[lit-ideas] Implicatures and Parentheticals
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:23:54 -0400 (EDT)
>I hope you haven't seen Eddie Izzard on the subject of the flood. For
then you may have a treat in store:
In a message dated 3/26/2013 10:32:30 A.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
isn't the implicature here that you hope the person addressed has not
previously had the treat of watching the clip - and isn't wishing that someone
has not had the treat of something both meanspirited and luciferian? Of
course you can worm your way out like a Professor can do, by claiming what you
meant was some peculiar use of language, whereby you do not really hope
they haven't had the treat [despite saying so] but rather wish to emphasise
that, if they haven't, they may be glad to know they have one in store.
Part of the problem here Grice addresses in terms of Urmson's
parentheticals.
I hope it rains.
Hopefully, it rains.
""Hopefully it rains" sounds harsh; hence the disimplicature of "I hope"".
----
Urmson considers other parentheticals:
"I regret your son is dead", as uttered, during the Second World War
(called by some 'the phoney war'), by an officer to a mother. "We cannot expect
that each officer will _regret_ the incident reported: "regret" is used
parenthetically"".
---
>I hope you haven't seen Eddie Izzard on the subject of the flood. For
then you may have a treat in store.
Variants;
Hopefully, you haven't seen (or heard) Eddie Izzard on floods. In which
case, you may have a treat in store. Or not.
----
"IF you haven't heard or seen Eddie Izzard on floods, you have a treat in
store. And if you had, you had."
---
Note that 'if you had, you had' is NOT tautological, while on the face of
_it_, it is.
"isn't the implicature here that you hope the person addressed has not
previously had the treat of watching the clip - and isn't wishing that someone
has not had the treat of something both meanspirited and luciferian?"
If "hopefully" is understood, it relates to Austin's 'biscuit'
conditionals:
"If you are hungry, there are biscuits in the cupboard".
Note that "I hope that if you are hungry, there are biscuits in the
cupboard."
But cfr. the more guarded:
"If you are hungry, I hope [or hopefully] there are biscuits in the
cupboard"
Cfr. if you haven't seen the Eddie Izzard clip, hopefully it will be a
treat for you (in store).
"Of course you can worm your way out [disimplicate] like a Professor can
do, by claiming what you meant was some peculiar use of language, whereby you
do not really hope they haven't had the treat [despite saying so] but
rather wish to emphasise that, if they haven't, they may be glad to know they
have one in store."
---- Mmm. If this were so, then we could add the "trouser" word "really" at
some point in the construction:
>I REALLY hope you haven't seen Eddie Izzard on the subject of the flood.
For then you may have a treat in store.
-- which sounds harsh.
"Hope" carries triggers for different logical forms. The charitable
interpretation is that if the addressee HAS seen Eddie Izzard on the subject of
the flood, then the utterer's providing the link may serve a purpose. Note
that, as a reminder, it may serve a purpose regardless.
Note that "hopefully" is usually not used by writers on English usage.
Some argue "hopefully' should NOT be used as an expression of confidence
in an outcome.
However, M-W classes hopefully with other words such as "interestingly",
"frankly", and "unfortunately" (which are unremarkably used in a similar way)
as disjuncts, and describes this usage as "entirely standard".
AHD4, however, notes that opposition to this usage by their usage panels
has grown from 56% to 73%, despite support for similar disjuncts (such as 60%
support for the use of mercifully in "Mercifully, the game ended before
the opponents could add another touchdown to the lopsided score").
AHD4 opines that this opposition is not to the use of these adverbs in
general, but that this use of hopefully has become a "shibboleth".
OED lists this usage without any "colloquial" or other label, other than to
say "Avoided by many writers".
There's also a growing Griceian discussion of hopefully as "a dangling
modifier" (with embedded disimplicature -- Grice relies on the symbolism of
Russell/Whitehead, Principia Mathematica here).
One investigation in modern corpora reveals that outside fiction, where
it still represents 40% of all uses (the other qualifying primarily speech
and gazes), disjunct uses account for the vast majority (over 90%) of all
uses of the word.
Disputed usage: Hopefully I'll get that scholarship!
----- Hopefully you haven't seen Eddie Izzard on the subject of floods.
Undisputed usage:
"Hopefully, the prisoner approached the guillotine. His hope was misplaced.
So was his head."
Note that in the undisputed good use above, it is not possible to replace,
"Hopefully" by the utterer's 'I hope':
(Oddity of: "I hope the priosoner approached the guillotine. His (?) hope
was misplaced. So was his head.")
Cheers,
Speranza
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