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Ewa Mioduszewska-Crawford www.rrt2.neostrada.pl/ewamioduszewska.htm

# 165 Introduction to Semantics http://rrt2.neostrada.pl/mioduszewska/

Mail: e.mioduszewska@uw.edu.pl

Aim

The aim of the course is to introduce basic data (intuitions about meaning) and problems of
semantics, as opposed to pragmatics as well as to give a survey of most important solutions
offered in contemporary Anglo-American linguistic literature.

Reading list

1. Grice, P. 1989. Study in the Way of Words. MIT Press.

2. Grice, P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In: (1)
3. Grice, P. 1978. Further notes on logic and conversation. In: (1)
4. Grundy, P. 1995. Doing pragmatics. Edward Arnold.
5. Horn, L.R., G. Ward. 2004. The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.
6. Hurford, J.B. Heasley. 1983. Semantics. CUP.
7. Leech, G. 1974. Semantics. Longman
8. Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. CUP.
9. Lyons, J. 1977.Semantics. CUP.
10.Thomas, J. 1995.Meaning in Interaction. Oxford: OUP.
11. Yule, P. 1997. Pragmatics. Longman

Topics

1. Intuitions about meaning (handout)

2. Seven types of meaning (7)
3. Communicating the meaning – coding model of communication – criticism. (10, 11)
4. P. Grice’s theory of communication (2,3)
5. P. Grice’s system of sentential inferences (1,2,3)
6. The semantics/pragmatics distinction (4,5,6,10,11)
7. Basic notions of semantics (7,8,9,10))

Requirements

1. Midterm test
2. Follow-up exercises in class
3. Final test

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Topic 1. Intuitions about meaning

1. Analyticity
Cats are animals
Bachelors are unmarried
John’ s nine year old brother is a boy
Cats are not vegetables
If it breaks it breaks

2. Syntheticity
Cats never live longer than twenty years
Bachelors are lonely
John’s brother is nine years old
Cats are not dangerous
If it breaks, you’ll have to mend it

3. Contradictoriness
a) Cats never live longer than 20 years
Cats live longer than 20 years
b) Bachelors are lonely
Bachelors are not lonely
c) John’s only brother is nine years old now
John’ s only brother is not nine years old now

4. Contradiction
Cats are vegetables
Bachelors are female
John’ s nine year old brother is a girl
If it breaks, it doesn`t break

5. Hyponymy = meaning inclusion = super-ordination/subordination of meaning

Superordinate Hyponyms
cnota: uczciwość. lojalność,...
koń: klacz, źrebię, ogier,...
flower: rose, tulip,...

6. Synonymy
mother - female parent; pavement - sidewalk; oculist - eye-doctor

7. Paraphrase
John opened the door = The door was opened by John
They say John is clever = John is said to be clever

8. Antonymy = incompatibility of meaning

Binary: married - unmarried; dead-alive
Gradable: hot-cold; long-short
Incompatibles: breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper; days of the week

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Converses: borrow-lend; own-belong to; below-above

9. Homonymy: bank, bark, punch, mina

10.Homophony: meat, meet.

11.Homography: lead

12. Literal talk

Mary: Where’s the car, John?
John: The car is in the garage.

13. Loose talk

Mary lives 3 km out of the city limits of Paris. She is at a party in London. She doesn’t know
Peter.
Peter: Where do you live?
Mary: I live in Paris

14. Polysemy: fork, tail, lip, maska

15. Metaphors (speaking of one thing in terms of another)

Jeremy is a lion.
You are a piglet

16. Hyperbole (overstatement)

Sam is the nicest person there is

17. Litotes (understatement)

Context: John saved your family and your belongings from a fire.
You: John behaved rather nice.

18. Metonymy (using the name of one thing to refer to another if the two things are somehow
related, e.g. source-product; cause-effect)
You should read Mickiewicz
The whole world is singing

19. Synecdoche (type of metonymy; the relation between the things is that of part and whole)
They were afraid of his iron (=arms)
Ma 20 wiosen (= lat)

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Topic 2. Semantics: Intuitions about meaning - Seven types of meaning

conceptual, connotative, stylistic, affective, reflected, collocative, thematic

a) conceptual = denotative = cognitive

- contrastiveness: +/- human, +/- male, +/- adult. Cf. woman, girl, boy, man
- constituent structure = compositionality: Cf. John killed a man vs John killed a
woman
b) connotative: community and time relative, not limited to language
- woman: (biped, having a womb), subject to maternal instinct, experienced in
cookery, prone to tears, gentle, hard working
c) stylistic: social circumstances of language use - idiolects, dialects, time, channel,
number of participants, subject matter, status (politeness)
- steed, horse
d) affective: emotional expression through style
e) reflected:
-The Comforter - warm; the Holy Ghost - admiration
- taboo contamination
f) collocative: pretty versus handsome
-* pretty airliner
g) thematic - functional sentence perspective

Topic 3. Semantics: Communicating the meaning: coding-decoding model of

communication – criticism

a) literal talk
b)loose talk
c)metaphor, hyperbole, litotes, metonymy, synecdoche
d)irony, sarcasm
f)connotative meaning

3a. Speaker’s meaning versus language meaning

conventional - non-conventional; literal - non-literal; explicit - implicit; said -

implied
a) I’ll come tomorrow - referents assignment
b)Bill is tall - vague terms, scalar terms
c)Betsy’s gift made her very happy - ambiguity (structural, homonymy, polysemy)
d)What an honest fellow John is - irony
e) You’re leaving - speech acts
f) My family and other animals - implicatures
g) Some people believe in justice
h) I’ve got 100 PLN in the bank
i) A. When will tea be ready?
B. The kettle’s boiling
j) Nice day!
k) The flag is white
l) A: Is John already in ?

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B: It’s five o’clock

m) They washed and went to bed
n) Durham is in Durham
o) You’re the cream in my coffee

3 b. Sentences, utterances, propositions

a) An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which there is
silence on the part of that person. An utterance is the USE by a particular speaker, on
a particular occasion, of a piece of language, such as a sequence of sentences, or a
single phrase, or even a single word

b) A sentence is neither a physical event nor a physical object,. It is, conceived

abstractly, a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language. A
sentence can be thought of as the ideal string of words behind various realizations in
utterances and inscriptions

We adopt the convention that anything written between double quotation marks
represents an utterance, and anything underlined represents a sentence or (similarly
abstract) part of a sentence, such as a phrase or a word.

c) A proposition is that part of the meaning of the utterance of a declarative sentence

which describes some state of affairs. True propositions correspond to facts, in the
ordinary sense of the word fact. False propositions do not correspond to facts. One
can entertain propositions in the mind regardless of whether they are true or false,
e.g. by thinking them or believing them. Only true propositions can be known

- Pamela considered the fact that her mother was alive and realized that it could not
possibly be true
- Pamela considered the proposition that her mother was alive and realized that it
could not possibly be true

Propositions can be asserted or mentioned. Corresponding declaratives,

interrogatives and imperatives have the same propositional content.

