[lit-ideas] Re: Gabor's Implicature
- From: "Donal McEvoy" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "donalmcevoyuk" for DMARC)
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 06:26:25 +0000 (UTC)
And this
Electoral college revolt fails to stop Trump but lands democratic blow
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Electoral college revolt fails to stop Trump but lands democratic blow
By Ed Pilkington At least nine ‘faithless electors’ attempted to cast a vote
against the candidate they were mandated to support,... | |
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From: Donal McEvoy <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 6:25
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Gabor's Implicature
Try blocking this Russkies:
“We have started a national dialogue about how we elect our president,”
Chiafalo said.
In Colorado, a state that does not permit electors to cast a dissenting vote,
there were volatile scenes as one of the nine voted for John Kasich, the
Republican governor of Ohio, rather than for Clinton. For his pains, Micheal
Baca was removed from his position within the electoral college, only for the
remaining eight electors to then unanimously vote for him as his own
replacement.
That protest was in turn overturned by state authorities, and in the end an
alternate elector was brought on who was prepared to vote for Clinton. After
the vote, Baca told the Guardian that in his view his removal was
unconstitutional, but he said he had no regrets. “This was liberating for me. I
put my country before my party, and I will continue to do so.”
From: Donal McEvoy <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 6:06
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Gabor's Implicature
(Popper denied falsifiable status to 'implicature').>
Since Popper avoided the swamps of meaning-analysis like they were
plague-ridden, I wonder exactly where he would have denied falsifiable status
to 'implicature'?
Or does this belong to on JLS' "Great List of Made-Up Stuff"? (Which sometimes
overlaps with his "Great List of Stuff To Go Quiet About When Asked Whether It
Is Made-Up".)
DL
From: "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, 19 December 2016, 23:19
Subject: [lit-ideas] Gabor's Implicature
-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Dec 18, 2016 6:47 pm
Subject: [lit-ideas] Zsa Zsa is gone
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38360302#";
RP
It may do to review her implicatures -- or 'quotations,' as Grice sometimes
call them. As with Y. Berra, one-liners are ripe for implicatural analysis.
Here below are some by Gabor.
Why is an onliner ripe for implicatural analysis?
McEvoy might want a falsifiable answer.
An onliner is ripe for implicatural analysis if (and only if) it can be
_proved_ (alla Goedel) that there is an implicature being 'invited' (to be
inferred by the addressee of the utterance) by virtue of a violation of a
conversational maxim (within the cooperative principle), only when this
violation is 'blatant', i.e. a "flout", and intended to be recognized as such.
(Popper denied falsifiable status to 'implicature').
So let's now consider some of Gabor's utterances, with a view of identifying
the implicature behind each, and how it arises.
i. I call everyone 'darling' because I can't remember their names.
-- This one seems a bit silly, but the implicature is that 'darling' is perhaps
overused. The use of 'because' implicates that this might be an answer to an
insidious and naïve question by a journalist, say.
ii. I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.
-- this is a paradoxical use of 'hate' but Zsa Zsa makes it, via implicature,
sensible! The implicature is quantifiable alla Altham, via the use of 'enough'.
iii. I don't take gifts from perfect strangers -- but then, nobody is perfect.
This implicature is slightly different, in that it is Chomskyian. The scope of
'perfect' becomes, via a violation of the maxim, "avoid ambiguity", the utterer
of (iii), i.e. Zsa Zsa herself. By algebraic reasoning, if the standard
collocation of 'perfect' applies to 'stranger,' then there is the final
implicature that she does take gifts from EVERYBODY. (Geary says that
explaining Berra's jokes KILLS them, but Zsa Zsa might be different ("than
Berra", or 'from Berra,' as I prefer)
iv. I don't remember anyone's name. How do you think the 'dahling' thing got
started?
-- This is of course a variation on (i) -- (As with Dorothy Parker, or indeed
Berra, there are apocryphal and non-apocryphal variants, some due to what Zsa
Zsa called her 'ghost writers'. This one raises the deep philosophical Kripkean
question: why do people have personal names -- and are not just called
'dahlings' (which incidentally, is gender-neutral)?
v. I like a mannish man: a man who knows how to talk to and treat a woman --
not just a man with muscles.
-- The implicature here might be Hungarian in origin. "Mannish man" seems
analytic in English, but perhaps not in Hungarian. Cfr. womanish woman.
("woman" is etymologically 'wife-man,' so there may be implicatural problems
there).
vi. I want a man that's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a
millionaire?
Like (iii), here the implicature is Chomskyian, and ultimately syntactic in
nature. The utterance violates the cooperative principle and the maxim 'be
orderly', inter alia. "Man," in the object of the first sentence within the
utterance of (vi), has notably broad scope. In the question that follows,
however 'millionaire' comes out, as Grice would say, of the Zsa Zsa blue.
McEvoy might revise if Gabor's utterances (never mind her witty implicatures)
are also falsifiable by Popperian criteria -- or whether they illustrate the
'show' emphasis in Witters's underlying philosophy of 'logical grammar'.
And so on.
Cheers
Speranza
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