I wonder if any brain research has proven the existence of 'deep grammar."
The evidence for it seems circumstantial at best. Perhaps the hard-wired
anthropologists can enlighten us about this ?
On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 6:31 PM, Donal McEvoy <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I think Ritchie’s point is that it is an error in ‘usage’. Surely it doespertain to what Witters calls ‘depth grammar.’>
Sources at the Yard say that Sir David of Ritchie, by rumour a pimpernel
figure on the international stage of grammatical disputes, never
specified the character of the alleged "error".
JLS may be right that it pertains to W's "depth grammar" (whatever that
is). Other possibilities include that Sir David threw the error on the
ground unidentified, so headless chickens might peck at it for bystanders'
amusement, while he, agent provocateur, left pursued by a bear.
Whether the truth will out may hinge on the Slovenia result. Already
Strachan's tactically surprised everyone by taking field in a pink not seen
on any males in Scotland between the time Oscar Wilde lectured in Greenock
in 1885 and the rise of cheap casual leisure wear in twenty-first century
Govan.*
D
L
*Rod Stewart swanning around L.A. in a leotard dis nae count.
------------------------------
*From:* "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Sent:* Saturday, 7 October 2017, 14:23
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Ishiguro's Implicature
It all started when Ritchie was reading the Guardian and spot a big error,
which, he comforted his self, “is common.” He was looking for feedback
about it, though – as if he were in the ‘common room’ of some Oxonian
college. The utterance was:
i. Born in Japan, Ishiguro’s family moved to the UK
when he was five.
McEvoy notes that it is not obvious this is an error, in that it is not
obvious that the utterer need not care to ‘inform’ his addressee where
Ishiguro’s family was born, only Ishiguro alone.
For the record, if one must be as informative as is required (alla Grice),
Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki>,
the son of Shizuo and Shizuko Ishiguro (Vide: Barry Lewis, “Kazuo Ishiguro.”
Manchester University Press). In a way, Lewis is not being as informative
is required. Cfr.: Herbert Paul Grice was born in Harborne, the son of
Herbert Grice and Mabel Fenton.)
McEvoy goes on:
“Meaning analysis can be very complicated, and may not reduce to
exceptionless ‘rules,’ and I think we may get further by looking at the
intended meaning [or implicature], and considering the words used as an
attempt to solve a problem in conveying a certain meaning. Now we can take
"Born in Japan, Ish's family”
McEvoy is using Ishiguro’s nickname –
Cfr. the NYT: “Ishiguro — his friends call him Ish — became a public
figure in [some time ago], but to anyone paying attention he seemed to have
arrived fully formed as a writer.”
The writer of the NYT piece seems to be implicating that McEvoy is
Ishiguro’s friend – but I disgress on an important point (or common
‘error’).
McEvoy quotes The Guardian’s utterance
“Born in Japan, Ish[iguro]’s family moved to the UK when he was five.”
and notes that it can be expanded [via the explicature of the implicature]
it in various ways.
The expansion McEvoy chooses is – it’s more like a replacement, but I see
his point. He means that the original Guardian utterance can be ‘rephrased’
in terms of these ‘expansions’ (or ‘conflations’):
McEvoy:
"Ish's family (including Ish) being born in Japan , they (including Ish)
moved to [the UK] when Ish was five."
Six according to some sources. It might come as a surprise that, as an
oceanographer, Ish’s father moved to inland Guildford, but the implicature
is that those in the know know that that’s where the Institute of
Oceanography is located. The ‘Ish’ family spoke Japanese since, to rephrase
Ish’s wording, “My father wasn’t sure we were going to stay for long; so he
wanted us to keep the culture.” He does not expand on whether Shikuzo Ish
was happy with the moving – but he does later grant that, to rephrase him,
“I’ve always seen the world through MY PARENTS [_sic_ plural]’s eyes.” (The
implicature being that while his Japan may be ‘imaginary,’ it is rooted in
both his parents’ conception of it – very real.
But back to The Guardian:
McEvoy:
“The parentheticals may be taken as "implicatures" (as, in most families,
all family members are typically born in the same country - unless there is
a move abroad).”