Examples:
a) A: Jerzy dzwonił, że nie będzie na naszym ślubie.
B: Co to znaczy?
b) A: Odchodzę.
B: Co to ma znaczyć?
Speaker` s meaning: what he means
Language meaning: what language means
Questions:
1. Which meaning is „more important”?
2. Which meaning may be written down in dictionaries?
3. Can there be a full discrepancy between the two types of meaning?
4. Which meaning is a precondition for which?

proposition: - Harry took out the garbage.

Harry took the garbage out.

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- Mary loves John.

John loves Mary.
- Dr Brown killed Mary.
Dr Brown caused Mary to die.
states of affairs, facts
asserting and mentioning a proposition --- propositional content
Have you seen my toothbrush?
Go away, will you?
Pigs might fly.
I` m a Dutchman.
Mary was given a book by John.
A book was given to Mary by John.
John gave Mary a book.
It was a book that John gave to Mary.
Janek dał Marii książkę.

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Topic 4. Semantics: Communicating the meaning. Paul Grice’s Theory of

Communication

The Cooperative Principle (CP)

Make your 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.

The Maxims

Quality:
Try to make your contribution one that is true
(i) do not say what you believe to be false
(ii) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
Quantity
(i) make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of
the exchange
(ii) do not make your contribution more informative than is required
Relevance
make your contribution relevant
Manner
(i) avoid obscurity
(ii)avoid ambiguity
(iii) be orderly

I. Observing the maxims

A: I’ve just run out of petrol

B1. You can get petrol in a garage around the corner
B2: Oh, there’s a garage just around the corner
II. Flouting (exploiting) the maxims

A. Let’s get the kids something

B. OK but I veto I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M-S
III. Maxim clash (quality versus quantity)

A. Where does John live?

B. In the south of France
IV. Opting out

A. What’s John’s surname?

B. I won’t tell you
V. Violating the maxims

Context: John’s surname is Brown

A. What’s John’s surname?
B. Smith

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Standard Implicatures (observing the maxims)

1. Quality
A. John has two cows
>> I believe he has and have adequate evidence that he has
2.Quantity
A. John has 14 children
>> John has only 14 children
A. The flag is white
>> The flag is all white
3.Relevance
A. Pass the salt
>> Pass the salt now
A. Can you tell me the time?
B. Well, the milkman has come
>> It’s past 8 o’clock
4. Manner
A. The lone ranger jumped on his horse and rode into the sunset
A. Open the door
A. Walk up to the door, turn the door handle clockwise as far as it will go, and then
pull gently towards you.

Non-standard implicatures (flouting the maxims)

1. Quality
A. Queen Victoria is made of iron
A. Teheran is in Turkey, isn’t it Teacher?
B. And London’s in America, I suppose
2. Quantity
War is war
Either John will come or he won’t
If he does it, he does it
3. Relevance
A. I do think Mrs Jenkins is an awful bore, don’t you?
B. Huh, lovely weather for March, isn’t it?
4. Manner
Mrs. Singer produced a series of sounds corresponding closely to the score of an aria
from Tosca

Conversational implicatures:
a) Definition

S’s saying that p conversationally implicates q iff:

(i) S is presumed to be observing the maxims, or at least the CP (in the case of
maxim exploitation)
(ii) in order to maintain this assumption it must be supposed that S thinks that q
(iii) S thinks that both S and H mutually know that H can work out that to preserve
the assumption in (i) q is in fact required.

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b) Conditions on calculating the implicatures

For H to be able to calculate the implicature q, H must know or believe that he
knows
(i) the conventional content of the sentence p uttered
(ii) the Cooperative Principle and its maxims (tacit knowledge)
(iii) the context of p
(iv) certain bits of background information (e.g. that p is obviously false)
(v) (i)-(v) are mutual knowledge shared by S and H
c) General pattern for working out implicatures
(i) S has said that p
(ii) there is no reason to think that S is not observing the maxims, or at least the CP
(iii) in order for S to say that p and be indeed observing the CP, S must think that q
(iv) S must know that it is mutual knowledge that q must be supposed if S is to be
taken to be cooperating
(v) S has done nothing to stop H thinking that q
(vi) therefore S intends me to think that q and in saying that p he has implicated that
q

Examples

1. A. Where’s Bill?
B. There’s a yellow VW outside Sue’s house
2. John: Hello Sally, let’s play marbles
Mother: How’s your homework getting along Johnny?
3. Joe teased Ralph and Ralph hit him
4. Some of the boys went to the soccer match
5. Mary is in the dining room or in the kitchen
6. The tree wept in the wind
7. John is an eel
8. A. What kind of mood did you find the boss in?
B. The lion roared

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Topic 5: Communicating the meaning - the system of sentential inferences in Paul

Grice`s model of linguistic communication

I. Linguistic communication in P. Grice’s theory

Speaker communicated (the meaning intended by the sender)

Speaker said Speaker implicated

(semantics: explicit meaning (pragmatics: implicit meaning, inferential
coding-decoding communication) communication)

entailments implicatures

conventional conversational
(language based) (context based)

generalized particularized
(assumed linguistic context) (assumed extra-linguistic context)

Example:
A. Do you think that Mary loves Bill?
B. Well, his brother often asks her out to the cinema or to the theatre

1. Mary exists; Bill exists; Bill has a brother - entailments

2. „Well” ---- hesitation, doubt - conventional implicature
3. His brother does not always ask her out - < always, often, sometimes> generalized
implicature derived by the quantity maxim
4.He does not take her to the cinema and to the theatre at the same time <and, or> -
generalized implicature
5. I don`t think Mary loves Bill - particularized implicature
6. I think Mary loves Bill - particularized implicature (in a different context it might
change)

