[lit-ideas] Griceian Semiotics

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2011 05:15:07 EDT
My last post today.
 
Implicature and Beyond
Canine implicature
 
In a message dated 6/29/2011 11:42:58 A.M., _lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
(mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)   interestingly writes:
A few days after the event I described, [Ginger] went  to the back door 
standing not sitting and looked back at me.  She was  telling me she did want 
to go out and asking me to open the door. 
 
---
 
One thing to consider here, which sort of 'engages' me, if that's the word, 
 concerns a little example by Grice. It does not relate to Homo Sapiens and 
his  'implicatures' with other species. But it concerns sign gesture. The 
example is  in his "Utterer's meaning and intentions", in Studies in the Way 
of Words. I'll  try to recover it from memory.
 
A is sitting, with a bandaged leg. Apparently B does not see the bandaged  
leg, and asks,
 
"Are you going to play squash with me tonight?"
 
A displays bandaged leg.
 
Grice wants to say that the 'meaning' is:
 
"I can't; my leg is bad".
 
But NOT: "I have a bandaged leg".
 
-----
 
Why?
 
I would think the distinction is a subtle one -- and it has to do with  
things which Grice will LATER elaborate. The distinction between 
 
implying
 
and 
 
saying.

For example.
 
Note above the use by Helm of 'telling' as applied to Ginger (his Rhodesian 
 Ridgeback) and you'll get my point. "Tell" is perhaps a very interesting 
verb.  It relates to 'number' in German -- so one has to be careful. It does 
not need  to involve an utterance of a sentence in a language. But "Say", 
Grice's  favourite, does.
 
Only given an account of 'say' can we develop an account of 'implicate' (or 
 'imply') -- but this is controversial.
 
By the same token, one may wonder that there are no such things as _visual  
metaphors_.
 
For a time, I was exercised with this, and wanted to have a locution  that 
would work as 'implicate' does, but at the level of the explicit  
communication. I tried, "explicate".
 
So one could say that 
 
By displaying his bandaged leg, A explicates that he has a bandaged leg (or 
 that his leg is bandaged).
 
Anything else _could_ count as an 'implicature':
 
"the leg is bad" (the bandage could be fake, Grice notes)
"I won't be able to play squash",
and so on.
 
The issue is general and is not really restricted to canine implicature,  
but thank Helm for bringing his interesting example for discussion.
 
What Grice's example shows is that, in the absence of a sign system that  
allows for the use of such verbs as "... says...", the distinction between  
'mean' and 'imply' gets minimised. We may still feel the need for a verb  
(inviting a 'that'-clause, something like Helm 'telling' and 'asking' above)  
that may ask for a specification of a 'meaning' which is not explicit enough 
and  which may count as an 'implicature'. Or not. 
 
Cheers,
 
Speranza
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[lit-ideas] Griceian Semiotics

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