Rejection by Implicature

Rejection by Implicature

On one view of dialogue, the conversational record is part of the COMMON GROUND of the conversants. As conversants make assertions, the content of these assertions are added to the common ground, with the effect of limiting the context set (Stalnaker, 1978; Gazdar, 1979). According to Stalnaker, an assertion is assumed to be ACCEPTED, with a concomitant limitation of shared context, unless it i...

Scalar Implicature

Normal State Implicature

In the right situation, a speaker can use an unqualified indefinite description without being misunderstood. This use of language, normal slate implicature, is a kind of conversational implicature, i.e. a non-truth-functional context-dependent inference based upon language users' awareness of principles of cooperative conversation. I present a convention for identifying normal state implicature...

Context and Implicature

This paper introduces Paul Grice’s notion of conversational implicature. The basic ideas — the cooperative principle, the maxims of conversation, and the contrast between implicature and presupposition — make it clear that conversational implicature is a highly contextualized form of language use that has a lot in common with non-linguistic behavior. But what exactly is its role? We invite the ...

Exclusive disjunction without implicature

For the purposes of this note, I will assume that the Gricean account of scalar implicature is correct. I admit that I don’t have any qualms about making this assumption, since as far as I can tell, the Gricean account is the only game in town. But I thought I should mention it. With this preliminary out of the way, let us proceed to the problem area, and start by considering the following exam...