Well, Ish has said that ‘in the future’ this [that McEvoy is referring to]
will not be that ‘obvious’. I don’t know about oceanographers much, but it
might well be possible that Ish senior met a colleague oceanographer from
say Finland. Oceanography, like other disciplines, can be very specific.
McEvoy:
“We can also have a variant where it is only Ish's birthplace we take as
referenced by the "Being born..." Giving: "(Ish) being born in Japan, his
family moved (with him) to the UK when Ish was five."
I like that. I would actually explicate that to read Nagasaki. Especially
when it is H. Ishiguro who was born in Tokyo. Ritchie was talking about
bigness and Japan is big. But The Guardian is not recognized as following
Grice’s ‘be as informative as you can’. The Daily Telegraph is! (even with
“Daily” dropped as otiose).
McEvoy:
“I think the actual wording is open-ended as to what variant we adopt -
i.e. it could be interpreted either way.”
Perhaps we should research more into the actual Guardian utterer. Regular
readers of The Guardian might recognise the utterer and be more ‘familiar’
with the type of implicatures this utterer has a penchant for inviting, if
that’s the expression.
McEvoy:
“But this difference in interpretation is irrelevant to the intended gist
- which does narrow to the fact Ish was, from the age of five, raised in a
different country from his birth country (and *perhaps* the birth country
of his family).”
Six, according to other sources. And since his father was not sure he
liked Guildford, he kept speaking Japanese in the home, thinking that Ish
might want to return. In fact, Ish did return, only to find that his
Japanese was ‘poor’ (I’m rephrasing) and – this surprised me – “I couldn’t
get awards there.” He adds, “But the people in Japan still see me as one of
their own” (I’m rephrasing). Lots of implicatures there in that it is, for
Popper, an implicated universal quantifier-dominated utterance, almost.
McEvoy:
“As a matter of economy,”
Exactly, an abiding of Grice, ‘be brief.’
“the actual wording conveys this gist - but perhaps at the expense of
grammatical explicitness on the whole factual matrix from which this gist
is extracted.”
Is there also the implicature that five is a crucial age? I mean, when H.
Ishiguro moved to the UK (Oxford), she did it on her own. There may be an
implicature that Ish never ‘decided’ to move – “His family, born in Japan,
did.” On his behalf, we may even extract as an implicature. The
oceanographer could have travelled to Guildford on his own and visit his
family on extended leaves or something.
But then, when Grice left Oxford, he left on his own. His wife, and two
children, followed suit, but ONE YEAR later! So it was up to Grice to buy
the house in the New World, and the rest of it. Consider:
“Born in England, Grice’s children moved to the New World, after Grice
himself had done one year earlier.”
Since at the time the chidren could ‘choose,’ the implicature is
different, we assume, from Ish’s case.
McEvoy:
“Thus here we have a typical example of a trade-off in how we could go
about solving a problem of conveying meaning. Whatever the differences in
opinion on the trade-off made, and whether it is a good one or not, I am
sceptical that the drawbacks of the trade-off made constitute "grammatical
error" (though of course it is open to someone to argue otherwise).”
I think Ritchie’s point is that it is an error in ‘usage’. Surely it does
pertain to what Witters calls ‘depth grammar.’ But since for Witters
meaning is almost usage, and then there’s ‘depth grammar,’ this is a trick!
I think it’s an error in implicature, alleged.
McEvoy:
“This of course raises wider issues of how we characterise "grammatical
error", on which there is a lot of rubbish written - often by people
mistaking their stipulations and conventions for necessities.”
I agree. Ritchie said the ‘error’ (unqualified) was ‘common’ – and I would
add: to “The Guardian” not necessarily being the implicature. It perhaps
would not have slipped an editorial in THE TIMES, say? (Further
implicature?).
If Witters is right that there IS a ‘depth grammar,’ surely the way to
test this is to provide, alla Grice, the logical form of (i) – considering
what Chomsky says about anaphora – and provide the deductively arrived
conclusion. Or not, of course! (To know what is implicated, we need to know
what is explicated in the first place, sort of thing).
Cheers,
Speranza