Features of various inferences: cancellability, calculability, truth-conditionality,

source

1. entailment: non-cancellable, non-calculable, truth-conditional, source: words or

sentence structure
e.g. John has 3 cows entails John exists; John has two cows

2. Conventional implicature: hardly cancellable, non-calculable, non-truth-

conditional, source: words (sometimes sentence structure)
e.g. John is an Englishman; therefore he is brave implies conventionally His being
brave follows from the fact that he is an Englishman

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items giving rise to conventional implicatures: but, therefore, even, yet, however,
moreover, anyway, well, still, furthermore, although, sir

3. Generalized implicatures: cancellable, calculable by the quantity maxim from

scales of expressions, non-truth-conditional.
e.g. Some boys went to the party implies Not all boys went to the party

Examples of scales of expressions underlying generalized implicatures

<all, most, many, some>; <succeed in, try to, want to>, <and, or>, <certain,
probable>, <love, like>, <must, should , may>, <excellent, good>, <hot, warm>,
<always, often, sometimes> , <(p and q), (p or q)>, <(since p, q), (if p ,q)>, <(a
knows p), (a believes p)>

4.Particularized implicatures: cancellable, calculable from extra-linguistic context,

non-truth-conditional
e.g. A. Is it a nice day today?
B. Take an umbrella implies It`s not a nice day today

A. I`m afraid of dogs

B. Take an umbrella implies Then you don`t have to be afraid

Analyzing examples

I. Specification of implicature types with justification

1. A. Where are your books?
B. My brother has hidden some of my books, so I won’t find them easily
a. I have a brother - entailment
b. I have some books - entailment
c. I won’t find my books easily because my brother hid them - conventional
d. My brother doesn’t like me - particularized
e. My brother hasn’t hidden all of my books - generalized

2. A. What do you think of Mark?

B. Well, boys are boys
a. Mark exists - entailment
b. B hesitates about answering - conventional

3. Mary’s sister has realized that her boyfriend was cheating on her
a. Mary exists, Mary has a sister, the sister has/had a boyfriend - entailments
b. Mary’s sister was cheating on her - entailment
c. Mary’s sister didn’t know that her boyfriend was cheating on her - entailment
d. Mary’s sister’s boyfriend was doing something „bad” - conventional
e. Mary’s sister is unhappy

4. A. Well, how was it?

B.. Even John managed to solve some of the problems.

a. John solved some of the problems - entailment

b. Some other people solved some of the problems as well - entailment or

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conventional implicature
c. It wasn’t expected of John to solve any of the problems - conventional
d. It was difficult for John to solve some of the problems - conventional
e. John didn’t solve all the problems - generalized
f. The exam was easy

II. What implicatures arise from the underlined utterances?

1. A. Do you have enough help from your children?

B. Sometimes they fail to do what I ask them to do
2.. A. When will you give us some tea?
B. The kettle has just started to boil.
3. A. Has anyone passed the test?
B. Nearly all of us tried hard.

III. What conventional implicatures arise from the presence of the underlined items?
1. A. What can I do for you, sir?
2. A. Anyway, I somehow managed to escape.
3. A. Mary is a republican but she is honest.
4. B. John spared me the trouble of talking to Peter.
5. B. John deprived me of the privilege of talking to Peter.

IV. Find at least two different particularized implicatures arising from the underlined utterance
a) in one context
b) in different contexts

1. A. Are you tired? B. I might have a cup of coffee.

2. A. Do you like jazz? B. I like the „Akwarium”

V. What scalar implicatures arise in connection with the following utterances?

1. I sometimes listen to jazz .
2. He believes, or rather knows that Mary is pregnant.
3. You should read Tolkien or Smullyan or both.
VI. Make sentences, the utterances of which will bring about generalized implicatures based
on the following scales:
1. <(necessarily p), (possibly p)>; 2. <(since p, q), (if p,q)>

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Topic 6. The semantics/pragmatics distinction. Accounting for what is said: semantics -

sense/intension, extension, reference; semantic structure of sentences: predicates and
referring expressions

The meaning of what is said (not implicated), that is language/conventional/explicit meaning

may be described in the form of entailment enumeration. The question then arises, how we
get entailments of sentences uttered. Before we try to answer this question, we must introduce
some terms necessary in a semantic theory in which entailments of sentences could be
described and explained.

SENSE/INTENSION: meaning within language; describing the meaning of a word or

sentence by means of other words or sentences (e.g. dictionary definitions)

REFERENCE: speaker’s act of connecting language with reality. Reference is utterance

specific. REFERENT is the part of reality pointed out by the speaker.
VARIABLE REFERENCE: the present Prime Minister, that girl
CONSANT REFERENCE: Poland, the Moon
Some language expressions cannot be used to refer: e.g. almost, probable, and, if
Exercise 1. Sense and reference contrasted
a) When Albert talks about „his former friend” he means me.
b) Daddy, what does „unique” mean?
c) „Purchase” has the same meaning as „buy”
d) If you look out of the window now, you`ll see what I mean.

EXTENSION: relation between language and reality (no speaker is necessary). Extension of a
language expression = that part of a reality that may be potentially referred to by a speaker.

Comparison of sense, reference and extension

sense reference extension
involves a set - - +
no utterance needed + - +
language related to - + +
world

Exercise 2. What is the sense, extension and reference of the following words: cat, happiness,
on, the

A REFERRING EXPRESSION is any expression used in an utterance to refer to something

or someone (or a clearly delimited collection of things or people), i.e. used with a particular
referent in mind
Examples: John, my uncle, the girl sitting on the wall, a man
The following are not referring expressions: and, under, send
Compare:1)- Nancy wants to marry a Norwegian
- Nancy married a Norwegian
a) A man is looking for you
b) He is a man
c) Forty buses have been withdrawn from service

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d) This engine has the power of forty buses

AN EQUATIVE SENTENCE is one used to state the identity of two referents of two referring
expressions, i.e. to assert that the two referring expressions have the same referent
Examples: a) John is the person in the corner
b) Henry the Eighth is the current president of the USA
c) Dr Jeckyl is Mr. Hyde
but not d) Cairo is a large city
e) Ted is an idiot

THE PREDICATOR of a simple declarative sentence is the word (or a group of words) which
does not belong to any of the referring expressions and which, of the remainder, makes the
most specific contribution to the meaning of the sentence.
Examples: a) Mummy is asleep
b) The white man loved the Indian maiden
c) I am hungry
d) Joe is in San Francisco
e) The Mayor is a crook
f) The Royal Scottish Museum is behind Old College

A PREDICATE is any word (or sequence of words) which can function as the predicator of a
sentence
Examples: dusty, drink, woman, you, Fred, about
Are all of the words predicates?

