Practice Exercise 3
LINC12 Fall 2024
Sept 27, 2024
Practice exercise due: Wednesday October 2nd, 23:59 on Quercus
The following exercises must be completed by uploading a PDF document onto Quercus. These exercises cover material through the Thursday September 26 lecture.
Remember: These problems are designed to make you think critically and to apply what you have learned this last week to new issues. These problems will be discussed in the following lecture, after this practice exercise is due. The exact same problems appear on your assignments at the end of the month, so do your best, and take good note of the solutions presented in lecture.
Enjoy!
1 Generalized Implicatures vs. Use-conditional meaning
Generalized implicatures and Use-conditional meanings alike often arise due to the semantics of a particular “trigger”. Generalized implicatures, however, have all the features of conversational implicatures, however, while Use-conditional meanings do not. Below you will find sentences with a highlighted “trigger”, followed by an inference. Your task is to determine whether the inference is a Generalized implicature, a product of Use-conditional meaning, or neither. You can do this by going through the characteristics of each type of inference and performing tests to demonstrate the inferences are more like on type of meaning than the other.
(1) Sonya prefers vegetarian meals.
Inference: Sonya is not a vegetarian.
Cancelability:
“Sonya prefers vegetarian meals; she is a vegetarian.”
Good!
Reinforceability:
“Sonya prefers vegetarian meals, but she is not a vegetarian.”
Good!
Calculability:
The calculation would involve the maxim of quantity: why didn’t you make the stronger statement that Sonya was a vegetarian?
Survive non-veridical environments:
“Does Sonya prefer vegetarian meals?”
She is a vegetarian. No contradiction, so the proposition in the inference does not project.
Conclusion: The inference is a generalized implicature – it shows the properties of conversational implicatures, and the inference is lost under a non-veridical environment and is therefore not a use- conditional meaning.
(2) Ginger rode a bike to work today.
Inference: The bike was not her bike.
Cancelability:
“Ginger rode a bike to work today, in fact it was her bike.”
Good!
Reinforceability:
“Ginger rode a bike to work today, and it was not her bike.”
Good!
Calculability:
The calculation would involve the maxim of quantity: why didn’t you make the stronger statement that “Ginger rode her bike to work”?
Survive non-veridical environments:
“If Ginger rode a bike to work today, she won’t need a ride home.” no longer implicates that some bike is not hers. (note: contradiction tests for the implicatures of indefinite articles give strange results)
Conclusion: The inference is a generalized implicature – it shows the properties of conversational implicatures, and the inference is lost under a non-veridical environment and is therefore not a use- conditional meaning.
(3) I was barely able to hear what she said.
Inference: It was difficult to hear her.
Cancelability:
“I was barely able to hear what she said, # but it was not difficult to hear her.”
Bad!
Reinforceability:
“I was barely able to hear what she said, # and it was difficult to hear her.”
Kinda weird! Calculability:
This meaning is not calculable.
Survive non-veridical environments:
“If you were barely able to hear what she said, why didn’t you say something?”
It was not difficult to hear her. Does not result in a contradiction; the proposition in the inference does not project.
Conclusion: The inference cannot be an implicature – it does not show any properties of conver- sational implicatures. However, the inference also does not survive a non-veridical environment, so it is not likely to be a use-conditional meaning. The inference is neither a generalized implicature, nor a use-conditional meaning.
(4) Tomakealongstoryshort , we’ve decided to include Regina in the competition.
Inference: The details of the decision aren’t worth mentioning.
Cancelability:
‘To make a long story short, we’ve decided to include Regina in the competition, # but the details of the decision are worth mentioning.”
Kinda weird?
Reinforceability:
‘To make a long story short, we’ve decided to include Regina in the competition, and the details of the de- cision aren’t worth mentioning.”
Not bad, not normal speech however? Calculability:
This meaning is not calculable.
Survive non-veridical environments:
“If, to make a long story short, you decided to include Regina, why didn’t you say something earlier?”
# The details are worth mentioning. This is a very strange dialogue. The speaker-oriented inference re- mains.
Conclusion: The inference is likely not an implicature – it does not clearly properties of conver- sational implicatures. On the other hand, the inference seems to still be present after embedding in non-veridical environment, so it is most likely a use-conditional meaning.
2 Speech Acts
Below you are presented with a number of sentences. Your job is to identify, descriptively, the illocutionary force of these sentences if uttered in the real world, and then to classify this illocutionary force under one of Searle’s classes of illocutionary acts (see lecture 4, slide 31).
(5) Do you know what time it is?
Illocutionary force: to get the addressee to tell the speaker what the time is
Classification: Directive
(6) Stay off the subway tracks!
Illocutionary force: to get the addressee to not touch the subway tracks
Classification: Directive
(7) It will be a clear day, with a high of 23 degrees.
Illocutionary force: to assert the fact that the weather will be as such
Classification: Representative
(8) Sorry for the late response.
Illocutionary force: to express remorse
Classification: Expressive
(9) I brought you this gift back from my trip!
Illocutionary force: to present a gift to the addressee
Classification: Commissive
(10) Can you feed my cat while I’m away?
Illocutionary force: to get the addressee to feed their cat
Classification: Directive