[lit-ideas] Re: Aimee Bender -- Her Work
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 21:59:39 -0600
JL concluded his post on the implicaturage of work:
> Odd how language works. <
Odder still how JL works. The meaning here of 'works' is thinks. I have no
idea if JL actually works. The implicature being that he well might fake
work. I just don't know.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 8:56 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Aimee Bender -- Her Work
>
> Julie Krueger asked:
>
>
>>>I'd be interested in hearing from anyone
>>>who knows her work.
>
> Mike Geary replied:
>>I don't know her work.
>>I don't know her work.
>>I don't know her work.
>
> I wonder if there is an implicature there somewhere that Geary actually
> knows _her_ (Aimee Bender), but not her work.
>
> Odd how people refer to books as _work_ (as in Shakespeare's Compete
> Works).
> This is a typically English construction, not translatable to German
> ("Shakespeare's _Arbeitungen_").
>
> Odd, too, the mechanism of what L. Horn and S. Bayer call 'a
> short-circuited
> implicature'. Compare:
>
>
>>I'd be interested in hearing from
>>anyone who knows her work.
>
> (implicating: rather than from someone who doesn't)
>
> Geary flouts the maxim: (three times)
>
>>I don't know her work.
>>I don't know her work.
>>I don't know her work.
>
> as implicating:
>
>
> 1. You _are_ hearing from me (and I don't know her work).
>
> More importantly, suggesting that he may know _of_ Ms. Bender (or know Ms.
> Bender, for all I know) but not her work.
>
> To "know her work" in this context means "to have READ her books and
> stuff".
> For surely, I may know _of_ the work of Euripides, but never actually
> read
> or seen any of his plays.
>
> Odd how language works.
>
> Cheers,
>
> JL
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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