THE DEGREE of a predicate is a number indicating the number of referring expressions

(arguments) it is understood to have in a simple sentence
Examples: sneeze, die, murder, give
under, near, between
handsome, rotten, afraid, different
hero, brother

A GENERIC SENTENCE is a sentence in which a statement is made about a whole

unrestricted class of individuals
Examples: a) The whale is a mammal
b) Gentlemen prefer blondes

Exercise 3. Divide the following sentences into referring expressions and predicators
a) My friends gave me a wonderful present
b) The dog which you can see over there is big
c) Santa Claus visited me yesterday
d) Happiness is our goal

Topic 7: Accounting for what is said - basic theories of meaning

Before we show how entailments are extracted from sentences, we will have an overview of
basic approaches to meaning.

1. Dictionary definitions: meaning of a language expression is its sense.

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- how do we get dictionaries?

- who/what decides what a language expression means?
- public nature of meaning
- interrelations of dictionary definitions
* „ectomere” is a „blastomere that develops into ectoderm”
* vicious cirlce („divine”,”deity”, „proud”, „pride”)
- how do we get the meaning of sentences?
* dictionaries impossible
* rules of word-meaning combinations: where are they?
Positive solution: semantic primitives (e.g. Anna Wierzbicka` s „Lingua Mentalis” 1981)

2. Mental images: meaning of a language expression is our mental representation (in the
form of an image) of this expression.

- „Mona Lisa” --- image

- mental images of the same expression in different people differ: „lecture”
- mental images tend to be prototypical or idealized while meanings of words do not (eg
„bird” -- „ostrich”, „penguin”)
- there are words that do not evoke mental images (e.g. „forget”, „the”, „aspect”)
- what about mental images of sentences?
Problem: If a person from a very different culture learns the English word „bird”, does this
word change its meaning or does the learner change his mental image of bird?

3. Reference: meaning of a language expression is its referent

- Do words denoting non-existing entities („Winnie-the-Pooh”, „Santa Claus”, „unicorn”)

have no meaning?
- Do expressions denoting no entities („the”, „on”, aspectual „have”) have no meaning?
- Do „Morning Star” means the same as „Evening Star” and „Venus”
- What do sentences refer to?

4. Meaning and use: meaning of a language expression are the conditions of the
„appropriate” use of the expression.

- Speech Act theory

1. Speaker in saying something is involved in a
- mental act
- physical act
- speech act

2. Speech act may

a) convey information: assert
A. John has bad breath B: knows the fact
b) request information: asking
A. Who ate my porridge? B: answers
c) give orders: order
A. Shut up, you bubble brain B: obeys
d) make requests: request
A. Please, scratch my nose B: does

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e) make threats: warn

A. Do that again and I’ll kill you. B: refrains from doing
f) give warnings: warn
A. There’s a snake in the back of your car B: avoids the snake
g) make bets: I bet you
A. 5$ says that the Blues will beat the Browns B: accepts or refuses
h) give advice: advise
A. You ought to go to class at least once a quarter B: takes it

Speech Acts consist of:

* locution: saying things
* illocution: what we want to achieve in saying something
* perlocution: the effect our saying has on others

Some speech acts are syntactically marked:

* assertion: declarative
* question: interrogative
* order/request: imperative
- explicit illocution: performative verbs - I hereby promise to come at six
- felicity conditions: speech acts may go wrong by being situationally inappropriate:
I pronounce you man and wife
Each speech act has a set of felicity conditions associated with it: e.g.:
A. S questions H about P
1) S doesn’t know the truth about P
2) S wants to know the truth about P
3) S believes that H may be able to supply the information about P
B. S requests H to do A:
1) S believes A has not yet been done
2) S believes H is able to do A
3) S believes that H is willing to do A-type things for S
4) S wants A to be done

- Indirect speech acts:

Questions: I don` t know if John married Mary
I would like to know if John married Mary
Do you know if John married Mary?
Requests: The garbage isn` t out yet
Could you take out the garbage?
I would like you to take out the garbage

- A division of speech acts:

1. representatives
2. directives
3. commisives
4. expressives
5. declaratives

- Specification of a practical situation which must exist in order for a speaker to use a
particular type of utterance

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5. Truth-conditional approach: meaning of a sentence is its truth conditions. Meaning of a

word is its contribution to the truth-conditions of a sentence this word is a part of.

„What is sentence meaning? „ = „What do you know when you know what a sentence
means?”
Example: (a)Ronald Reagan is asleep

What would the world have to be like for this sentence to be true? The referent of the
referring expression „Ronald Reagan” would have to be in the extension of the predicate
„asleep”
To know the meaning of the sentence under (a), we have to know its truth conditions (=
entailments)

Problems:
a) Sentences with referring expressions having no referents:
1. Santa Claus is old
2. Winnie the Pooh likes honey
b) Sentences with different referring expressions having the same referent
1. I want to see the Morning star
2. I want to see the Evening Star
3. I want to see Venus
c) How do we get the meanings of the words, if entailments give us the meanings of whole
sentences?
1. Ronald Reagan is asleep
2. Ronald Reagan is awake
d) Problems with non-declaratives
1. Is Santa Claus old?
2. Show me the Morning Star
e) Problems with performative utterances
1. I pronounce you man and wife
2. I hereby promise that the test will be easy
3. May you be happy

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8. Intuitions about meaning in truth-conditional semantics

I.
1. Analyticity: Cats are animals
If it breaks, it breaks
2. Syntheticity: Cats never live longer than 20 years
If it breaks, you’ll have to mend it.
3. Contradictoriness: Bachelors are lonely
Bachelors are not lonely
4. Contradiction: Cats are vegetables
If it breaks, it doesn`t break
5. Hyponymy: animal (super-ordinate) --- cat (subordinate/hyponym)
6. Synonymy: oculist - eye-doctor
7. Paraphrase: John opened the door - The door was opened by John
8. Antonymy: married - unmarried; hot - cold; breakfast - lunch; borrow - lend
9. Loose talk: Peter: Where do you live?
Mary: I live in Paris
10. Polysemy: fork - widelec, rozwidlenie dróg; maska - w teatrze, do ochrony
11. Homonymy: bank
12. Tropes: metaphor, hyperbole, litotes, metonymy
13. Connotative, reflected meaning versus conceptual (denotative, cognitive) meaning

Entailment = truth-condition
X entails Y iff
(i) if X is true Y must be true
(ii) if Y is false X must be false

