Language Meaning and Use: Pragmatics

How we can convey more than what we literally say.

pic 1. Bloom county

1. Literal content and utterance meaning.
Literal meaning of words and sentences
Truth conditional content
Utterance meanings
Pragmatics:
Those Aspects of utterance meaning that do not follow
directly from the literal meanings of words and their
combination
Information that requires instantiation in the context of
utterance
Information that refers to speaker, hearer, utterance time,
place etc.
Aspects of Meaning that are derived from Speaker-Hearer
interaction
Aspects of Meaning that refer to previous discourse

Specific Views of the Notion of Utterance Context

Context as Utterance Situation
I am here now.
a big mouse
everybody was satisfied
Context as Common World Knowledge
(1) It stopped raining
(2) It did not stop raining
(3) It is not raining

pic. 2: Hoffa
(4) A: Did you do the laundry?
B: Yes. I even stuffed the dirty clothes into the washing
machine.

 Context as Common Knowledge about Previous

Discourse
(5) A man came in. He was furious.
(6) Every man who has a son considers him a genius.
the others, a different, else, the next, ...
(7) I have a different idea.
(8) I have an idea.
(9) The killer was Jones. / Der Mrder war Jones.
(10) The true killer was Jones. / Der eigentliche Mrder war
Jones.
Context as Speaker intention, Hearer interpretation, and
feedback between the two
(11) Some politicians are not corrupt.
(12) There are some spots on the sofa.
(13) There are some politicians who are not corrupt.
(14) Men are men.
(15) A rose is a rose (is a rose)
(16) Rose started the car.
(17) Rose caused the car to start.
(18) Rose knows whether she is pregnant.
(19) Rose knows that she is pregnant.

 Contexts as Situations of Human Interaction

(20) I hereby declare you Husband and Wife.
(21) I hereby do not declare you Husband and Wife.

(23) Wilbur and Manfred

Cross-Categorical Effects (Syntax-Pragmatics Interface)
(24) Now I have shown you every honourable politician in
our town.
a. with 3 politicians
b. with 1 politician
(25) Now I have shown you every oldest politician in town.
(26) Ich kenne einen eigentlichen Chef der Firma.
(27) In den Film bringen mich 10 Pferde rein.
(28) I will ever go to this movie.
Contexts as Models for Future Language Use
(29) John left while Sue was singing O sole mio.
(30) Allie is going to study at Stanford.

Lecture Language Meaning and Use - Pragmatics.

21.10. Introduction
28.10. *Saying and Meaning: Grice
4.11. *Saying and Meaning: Refinements (Neo-Gricean
Approaches)
11.11. Indexicality (Kaplan)
18.11. *Presuppositions: Assessing the problem.
25.11. Discourse structure
2.12. *Presuppositions in Discourse
9.12. Bidirectional Optimality Theory
16.12. BiOT and Language Acquisition
6.1.
*Speech Acts
13.1. Questions under Debate
20.1. Particles
27.1. The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface
3.2.
Summary
* = examination topics in pragmatics.
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