[lit-ideas] Re: Or not
- From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:17:56 -0400
We are considering the addition of
"or not"
to a question.
"Are you a virgin?"
--- This is usually meant to mean, "are you a virgin, or are you not
one?"
It seems that since all this is transparent enough to a rational
conversationalist -- although perhaps not a dog --, the "or not" is
otiose. Hence
"Are you a virgin, or not?"
borders on otiosity combined with rudeness. This is what Helm has as "a
sense of exasperation".
Note that one cannot expect a dog to retrieve "or" as either
"inclusive" or "exclusive" (in logical form, "p v q", "p w q"). Again
this may come out as rude among non-animal (as it were)
conversationalists:
"Are you a lesbian, or not?"
"Are you a lesbian, or bisexual?"
"Are you gay, or bisexual?"
"Are you gay, or not?"
I argue that a case may be made to the effect that "a bisexual" IS
_gay_. Or that a "bisexual" fame can also be "a lesbian" (I need more
research on that).
---- So one has to be careful as to what material follows the "or".
Since we are concerned with just "not" following, it, that should be
not much of a problem, one expects.
R. Paul expands:
"I agree with Lawrence. He is making, with different examples, the same
point I was trying to make in a longer post in which I gave some
examples of questions of the form 'Are you— or not?' in
which 'or not'' was neither redundant or otiose, and added nothing
((something)) to the mere question, 'Are you—?' Lawrence has hit on the
right word to describe such utterances: they are, quite often,
expressions of exasperation"
I agree. I WOULD, indeed, claim that the implicature, simpliciter, is
"I am exasperated". The problem is whether the dog should be blamed for
the _utterer´s_ exasperation (and mutatis mutandis, the prostitute, the
lesbian, and so forth).
R. Paul continues:
"and (although I'm not sure Lawrence would agree with this), really not
questions
at all."
That would seem to throw away the baby with the water, as they say. It
would leave JUST the implicature, "I am exasperated".
Note that it´s best to understand Helm´s utterance as addressed to
himself. "This dog exasperates me". He is, after all, not intending to
retrieve an answer from the dog. Helm has managed to formulate the
question in such a way that it disallows a simple response, from a dog,
of the form, "Yes" (or "No," as the case may be -- "Are you going
out?"). Instead, he is pressurising the animal into some sort of
abductive reasoning to the effect that the dog should perceive how
exasperated Helm is by the harmless behaviour of the canine.
R. Paul continues:
"Given an easily imagined setting, the person who says (3) might well
be saying, 'I wish you'd go,' or, 'I'm tired of your hanging around;
I'd like to go to bed,' or, as my grandfather used to
say, words to that effect."
Oddly, my grandfather also used that expression. I have taken it up,
but qualify it somehow. "words to that PERLOCUTIONARY effect."
----
If the implicatum is "I am exasperated", and since there is nothing,
really, that the dog can do about it, it´s best to leave it unexpressed
-- hence the implicatum. In many cases, the trick questions arise from
the need to articulate (via perhaps a mismanagement of anger, or
something) what is best left unarticulated. There was this cartoon by
Andy Cap.
----- "I´m such a failure. I never do anything right. I´m just hopeless"
Wife remains silent.
"Come on. Contradict me!"
Andy Cap explodes in the third squre of the cartoon strip. The idea is
that the wife has left, unarticulated, what, by a mere rule of
courtesy, should NOT. And so on.
----
R. Paul:
"This is how such utterances are very frequently used. To try to
construe them as mere questions would seem to be in this exchange an
attempt to save a theory—or a set of conversational maxims—which really
does ignore contexts (settings) as well as the speakers intentions.
When used in many familiar settings, 'Well, are you going out or not?'
e.g. is an idiomatic expression and has only a surface resemblance to
'Do you know when the next train leaves?'
Robert Paul,
wondering if it will rain,
or…"
Well, Grice does consider idioms. His example,
"He is fertilising the daffodils"
This he says is not an idiom.
"He is pushing up the daisies"
is. He calls it an established idiom.
It´s perhaps best to keep the label, "trick question". Rhetorical
question is too much associated with a question that intends to
retrieve no answer,
"Is the Pope Catholic?"
Note that the "or not" can only worsen things.
"Trick question" then is what may be, at the level of the implicature,
not meant as primarily a question.
And so on.
R. Paul:
"This sentence is goofy in its own right, but it can't be fixed by
changing 'nothing' to 'something.' As I said later on in that post, I
now believe that utterances of the form 'Are you—or not,'
are, in many cases, not questions at all but idiomatic expressions."
I explore above how tricky it is to add "idiom" to the repertoire. What
makes "pushing up the daisies" an established idiom (to use Grice´s
parlance) but "fertilising the daffodils" not one?
"If they are, this would mean that one doesn't begin with a mere
question
and then append 'or not to it.' There are not
two parts to such expressions—the mere question and what's appended to
it; instead, the speaker intends it as a whole, and the audience must
understand it as one."
I see.
Yes, syntactically, they are different (animals).
"Are you leaving?"
is VERY direct.
"Are you leaving or not"
dishonours the possibility of a honest, short, answer ("Yes", "No").
Note that some ambivalent logicians love the expression,
"Yes and no" (google it).
Are you a lesbian?
Yes and no.
But this rhetoric trick is disallowed by
"Are you going out or not?"
"Yes and no" MAY be correctly described as the answer to such a loaded,
trick, rhetorical query -- which does not even count as a ´query´ at
the implicatum level).
"What do you mean, ´Yes and no´?"
"I mean, "yes, I am going out" and "no, I am not going out" -- which
was what you asked, "Are you going out, or not?".
----
Note that while the implicature "I am exasperated" usually works, it
does not, with McEvoy. He finished a post, on, typically, Popper, with
a ps.
--- rhetorical.
"Should I see Dylan tomorrow?"
Instead of leaving it at that, he added, for effect, or "for emphasis",
as he said,
"or not".
It may be argued that McEvoy was exasperated with his self?
Cheers
Speranza
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