[lit-ideas] Re: On various plants
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 03:46:55 +0200
All implicatures are cancelled, as of 22.04.2014.
O.K.
On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 12:04 PM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> In a message dated 4/21/2014 2:49:54 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx quotes:
> >>Of course implicatures (unlike entailments) are cancellable
> and writes:
> >Now they tell me.
>
> This in reference to T. Fjeld's post, "On various plants". McEvoy's
> original point, a Griceian one, involved the idea that 'various' can be
> otiose.
>
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/various
>
> gives two examples that may help us to determine whether McEvoy's point can
> be taken as being one of an 'implicature' (rather than 'entailment') of
> 'various':
>
> i. He has lived in places as various as New York and Beijing.
>
> In (i), 'various' seems otiose, in that it may be rephrased as
>
> ib. He has lived in New York and Beijing.
>
> -- (Note that in Chinese, the reverse is not true).
>
> The other example provided by the Merriam Webster is:
>
> ii. For their various and bizarrely shaped plumage, males of the bird of
> paradise species have few rivals.
>
> Here it seems that 'various' can still be deleted (even if it may not).
>
> The point about 'on' is also defeasible and thus cancellable and perhaps
> then implicatural in nature. It presupposes that every post must have a
> subject.
>
> It may be argued that a post
>
> Subject: Plants
>
> differs in topic from one entitled -- McEvoy's proposal --:
>
> Subject: On Plants
>
> and from one entitled
>
> Subject: On Various Plants
>
> as opposed to, to use McEvoy's proposal:
>
> Subject: Various Plants
>
> Yet, while it may be possible to refute McEvoy's proposal for the otiosity
> of 'various', to prove that a post has no subject may prove unprovable?*
>
> Cheers,
>
> Speranza
>
> *Cfr. Wittgenstein on the _meaning_ of "Ouch" (""Ouch" does not _say_ my
> pain: it *shows* it" vis-à–vis Russell's proposal that all utterances are
> of
> the subject-predicate kind, and bear _topics_ -- the 'subject' -- about
> which something is 'predicated').
>
> -- The Brown Book, xx).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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