Saying (nothing) and conversational implicatures
Abstract
I defend an alternative theory of conversational implicatures that does without Grice's notion of making-as-if-to-say. This theory characterises conversationally implicating that p as a way to mean that p by saying that q or by saying nothing. Cases that Grice's theory cannot capture are captured, and cases that Grice's theory misdescribes are correctly described. A distinction between conversational implicatures and pragmatic inferences from what speakers express is required, as well as a non-implicature treatment of figurative speech.
Citation
Tamburini , V 2023 , ' Saying (nothing) and conversational implicatures ' , Pacific Philosophical Quarterly . https://doi.org/10.1111/papq.12445
Publication
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0279-0750Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly published by University of Southern California and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Description
Funding: University of St Andrews.Collections
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