[lit-ideas] Re: Reeve's Implicature (to Winfrey)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 18:06:57 EDT
We are analysing Christopher Reeve's implicature in the little conversation
with Oprah Winfrey:
WINFREY: So ... You think it's possible you will walk again, then?
REEVE: Actually, I think it's *very* possible I will walk again.
WINFREY: And what would happen if you won't?
REEVE (bluntly): Then I won't walk again.
P. A Stone suggest the implicature is:
>>"I'm saying I can walk again
>>to give all spine-injured people hope.
>>I don't *really* think I will; but I might
>>as well do the best I can with what
>>I've got.
Right. Now the question is how you derive that implicature out of Grice's
conversational maxims!
There are tricky issues here in that if 'if' is truth-functional, then the
addition of the particle 'then' (as in Reeve's reply, "_Then_ I won't walk
again") may turn the operation non-truth-functional.
We should also consider whether 'when' is equivalent to 'if'.
I agree with Paul that "I might as well do the best I can with what I've
got."
In his _Pragmatics_ (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics, paperback) S. C.
Levinson considers the implicature of
A: I miss John. Do you think he'll come to the party?
B: Either he will or he won't.
Levinson suggests the implicature is
+> There's nothing we can do about it.
The logical form of B's utterance is slightly different (it's a tautologous
disjunction, to use Geary's parlance). In the case of Reeve's utterance it
concerns what Aristotelians would have as a 'contingent future'. And there's no
'or' involved. Only cancellation of possibility, as expressed by arrogant
Oprah.
Cheers,
JL
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