And so?
John
On Jul 18, 2016, 8:11 PM +0900, Donal McEvoy<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
wrote:
This stuff writes itself.
D
L
From:"dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent:Sunday, 17 July 2016, 23:31
Subject:[lit-ideas] So: The Implicatures
Geary: "Why would anews correspondent begin a report: "So. Mr Trump lumps all
non-whites and non-males into the dangerous servant class. And plans to
deport them all to Alaska.So.Mr. Trump stubbed his toe.""
"So" is also a German particle. So, one has to be careful there. As I
mentioned the first time Geary brought the topic to discussion, "so" is a
technical term in philosophical logic. Specifically, "so" is the vernacular
counterpart, as you know who (Grice, yes) would have it, of something like
the "------" or, better, if you must, "∴". The polemic in Oxford started when
Sir Peter Strawson published his "Introduction to Logical Theory"
acknowledging "Mr. Grice" "for never ceasing to teach me about logic, even
since he was my tutor at St. John's". When a festschrift for Grice was
compiled, under the title PGRICE (his first name was Paul, "Philosophical
Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends"), Strawson supplied a
copy of an essay that had been doing the rounds in Oxford, "If and -->". In
that essay, Strawson takes "if" (and its logical counterpart) to be
correlated with "so" but in an interesting way: "if" is used for UNASSERTED
bits, "so" for asserted bits.
Grice's examples are
i. Jill: Jack, you are so brave!
Jack: Am I?
Jill? Yes. But then you are an Englishman.
Jack: So?
Jill: All Englishmen are brave.
Later, Jill retells the episode to her mother:
ii. Jack is an Englishman; so, he is brave.
Grice and Strawson agree that when uttering (ii) one is ASSERTING
iii. Jack is brave.
In the case of a conditional with "if"
iv. If Jack is an Englishman, Jack is brave.
one is not, because, well, it's all conditional.
Now, perhaps Geary should write down, next time he comes across this, this
use of "so".
Geary: "Why would anews correspondent begin a report [as in (v)]?"
v. So.
Mister Trump lumps all non-whites and non-males into the dangerous servant
class.
And plans to deport them all to Alaska.
So.
Mister Trump stubbed his toe."
David Jones, who invented English phonetics, would be careful here. J. C.
Wells and other phoneticians after Jones invented "suprasegmental" phonology;
so, one has to be careful if we need a period here, as Geary's transcription
has it. Unfortunately, Chomsky is writing on other issues now (Helm ordered
an essay by Chomsky) rather than concentrating on sentence structure. The
mediaeval logicians called "so" a syncategorema.
If there are NOT two sentences here, the possibility can be:
v. So, Mister Trump lumps all non-whites and non-males into the dangerous
servant class.
Grice is careful here (in (ii)): there is the use of the semi-colon, ";".
It's ungrammatical otherwise:
ii. Jack is an Englishman; so, he is brave.
This may be equivalent to
vi. Jack is an Englishman. So, he is brave.
In any case, it is ungrammatical NOT to use a period after the 'so'. As a
sentence in itself, I don't think "So" counts. It may count in a
conversational move, but usually Americans repeat it (flouting Grice, "Don't
be more informative than is required"):
vii. Jill: How are you feeling, Jack?
Jack: So so.
Jill: You shouldn't. You are an Englishman; soyou are brave.
Suprasegmental phonology is a trick. Geary feels that he needs to represent
the pause he hears (or interprets) in the utterer, as making "So" a full
sentence. And the continuation as a new one ("Mr. Trump lumps, etc."). What
about "..." This is used by Americans to represent hesitation. We would have:
viii. So... Mister Trump is lumping.
M. A. K. Halliday speaks of endophora, exophora and anaphora. "So" be
anaphoric ("backwards reference"). In which case, we should pay attention to
what went before. E.g
ix. Weather magnificent, thank you Bill. So. Mister Trump is lumping...
I will now explicate the implicature:
x. Weather magnificent, thank you, Bill. So [back to the topic that should
concern us: the campaign]: Mister Trump is lumping...
In which case, "so" may be a marker of a change of topic. One example Grice
gives is:
xi. A: Mrs. Brown is a windbag.
B: So: the weather has been delightful for the season so far, hasn't it.
The implicature is that A committed a gaffe. "So" markes an abrupt change of
topic. Another of his examples:
xii. A: So: how much are they paying you at ACME?
B: So: I think I'll order the chocolate mousse.
Again, "so" indicates an abrupt change of topic indicating, "None of your
business, darling."
So. One has to be careful. Or So. Not. Of course.
Cheers,
Speranza
----
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Geary<jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas<lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sun, Jul 17, 2016 2:38 pm
Subject: [lit-ideas] So.
So why is it that of late radio and TV correspondents, program hosts, opinion
praters and so on and so forth start theirsentences, paragraphs,
pronouncementsand political posturingswith the word "So"?I've broached this
subject herebefore,so you've all had time to look it up.What is the meaning
of "so" when usedsuchlyand what part of speech is it and why doesmyWebster's
Unabridgedcite 23 different usages of "so"So, youdon't know, do you?So, don't
try to pull bull on me.I wasn't born no yesterday, nor even last week.I know
what'sso, so keep your "soes" toyour self unless you knows what of yousows
(wow that was a good riff, didn't you think so too?).I ask you again:Why
would anews correspondent begin a report: "So. Mr Trump lumps all non-whites
and non-males into the dangerous servant class. And plans to deport them all
to Alaska.So.Mr. Trump stubbed his toe."So.No one isapparently as up in arms
over this libertine use of so, at least not so much as I am.I'm not calling
for the Grammar Police, not yet, I think that if we all wouldjust complain so
long and so loud and so-so violently,thenthepractice will cometo an end.So be
it.So there.As they say.Yes, but why?Well because.As it iswiththose who would
be believed to beexpert languagers, I say: So be it.
Moi aussi.
