[lit-ideas] Re: Or not
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:36:14 EDT
In a message dated 6/23/2011 7:37:55 P.M. Argentina Standard Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx quotes from Robert Paul.
>>[I wondering whether] it will rain"
and adds:
>Or not -- which could mean: or hail. Or snow. Or produce no
precipitation at all. Certainly, the 'or not' in this case is not otiosic,
more like
plutosic.
----
It may be argued that while Paul may (or then again, may not?) wonder
whether it will rain (or not), it would be otiose, as Geary I think is
suggesting that what R. Paul is in fact wondering is whether we will have some
weather (or not).
-----
Using "Statement and Inference", by Cook Wilson, Grice famously associated
both "or" and "if" (both particles used by R. Paul above) with questions --
"Who killed Cock Robin?". Grice and Cook Wilson argue that "or" is used in
questions related to contingency planning, while "if" is used in sequences
of subordinated inclusion ("Either the Wren or the Thursh killed Cock
Robin"; "If it wasn't the Thrush, it was the Wren.").
It may be argued that -- and Grice also considered this -- that 'exam
questions' are never of the "or what" variety. Grice considers the intention
behind the student who answers:
1811
as an answer to
"When was the Battle of Waterloo fought?" (WoW:v).
Similarly, one can think of the following as an exam history question:
"Was the assassination of the archduke of Sarajevo the cause of the Great
War?"
-- vide
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_A
ustria_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria)
But it would be slightly otiose and downright patronising on the part of
the history teacher to circulate a quiz among students which would include
the question:
"Was the assassination of the archduke of Sarajevo the cause of the Great
War -- or not?"
----
And so on.
Helm is on spot when he notes that there is some open-endness to 'or' (the
contigency planning of Grice) which is cancelled by the 'not'.
R. Paul
>>wonder whether it will rain
Geary:
>or not
"not otiose here".
Note that in fact R. Paul wrote:
>wonder IF it will rain.
The question then is triggered as to the distinction between 'weather' and
'if'. Some (not I) regard "whether" as a "pompous" way of saying 'if'.
But not that while one can add the otiose "or not" to 'whether', it sounds
odd to proceed similarly with 'if'
R. Paul wonders if (or not) it will rain.
----
At this point one wonders what "or not" attaches to.
----
Perhaps the thing can be simplified by asking R. Paul. Whether he is ready
to replace his wondering with 'if or not'
>>wondering if or not it rains.
I googled "if or not" and it _seems_ okay. (15,000 hits for "if or not it
rains" -- check). A lot of people (but apparently, not Grice) do use “if or
not” in informal speech -- in which case perhaps no implicature is
triggered. Or...
Geary:
>that's not otiosic.
>that's plutosic
----- On the other hand I'm never sure. People use 'ungrammatical' a lot. I
use 'unpragmatic'. I would think that "Are you a virgin -- or not" may be
grammatical, but it may also be unpragmatic.
On the other hand, some people count the below as ungrammatical:
"She'll do it whether you like it or not."
It should be argued that, if my Griceian defence is in order, that could
be, without loss of meaning be simplified, and I _will_ simplify it whenever
I have occasion to use the 'idiom' -- to:
"She'll do it whether you like it."
----
Or "whether you don't like it."
In general, 'if' and 'whether' were possibly not used in 'assertoric'
speech. Note that people use the idiom, "if you must" -- but hardly "if you
mustn't". Yet, there is a perfect asymmetry, so the proliferation of one idiom
over the other must be accounted along Griceian lines.
Simplifying 'whether' to the horseshoe ('if') seems to do the trick here:
"She'll do it whether you like it".
i.e.
"She'll do it if you like it."
----
assuming of course, a material-conditional (alla Philo of Megara) reading
of 'if'. Q. E. D.
R. Paul suggests that 'p?' and 'p or not?' are different _animals_ and he
postulates an anti-Griceian, as it were, breach of compositionality.
He argues that since: "p?" fulfils the role of a genuine query, while "p or
not?" does NOT, it is not as if "or not" gets ADDED to a genuine question
to produce a non-genuine one. He rather suggests we see "p or not?" as a
fixed idiom to mean, "I am exasperated". While I agree that intentions do not
compose (as meaning does), the implicature story of WHY 'p or not?'
exasperates at least Grice allows you to maintain compositionality as
Aristotle
and Frege defended it.
Cheers,
Speranza
----
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