I. (5) Hyponymy
X: This cat is brown ----- Y: This animal is brown
A sentence containing a hyponym entails the sentence containing the super-ordinate (unless in
special contexts). The two sentences differ in that only that where one has the hyponym, the
other has the super-ordinate.
(6) Synonymy = mutual hyponymy
X: You must see an eye-doctor ----- You must see an oculist
Two sentences containing synonyms entail each other . The two sentences differ in that only
that where one has the first of the synonyms, the other has the next.
(7) Paraphrase = mutual entailment
X: John opened the door ---- Y: The door was opened by John
Paraphrases entail each other. Alternatively: they have the same entailments.
(1) Analyticity
a) Semantic: Cats are animals
In semantically analytic sentences, the relation between the syntactic subject and syntactic
predicator (expressed by semantic predicates) is that of hyponymy (so the subject entails the
predicator)
b) logical: If it breaks, it breaks
Translatable into logical tautology: If p, p
(4) Contradictions have no entailments
(5) Contadictoriness
Conjoined contradictory sentences result in contradiction:
Bachelors are lonely and bachelors are not lonely
(8) Antonymy

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a) John is married and John is unmarried

b) This soup is cold and this soup is hot
c) I’m having breakfast now and I’m having dinner now
d) I borrowed this book from you and I lent this book to you
Sentences differing by antonyms only are contradictory. If conjoined, they result in
contradiction, thus having no entailments.
(10) = (11) Homonymy = polysemy
I went to the bank1 has different entailments if compared with I went to the bank2
Potrzebuję maski1 has different entailments if compared with Potrzebuję maski2
(2) Syntheticity
No restrictions on entailments apart from
(i) the claim that there are some entailments
(ii) the restrictions following from the translations of such sentences into their logical form
Loose talk, tropes and 4 out of seven types of meaning: not accounted for in truth-conditional
semantics

Truth-conditional semantics: conclusions

1. Literal talk (language meaning)
2. Language meaning = speaker’s meaning
3. Truth-conditional semantics doesn’t tell us all about meaning
4. Distinction: semantics - pragmatics
5. Distinction: linguistic competence - communicative competence
6. Modularity of the mind
7. Formalism allowed and favored: precision, double checking, regularity and pattern tracing,
comparisons, universality
7a. Formalism: do we invent or discover it
7b. Formalism: inherent to our minds or a burden to them

(9) Additional topic 1

Accounting for what is said - autonomous view of semantics and meaning

How do we get entailments in truth-conditional semantics?

(i)
OBJECT LANGUAGE (a fragment of English)
1. Jo laughed
2. The cat was poisoned by Ethel

SYNTACTIC DESCRIPTION OF THE OBJECT LANGUAGE

1. S ---- NP1 Vi [+FIN]
2. S ---- NP1 was Vt [+PAS] by NP2
3. NP ---- Npr
4. NP ----- the-N

(1-4) are context-free phrase structure rules

LEXICON

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1. Npr --- {Ethel, Jo}

2. N ----- {cat}
Vi[+FIN] ------ {laughed}
Vt[+PAS] ---- {laughed}

LEXICAL INSERTION RULE

In the derivation you have to replace the terminal nodes with the lexical items of matching
categories
DERIVATION
Jo laughed
- by rule 1: S --- NP1 Vi[+FIN]
- by rule 3: S --- Npr1 Vi[+FIN]
- by lexical insertion rule: S --- Jo laughed!
The derivation tree
S

NP1 Vi[+FIN]

Npr laughed
Jo

The cat was poisoned by Ethel

- by rule 2 : S --- NP1 was Vt[+PAS] by NP2
- by rule 4 : S ---- the-N1 was Vt[+PAS] by NP2
- by rule 3 : S --- the-N1 was Vt[+PAS] by Npr2
- by lexical insertion rule: S --- the cat was poisoned by Ethel
the derivation tree
S

NP1 was Vt[+PAS] by NP2

the N Npr2
cat poisoned Ethel
(ii)
Determining the meaning of the object language sentences:
Metalanguage: propositional language Lp - syntax
Categories:
- e: individual expressions (denoting referents of referring expressions)
- Pred1: one-place predicates
- Pred 2: two-place predicates
- Pred3: three-place predicates
- t: formulae
Formation rule: t ----- Predn(e1,e2,...,en), 0< n
Metalanguaeg: propositional language Lp - interpretation
1.Model (ontology)
E: MAN1, WOMAN1, CAT, DOG
2. Denotation assignment function (attaching names to individuals, attaching extensions to
predicates)
a) individuals
- MAN1 ---- jo`

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-WOMAN1 --- -- ethel`, golfer`

- CAT --- cat`, prudence`
- DOG --- dog`, chester
b) predicates
PRED1 laugh` --- {MAN1, WOMAN1}
PRED1 run ----- {DOG, CAT}
PRED2 poison` --- {<DOG, CAT>}
3. Specifying the truth-conditions in the propositional language
a) A formula PRED1(e) is true with respect to a model iff the entity denoted by e in the model
is a member of the set of entities denoted by PRED1 in the model. The formula is false
otherwise
b) A formula PRED2(e1,e2) is true with respect to a model iff the ordered pair <E1,E2> is in
the set of ordered pairs denoted by PRED2 in the model, where E1 is the entity denoted by e1
and E2 is the entity denoted by e2 in the model. The formula is false otherwise
(iii)
TRANSLATING FROM THE OBJECT LANGUAGE TO THE METALANGUAGE
Translation procedure
1. Category matching
NP, Npr, the-N === e
Vi === PRED1
Vt ==== PRED2
S === t
2. Rule matching
rule 2: S --- NP1 Vi[+FIN] === t --- PRED1(e1)
rule 3: S --- NP1 was Vt [+PAS] by NP2 === t ---- PRED2(e2,e1)
3. Word matching
Ethel === ethel`
Jo === jo`
laughed === laugh`
poisoned === poison`
cat === cat`
(iv)
Establishing the meaning of the English sentences:
1. Jo laughed
Pred1(e1) --- laugh`(jo`)
By the truth-condition 1, the meaning of this sentence is: there is an entity denoted by jo` in
the model. This entity {MAN1} is in the extension of the predicate laugh`, which is {MAN1,
WOMAN1}. Accidentally, the sentence happens to be true in our model, which has nothing to
do with its meaning.
2. The cat was poisoned by Ethel
PRED2(e2,e1) ---- poison`(ethel`, cat`)
By the truth-condition 2, the meaning of this sentence is: there is an ordered pair of entities
E1, E2 such that E1 is denoted by ethel`, e.i. it is WOMAN1, and E2 is denoted by cat`, i.e. it
is CAT. This ordered pair of entities is in the extension of the predicate poison`, which is
{<DOG, CAT>}. Accidentally, the sentence happens to be false, but it has nothing to do with
its meaning.

