McEvoy’s point concerns the interaction of an infant with adults. This is a
specific type of conversation that Grunebaum calls ‘infant-adult.’ It has to be
distinguished from ‘adult-infant.’ What’s the difference? If the *first*
conversational move is by the infant, it’s ‘infant-adult.’ If it isn’t
(entailment: but it’s by the adult) it’s an adult-infant conversation. Such are
the refinements of Oxonian analysis.
McEvoy’s theorem and hypothesis I tried to reformulate in terms of Grunebaum’s
idea of an utterer having a repertoire of procedures to utter x when the
utterer m-intends (or ‘means,’ for short, since this is what ‘m’ stands for)
this or that. It’s _basic_ procedures we are talking about here, which
Grunebaum contrasts with _resultant_ procedures (as in “More toast and less
butter” – which can be seen as a ‘molecular’ utterance composed of the atomic
‘More toast’ and ‘less butter’ – the utterer would have basic procedures for
each of these two atomic utterances, and a resultant procedure for the
molecular utterance.
At one point McEvoy refers to ‘pitch,’ and my reference was meant to be to
Grunebaum’s section on ‘STRESS and implicature’ in the Harvard lectures. Pitch
and stress differ, but they also compare.
The idea that x1 and x2 (“Oh uh” and “Oh dear,” in McEvoy’s examples extracted
from the expressions by K) are utterered to mean the _same_ proposition “p”
should be given due thought. It does not seem a logical impossibility, for one.
My emphasis on phonetic transcripts is Oxonian in nature. It may be argued that
the “oh,” may be given a different transliteration from ‘oh,’ in which case we
may indeed have four components for the two expressions. The ‘oh’ in “oh dear”
is perhaps trickier. Virgil, who spoke Ancient Roman, preferred, “o”
_simpliciter_, as in _o dea_. _O_ accompanies a vocative. In this respect, it’s
a bit like the ‘o,’ in ‘O, we ain’t got a barrel of money.’ In ‘O, we ain’t got
a barrel of money,’ ‘o’ is noticeable Unstressed – unless it is. “Dear”
certainly IS stressed. A phonetic, phonemic, and suprasegmental transcription
of the expressions should help (or perhaps should not – obscurus per obscurius).
McEvoy attempts to refute the orthodoxy in developmental studies (he
distinguishes between ‘language’ or ‘verbal behaviour’ as Skinner would prefer)
and ‘behavioural development’ more generally. But in any case, one interesting
distinction seems to be between ‘expressive’ and ‘communicative.’ Chomsky and
others have argued that this distinction is perhaps otiose, but perhaps it
isn’t. K (or M, where M stands for Grunebaum’s Matilda) may be willing to
express (to themselves, as it were – as when we say, “I thought to myself”)
rather than ‘communicate.’ If the latter, a form of recognition of the
utterer’s intention seems to be the focus of McEvoy’s theorem and attending
hypothesis (McEvoy’s ‘why bother’ and the implicated ‘why worry’) – or not.
A good set of references would be good, especially when the hypothesis and the
theorem involve a couple (hyperbolically) of different authors and stuff.
If we grant that K or M _implicates_ we must grant that K or M _means_ (as they
do) since ‘what is implicated’ is part (if not parcel) of ‘what is meant.’
McEvoy may be getting at this when he refers to Wittgenstein’s idea of ‘shades
of meaning’ in “Philosophical Investigations.”
McEvoy’s keywords ‘command’ and ‘control’ are interesting in that ‘command’
relates conceptually to ‘desire’. K’s desire and K commands, as it were. The
picture that emerges is an ‘instrumentalist’ one, where K’s or M’s utterances
are used as ‘moves’ in a game meant to realise K’s _goals_ (which are
conceptually tied to K’s desires). K’s or M’s co-conversationalists are mere
ancillary agents of this manoeuvre – but surely the picture can get more
complicated. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES
Biro, J. I. Reply to Suppes.
Chomsky, The John Locke Lectures, Oxford.
Grunebaum, in J. R. Searle, “The Philosophy of Language,” Oxford Readings in
Philosophy.
Suppes, P. The primacy of utterer’s meaning, in Grandy & Warner, Philosophical
Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends.
