In a message dated 10/5/2015 3:03:49 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
You need to see the movie.
Indeed. Some pretty conversational implicatures in it!
My favourite:
The President's Lady (1953):
Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson:
[to Andrew who is planning to duel with Charles Dickinson the following
morning]
Andrew, if I'm to be the cause of all your quarrels for the rest of your
life, you give me no choice.
I must leave you.
I will not let you be killed because of me nor will I let you take another
man's life.
I must leave.
President Andrew Jackson: You'd leave me now?
Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson:
No! No! Oh Andrew, please, please don't do this!
If Mr. Dickinson's bullet kills you, it kills me too!
Let him say what he will about me!
Note the use of ⊃ (what logicians call the horseshoe and translates as
English 'if' that puzzled the Stoics) and v (what logicians call 'vel' to
distinguish it from 'aut') -- and the implicatures these invite on Jackson.
But as Grice says, when he calls his 'implicature' "conversational" he
doesn't quite MEAN it; and so, expect conversational implicatures in some of
Jackson's utterances in the movie:
My two favourites.
From: The First Texan (1956)
President Andrew Jackson:
Sam, some people have destiny sitting right on their backs of their necks.
You're one of 'em.
You're a born leader.
When you talk, people listen because you love 'em.
You'll fight for 'em and you'll die for 'em if you have to... and they know
it.
----- Popper would take that 'know' as conjectural, but Gettier and Grice
would rightly NOT!
From: The Remarkable Andrew (1942)
Gen. Andrew Jackson:
You've been trying to keep an honest accounting of city money. You've been
dealing with politicians. You've been standing up for your own rights.
Haven't you? Naturally, you landed in jail.
Where the implicature is on Grice's distinction between the natural and the
non-natural.
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