(10) Additional topic 2

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Accounting for what is said – non-autonomous view of semantics and meaning

American cognitive linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics: prototypical categorization

1. How do we establish truth-conditions of the sentences:

a) x is a woman
b) x is a cup
c) x is a mug
d) x is a game
Conclusion: In the sentences b-d it is impossible

2. How do we know what cup, mug, game mean?

a. Family resemblance: Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (1953)
game: board-games, card-games (solitaires), ball-games, Olympic games, war games, marital
games
- no set of common attributes
- criss-crossing network of similarities
- some members have nothing in common with others.
Conclusion: members of the category game can be distinguished by family resemblance.
- we learn the meaning of game from examples.
Problem: which example should we start with?

3. Prototypical categorization
- Labov 1973: cups, mugs, bowls, vases - drawings to be named:
- relevant attributes could be relational, functional or interactional
- the attributes formed a continuum
- attributes point not to the essence of objects in themselves but to the role they play in a
given culture
- there are no criterial attributes of distinguishing between categories

Conclusion: We categorize in prototypes: it` s not necessary to make sure whether an entity
has an attribute but how closely it comes to a prototype.

Rosch, 1973, 1975: ten categories: furniture, weapon, vegetable, tool, bird, sport, toy,
clothing, fruit, vehicle; 60 items per each; 7 point scale; 200 college students.

Conclusion: degree of membership in a category is psychologically real; prototypes are

psychologically real (verification time, naming); our categorization is prototypical in nature.

4. Basic level categories

Levels of categorization ( == hyponymy relations)

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artifact

tool furniture dwelling place

TABLE CHAIR BED - basic level categories

dining-room kitchen dentist` s

chair chair chair

Basic level categorization is cognitively and linguistically more salient. Such categories are
linguistically simple (kitchen-chair - compound, furniture - deviant, artifact - vague), short
and of high frequency.

Assumption: people conceptualize things as perceptual and functional gestalts.

Problem: Why do we have basic categories ? Because they are useful: maximize the number
of attributes shared by members of the category and minimize the number of attributes shared
with members of other categories.

5. Prototypical members of categories.

Problem: Where do we get prototypes from ?

* inherent property of human perception: circle, square, triangle, vertical, horizontal --
perceptually more salient
* frequency
* learnt first
* mark what`s typical
* importance for a culture
* efficiency of prototype categories -- flexibility to accommodate new data without loosing
its central stability

Definition of prototype
a) the central member or a cluster of central members of a category
b) schematic representation (mental image) of the conceptual core of a category

Establishing membership in a category

An entity belongs to a category if it is similar to a prototype. Similarity - a subjective notion,

which underlies all categorization processes.

Similarity: a number of attributes shared

a number of attributes not shared
attributes of different weight (perceptual salience, high diagnostic value)
However, in cognitive linguistics a whole is more than its parts. Category - holistic, gestalt
configurations and not attributes bundles. Attributes - dimensions along which different
entities are regarded as similar.

Problem: How do you know that an entity does not belong to a category, e.g. cat = dog. You

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would need some criterial attributes.

There are categories with clear cut boundaries:

natural kinds (taxonomic divisions) versus nominal kinds (our definitions)

Category boundaries depend on how the world happens to be and what we know of it.
Categories with clear boundaries are not typical of the notion of category.

6. Prototypes versus schemas

Schema: abstract characterization compatible with all members.

tree - oaks, elm, maples
schema: trunk, branches, leaves
PROTOTYPE tree1
+ pine
schema: trunk, branches
PROTOTYPE tree2
+ palm
schema: trunk
PROTOTYPE tree3

7. Folk and expert categorization

Experiments: odd and even numbers
Problem: the numbers are felt to have clear-cut boundaries; the data suggest they are
perceived prototypically.

Within the truth-conditional approach: there is a core definition and identification procedure.
Prototypical effects arise from the latter.
Cognitive approach: Schematic representation - clear-cut boundary
Prototypical representation - prototypical effects

Example: adult (water, gold)

what people believe what the legal regulations say

folk category expert category

In the case of a folk category, the schema comes from extracting what is commonly believed,
what is prototypical and interactional. In the case of an expert category, the schema comes
from imposing what people should believe; the schema is created, classical and resting on
necessary and sufficient conditions on membership.

Some words can have only expert definitions: e.g. phoneme, or only a folk definition e.g. cup.
Language behaves as expert definitions, e.g. cup = mug. Yet, it has a device to relax the
boundaries (i.e. hedges)
Examples: Loosely speaking, a telephone is a piece of furniture
?Loosely speaking, a chair is a piece of furniture
Strictly speaking, a bat is not a bird.
?Strictly speaking, a TV set is not a bird

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8. Polysemy and metaphor

I. Polysemy
- in terms of family resemblance categories
- distinct though related meanings
- no need of a semantic component unifying the different uses (though it may be there)
- polysemous words, morphemes, structures, suprasegmentals

Example: diminutives in Polish

a) Basic/central/prototypical sense: smallness in physical space
b) Extension of the prototype: smallness on some dimension
c) Divergence from the prototype on experiential basis

Ad. a): domek, stolik, krzesełko, króciutki

Ad. b): skromniutki, szybciutki, prędziutko, króciutki, miłostka, awanturka, kolacyjka
Ad. c): - short temporal duration: piosenka, kolacyjka, wykładzik, rozmówka
- reduced extent or intensity: skromniutki, szybciutki
- attitude of affection: mamusia, Jaś, Zosia, sukieneczka, domeczek (metonymic
transfer: small ~ affection)
- attitude of depreciation: wypracowanko, rozprawka, miłostka (metonymic transfer:
small ~ unworthy)
- ambiguous affection: (accommodation of incompatible meanings in a single
category): kolacyjka, awanturka, drzewko, córeczka)
- dismissive diminutive: fakcik, podanko, opowiastka, historyjka
- approximate diminutive: (expression of quantity): minutka, chwilka, godzinka.

All the instances are somehow linked to the central sense of „smallness in physical space”.
The linking does not „assume” a common core of meaning.
Interesting facts about diminutives:
- productivity diminishes with lowering centrality of sense;
- diminutives often bring about independent lexical items: rozprawka, mazurek, krówka,
bilecik. This is a case of semantic specialization leading to the extension of lexicon.

