[lit-ideas] Re: Brit tourist suspected to have been murdered after being ...
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 11:59:12 EDT
My true colours, then.
The example I did NOT read from "The Independent" -- I would NEVER read
the Independent -- Just browse it. (Bad graphics).
It was reported in the World Wide Words as per below:
---
An unfortunate inversion of events has occurred, according to The
Independent of 20 March, Hazel Parry notes: "A British tourist who
has been missing for five days in Hong Kong is suspected to have
been murdered after being found dead, police said Sunday."
---- available online.
I did read, in a hasty mood, that above, and focused on the 'inversion of
events' -- I did fail to see the implicature or humour in Hazel Parry.
Instead, I was wondering about reporting of events. For Grice, events have to
be reported in the manner in which they occur. This he calls the
conversational maxim,
"Be orderly".
Thus,
"Mary took off her knickers and went to bed."
"Mary went to bed and took off her knickers"
----- Grice argues that, according to Wittgenstein's picture in the
_Tractatus_, both propositions represent the same 'event', since "and" is
truth-functional.
It is lik e "+" in mathematics:
'sugar and flour'
same as
'flour and sugar'.
-----
Since there was this mention about 'inversion of events' in the Note in
the Independent, and there was no feature of 'and' but "after" I was
wondering.
1.
A British tourist who has been missing for five days in Hong Kong is
suspected to have been murdered after being found dead.
----
2. A British tourist who has been missing for five hears in Hong Kong is
suspected to have been murdered BEFORE being found dead.
I.e. it struck me that if there is an odd 'implicature' (but only
implicature, not entailment) about (1) it is because we tend to assume that
'after'
is NOT truth-functional. Or something.
>Don't know nothing about no truth-functional.
Geary reports.
It's easy.
We say that
+ is truth-functional in that
2 + 5 = 7
is the result of 2 and 5.
Or, to use the example of "and"
---- Mary took off her knickers ------ TRUE
---- Mary went to bed ------------------- TRUE
therefore:
Mary went to bed and took off her knickers ---- TRUE.
I.e. 'and' is truth-functional in that the truth of an 'and' statement is
a FUNCTION (and a function only) of the truth of its two conjuncts.
For some people, however, -- I don't know about the South -- 'and' is NOT
truth-functional.
"The Lone Ranger got on his horse and rode away",
they claim, sounds different and less odd than:
"The Lone Ranger rode away and got on his horse"
---- even though, as Grice notes, the above is true.
Or:
"He died and drank the poison"
---- Indeed equivalent to perhaps the more boring report of events:
"He drank the poison and died."
Back to the police report:
1. A British tourist who has been missing for five days in Hong Kong is
suspected to have
been murdered after being found dead.
-----
This is said to have been said by the police. So, it's oratio obliqua, in
origin:
POLICE: We regret to inform that British tourist, Jack Smith, who has
been missing for five days in Hong Kong is suspected to have
been murdered.
JOURNALIST: How do you know?
---- At this point the commentaries by Ritchie and McEvoy are pertinent.
How does the police know that Jack Smith has been murdered?
The Police, always ready to back their statements, then volunteer the
information:
2. Jack Smith is suspected to have been murdered AFTER being found dead.
-----
Here we have a case of 'entailment', also inverted. In general, it holds
as analytic that:
if x has been murdered, x is dead.
--- but cfr. link to Ritchie's post.
----
Alison Parker, in private communication, remarked to me that possibly the
police needed a text editor. She claims that what the police said,
1. A British tourist who has been missing for five days in Hong Kong is
suspected to have
been murdered after being found dead.
is perhaps clumsy. But she suspects the clumsiness comes from the reporter
of the police's statement. What the police actually said, in Chinese, we
assume, WAS possibly truth-functional, and orderly:
---- "Jack Smith was found dead. He is the Jack Smith who had been missing
for five days. Seeing the state of the corpse, we suspect Jack Smith has
been murdered (rather than die of a 'natural' cause).
Parker notes that any attempt by the police to make a _neater_ report is
bound to trigger (ouch) the wrong implicature.
Therefore, she assumes that it is a matter of better editing on the part
of the Independent.
1. A British tourist who has been missing for five days in Hong Kong is
suspected to have
been murdered after being found dead.
Parker proposes:
2. Jack Smith no more.
Cheers.
Speranza
---- The Swimming Pool Library
----------- on a lazy afternoon.
In a message dated 3/26/2011 8:51:27 P.M., donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
A person can be suspected of being murdered although they have not been
found dead [Jimmy Hoffa]. So this is not redundant 'by implicature'. It might
follow a previous headline, 'Brit Tourist missing', and confirms they have
been found, albeit not in the rudest of health.
Donal
Supporting his local sheriff
Grammar Community Support Officer
Ldn
--- On Sat, 26/3/11, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Brit tourist suspected to have been murdered after
being found dead
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Saturday, 26 March, 2011, 16:17
> From the Independent of March 20:
>
> "A British tourist who has been missing for five days
> in Hong Kong is
> suspected to have
> been murdered after being found dead, police said Sunday."
>
> Fail to grasp the implicatum.
>
> Cheers.
> Speranza
> ------ (I thought 'after' was
> truth-functional?)
>
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