wirds that indicate speech act Interrogative constructions have questioning
type as their central use.
Speech acts

Orders are the speech acts carried by

utterances based on imperative sentences

Propositions carried by the speech act,

Content presupposed by it or in some other way
involved

Content and force in speech acts

The different ways the content propositions

Force
are involved in speech acts.