II. Metaphor
Origin: the basis of our conceptual system:
- spatial experience
- physical experience
- emotional experience
- emergent concepts
- experimental gestalts
Operation:

emotional experience spatial experience

domain domain
HAPPY up
------------------------------------------------
UNHAPPY down
metaphorical links

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Division of conventional metaphors

- orientational (spatial) metaphors: up-down, in-out, front-back, on-off, deep-shallow, central-

peripheral. Example: Happy is up; sad is down
I` m feeling up. My spirits rose
I’m feeling down. I’m depressed. My spirits sank.

- ontological metaphors (experience with physical objects and substances). Example: Inflation
is an entity.
Inflation is lowering our standard of living.
We need to combat inflation.
Inflation is backing us into a corner.
Example: The mind is an entity - The mind is a machine
Example: personification: caught Life has cheated me. Cancer finally caught up with him
Example: metonymy: The ham sandwich is waiting for his check
I`ve got a new set of wheels
He bought a Ford

- structural metaphors (culturally based)

Example: Argument is war
Your claims are indefensible
I demolished his arguments
You disagree? Okay, shoot!
Example: Communication is sending (Conduit metaphor)
I gave you that idea
His words carry little meaning
Time is money

- figurative metaphors
a) conventional metaphor: Theories are buildings; These facts are foundations of my theory
b) extension of the used part: These facts are bricks and mortar of my theory
c) unusual part: He prefers massive Gothic theories covered with gargoyles
d) novel metaphor: His theories are patriarchs who father many children

9. Cognitive linguistics - summary

* non-literal talk: mainly tropes
* meaning = speaker’s meaning
* tells us all about meaning
* no distinction among levels of language description: continuum
* no linguistic competence
* holistic view of the mind
* no formalism: meaning is culture and individual relative

10. Intuitions about meaning in cognitive linguistics

I. Folk categories
(1) Hyponymy
chair ---- piece of furniture
(dentist ) chair ? ----- piece of furniture
(suitcase) chair ------ piece of furniture

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chicken ------- bird

(coward) chicken ------ bird
No hyponymy relation
(2) Synonymy (mutual hyponymy)
oculist------ eye-doctor: different prototypes
(3) Paraphrase
John opened the door ----- The door was opened by John : We view the situation differently
(4) Analyticity
* semantic: Cats are animals; Chickens are birds: No hyponymy, no analyticity
* logical: If it breaks, it breaks: There is nothing like „always true” in cognitive linguistics
(5) Contradiction
Cats are vegetables --- prototypically in one culture and metaphorically in another culture
(6-7) Contradictoriness and antonymy reduced to contradiction, which doesn` t exist
Bachelors are lonely and bachelors are not lonely
John is married and John is unmarried
Only non-literal interpretation possible.
(8) Homonymy: different prototypes with no family resemblance
(9) Polysemy: family resemblance
(10) Syntheticity: if there is no analyticity, there can be no syntheticity
(11) Metaphors and other tropes form a continuum.

Expert categories: as in truth-conditional semantics

(11) Additional topic 3

Truth in truth-conditional semantics and in cognitive linguistics

- in the former: truth relative to a model

truth may be doubted: true/false/neither
Example: model

A B C D E
stołek taboret krzesło krzesło ?
Krzesło: { C, D}
taboret: {B}
stołek: {A}
X jest krzesłem:
A jest krzesłem: false
B jest krzesłem: false
C jest krzesłem: true
D jest krzesłem: true
E jest krzesłem: true
E jest krzesłem: neither true nor false
Truth condition: P(a) is true if the entity denoted by „a” is in the extension of P. P(a) is false if
the entity denoted by „a” is not in the extension of P but is found in an extension of some
other predicate of the model. P(a) is neither true nor false otherwise.
- special case: the model is the whole of our world. Then we speak about truth in the world
---- objectivism

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- truth in cognitive linguistics: relative to the conceptual system. It avoids full subjectivism
because individuals interact in their community. Truth is what members of a community
believe to be true

OBJECTIVISM, SUBJECTIVISM, EXPERIENTIALISM

OBJECTIVISM
- the world is made up of objects which have properties independent of people (e.g. rock)
- knowledge of the world consists in experiencing the objects and learning about their
properties
- understanding the objects in terms of categories and concepts which correspond to the
properties of objects
- objective reality exists and we may describe it truthfully or falsely. Science guides the
truthful pronouncements
- words have fixed meanings: they express concepts and categories in terms of which we
think
- people can be objective and can speak literally

SUBJECTIVISM
- we rely on our senses and intuitions
- most important things: feelings, aesthetics, morality, spiritual awareness - purely subjective
- art and poetry - more important than reality: subjective (imagination)
- language: imaginative, metaphorical
- objectivism is dangerous for it misses the essence

EXPERIENTIALISM
- no absolute truth
- no imaginative idiosyncratic truth
- metaphor: unites reason and imagination. Reason comprises categorization and inference,
imagination allows us to see one thing in terms of another
- truth relative to understanding
- objectivity relative to the conceptual system of a culture
- transcultural values and concepts possible (but not universal)
- we understand the world through interacting with it

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Sample test questions

1. Among the expressions below find a) binary antonyms; b) gradable antonyms; c) multiple
incompatibles; d) converses.
intelligent, Tuesday, hate, same, lend, in, take, above, grandparent, true, love, winter, borrow,
Sunday, spring, stupid, grandchild, different, false, clever
2. Consider the following sentences:
a) John passed the hammer and saw through the window
b) John saw through the window and passed the hammer
c) John passed the hammer and the saw through the window
d) John passed the saw and the hammer through the window
e) John passed the hammer
f) John saw through the window
g)The hammer which John saw was not a hammer
h) A saw is a tool
1) Which sentences are paraphrases of each other?
2) Which sentence is entailed by sentence (d) but does not entail it?
3) Which of the above sentences is analytic?
4) Which of the above sentences is a contradiction?
3. Write down at least four inferences B’s utterance has. Next to each inference write the
name of the type of inferences it belongs to. Prove (by using the tests) that the inference is of
the type specified by you.
A. Have you talked to your teacher?
B. I believe she has left for Paris or she has cancelled some appointments, sir.
4. Why is the coding-decoding model of communication inadequate to describe the „whole”
of verbal communication?

5. Which of the following expressions might function as referring expressions?

John, Santa Claus, he, a man, off, have, the, some

6. Which of the following words are predicates?

man, take, proud, in, the, some, fast, you, Fred

7. Of what degree are the predicates you have selected in (6). Give examples to justify your
answer.
-
-
-
-
-

8. Explain:
a) Why, in truth-conditional semantics, is a metalanguage necessary?

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b) Specify in points what we gain by having a metalanguage:

-
-
-
-
c)What approaches to the psychological reality of metalanguage are possible?
-

9. How are the following related in truth-conditional semantics. Write the answer in one
sentence in each case: (4p)
a) Hyponymy and synonymy
-

b) Antonymy and contradiction

-

10. Fill in the following table, which is a comparison of the main assumptions of truth-
conditional semantics and American cognitive linguistics:(8p)

Truth-conditional semantics American cognitive linguistics

1._____________________ 1. there is only speaker`s meaning

2. there is linguistic competence 2. ________________________

3. modular view of the mind 3. ________________________

4. ____________________ 4. no formalism exists

7. A`s utterance has the implicatures written under (a)-(d). Specify their types by writing
appropriate terms in blanks. (8p)

A. Sir, I know that your servants believe I am guilty.

(a) The person addressed is superior to A.

___________________________

(b) A exists
The person addressed exists
The person addressed has servants
The servants believe that A is guilty

___________________________

(c) The servants don`t know that A is guilty

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____________________________

(d) A is not guilty

____________________________

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Paul Grice: „Logic and conversation”. In: Grice, P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words.
Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA.

I. Organization of the paper

1. Differences between logic and natural language;
2. Attitudes to (1): formalists, informalists, H.P. Grice;
3. Saying and implicating;
4. Conventional meaning of words;
5. The Cooperative Principle and its maxims;
6. What can we do with the CP and its maxims ?
7. Conversational vs conventional implicatures.
8. Examples;
9. Testing for implicature.

Ad.1 Differences between logic and natural language

- Formal devices: ~, ^, v, , (x), (x), ix
- Natural language devices: not, and, or, if, all, some, the
Example: and - He went home and watched TV
He watched TV and went home
or - He likes ice creams or cheese
not - The king of france isn`t bald

Ad. 2. Attitudes to (1)

- Formalists: - interested in patterns of valid inference
- formal devices are „better”: allow for (1) generalizations; (2) deciding about
dubious cases;
- natural languages are imperfect: they escape clear cut definitions and truth
evaluation;
- solution: construct an ideal language to secure the foundations of science.
- Informalists: - scientific inquiry is not that important. We understand language without
knowing its analysis
- we should look for the conditions of use of the language;
- solution: construct logic of natural language.
- P.H. Grice: - there are no divergencies between logic and natural language. You see that they
don`t exist if you analyze conditions governing conversation.

Ad. 3. Saying and implicating

Example: A. How is C getting on in his job ?
B. Oh, quite well, I think; he likes his colleagues and he hasn`t been to prison yet.
- implicate, implicature, implicatum
- say: conventional meaning of the words used
Example: He is in the grip of a vice
- In between „implicate” and „say” we have:
* referent assignment (he(?))
* time specification
* disambiguation („in the grip of a vice”)

Ad. 4. Conventional meaning of words

- utterances (words) conventionally implicate:
Example: He is an Englishman; he is, therefore, brave

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If conventional implicatures fail, the sentence may still be true. They are non-truth-
conditional

Ad. 5. The Cooperative Principle and its maxims

The CP: 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
Quantity: (1) Make your contribution as informative as is required;
(2) Do not make it more informative than is required.
Quality: (1) Do not say what you believe to be false
(2) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
Relation: Be relevant
Manner: (1) Avoid obscurity of expression;
(2) Avoid ambiguity;
(3) Be brief;
(4) Be orderly
The most important maxim: Quality: only if this is observed, may the others be observed.
There may also be other maxims: aesthetic, social, moral (e.g. be polite)
Talking: purposive, rational behaviour - an empirical fact
- common, immediate aim;
- interdependence of exchange;
- assumption of continuation
Assumption: talk exchange is profitable if the participants adhere to the CP and the maxims.
p. 142: „I am fairly sure that I cannot reach this conclusion until I am a good deal clearer
about the nature of relevance and of the circumstances in which it is required.”

Ad. 6. What can we do with the CP and the maxims?

(a) violate;
(2) opt out;
(3) maxim clash;
(4) flout or exploit.

Ad. 7. Conversational vs conventional implicatures

S saying that p has conversationally implicated that q if:
(1) S is presumed to be observing the CP and the maxims;
(2) To accept (1) we must assume that S has implicated that q;
(3) S thinks (and assumes that H thinks) that H may work out that q.
Conversational implicatures have to be worked out. To work them out, H must know:
(1) conventional meaning of p;
(2) referents;
3) CP and the maxims;
(4) context;
(5) background knowledge;
(6) assumption of mutual knowledge of (10-(5).

Ad. 8. Examples
(1) No maxim violated
(a) A. I am out of petrol.
B. There is a garage round the corner.
(b) A. Smith doesn`t seem to have a girlfriend these days.
B. He has been paying a lot of visits to New York lately.

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(2) Maxim clash

(a) A. Where does C live ?
B. Somewhere in the south of France.
(3) Maxim exploitation
- Quantity
(a) „Dear Sir, Mr. X`s command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has
been regular. Yours, etc.”
(b) Women are women.
(c) War is war.
- Quality
(a) Irony: „X is a fine friend”.
(b) Metaphor: „You are the cream in my coffee”.
(c) Meiosis/understatement: „He was a little intoxicated.
(d) Hyperbole/overstatement: „Every nice girl loves a sailor”.
- Relevance
(a) A. Mrs. X is an old bag.
B. The weather has been quite delightful this summer, hasn`t it?
- Manner
(a) I sought to tell my love, love that never told can be.
(b) I have Sind/sinned.
(c) obscurity in the presence of children.
(d) Miss X produced a series of sounds....

(1-3) - particularized conversational implicatures: saying that p on a particular occasion in

virtue of special features of the context.
- generalized implicatures: p normally implicates that q (in the absence of special
circumstances): examples - a) X is meeting a woman this evening
b) X went into a house yesterday and found a tortoise inside the
front door

Ad. 9. Testing for conversational implicatures:

(a) cancellability;
(b) non-detachability;
(c) non-conventionality;
(d) non-truth-conditionality;
(e) indeterminacy.

34