distinguishing grammar and inference in language · grice’s conversational maxims h. paul grice...

Imagination and Convention:Distinguishing Grammar and

Inference in Language

Ernie Lepore (and Matthew Stone)Center of Cognitive Science

Rutgers Universitylepore@ruccs.rutgers.edu

http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/lepore/

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Locke

To make words serviceable to the end of communication, it is necessary […] that they excite in the hearer exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker. Without this, men fill one another's heads with noise and sounds; but convey not thereby their thoughts, and lay not before one another their ideas, which is the end of discourse and language. Essay 3.9.4.

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Features of Locke’s picture1. Compatible with linguistic communication being

conventional. Demands only that participants be linguistically competent.

2. Places indirectness in conversation outside scope of linguistic communication. Even though there are reasonable inferences a hearer might drawupon hearing an utterance, communicative success is a matter of encoding and decoding.

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Grice’s attack on Lockean Model

� Communication requires a hearer to figure out what a speaker means, but decoding only fixes what the speaker said, not what she meant.

� Gap must be filled by reasoning, resting on presumption speakers are cooperative & rational.

� What is CI-ed is calculable on basis of what speaker said PLUS assumption she acted cooperatively to further goals of conversation, and expectation she did so by reasonable means.

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Game Plan�Many proposals to redraw contours of Grice’s model of linguistic communication: Stalnaker(1973, 1979), Bach and Harnish (1979), Horn (1984), Sperber and Wilson (1986), Thomason (1990), Levinson (2000), Carston (2002).

�But no one suggested abandoning Grice’s insight and return to the Lockean model

�In Imagination and Convention, we argue against CIs – Grice’s devise for filling in the gap.

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Classic Pragmatic Inferencesi. Ask a waiter, “Can I have French Toast?” he can

infer you want French Toast.

ii. Insist, “Oil prices doubled and demand for consumer goods plunged,” hearer can infer plunge followed doubling.

iii Describe act “And then he put the red handkerchief on the side of table,” interjecting, “Well, it looked red,” can infer you disagree.

� Note how specific they are. Explain.

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Grice’s Conversational Maxims

H. Paul Grice (1975, “Logic and conversation") wasinterested in the everyday use of logic.

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Logical Implication

1. All psycholinguists are clever.2. Jim is a psycholinguist.3. So, Jim is clever.

1. John is a bachelor.2. John is unmarried.

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Conversational Logic

If I say, Can you be quiet? what inference do youdraw?

If a colleague asks me how a student did, and I reply,She always came to class on time and her penmanship was very neat, what inference do youdraw?

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Feature 1: Cancelability

• But John is not clever.

• But John is married.

• Some people have a disease that makes them talk all the time. Do you have that?

• All of this on top of being a great student!

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Cooperative Principle

Grice suggested that conversation is based on asingle shared principle of cooperation:

“Make your conversational contribution what is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.”

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Mutual Knowledge

� CP is not just true; it’s mutually known among interlocutors.

� To help us see how CP leads to interpretations, Grice introduces considerations of truthfulness, informativenes, relevance and clarity – the 4 Maxims.

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Maxims of Quantity: Be informative

1.“Make your contribution as informative as required.”

2.“Don’t make your contribution more informative than is required.”

Cooperative speakers must not give too much or too little information, given the goals of the conversation.

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Maxims of Quality: Be truthful.

1. “Don’t say what you believe to be false.”2. “Don’t say what you lack adequate evidence

for.”

� Cooperative speakers must contribute info that others can rely on to be accurate.

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Maxim of Relation: Be Relevant

� Cooperative speakers must contribute info that others find relevant.

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Maxims of Manner: Be perspicuous

1. “Avoid obscurity of expression.”2. “Avoid ambiguity.”3. “Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).”4. “Be orderly.”

� Cooperative speakers must contribute info to others in a format appropriate to the them given the circumstances of the exchange.

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Why assume CP/Maxims followed?1. Certain goals are fundamental to

conversation.

2. These goals can be accomplished only inexchanges conducted in accord with CP.

3. Therefore, all rational speakers must behave in accord with CP.

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General Cooperative Projects

� Quality. Collaborators should choose actions that further their joint project & not undermine it. If I need sugar for the cake we are making, I expect you not to hand me salt.

� Quantity. Collaborators should act to do their full part in their joint project. If you are helping me fix a car and at a particular juncture I need four screws, I expect you to hand me four, and not two or six.

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� Relation. Collaborators should respond to the immediate needs of the task. If I am mixing the ingredients for a cake, I do not expect to be handed a good book (though this might be appropriate at a later stage).

� Manner. Collaborators should act efficiently and recognizably. I expect a partner to make it clear what contribution he is making, and to execute his performance with reasonable dispatch.

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In a conversation, a speaker may...

i. observe the maxims — the default assumption.

ii. violate a maxim, e.g., lie.

iii. flout a maxim to full knowledge of the addressee.

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Added Layers of Meaning

� Grice suggests the third way leads to interpretations that are not literal:

� Speakers often use utterances in ways compatible with CP and the maxims only under certain assumptions.

� Grice calls these assumptions/inferences Conversational Implicatures.

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Fundamental Assumption

• Assumed: at some level, the speaker always observes CP, even if what’s literally said does not.

• Observing maxims at non-literal level triggers a CI..

• This means if the addressee assumes the speaker is following the maxims, though not evident at literal level, the addressee infers an additional layer of meaning to make up the difference.

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How to Violate a Maxim

• “Quietly and unostentatiously”I ask, Do you love me?You answer Yes. (supposingyou don’t really: quietly violates maxim

of quality; hence, a lie – no CI)• Overtly opting out of a maxim:

A colleague asks, How is the job search going? and I respond, Sorry, that’s confidential.

(explicit information: maxim of quantity cannot besatisfied, no CI.)

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• Coping with a clash between maxims:A student asks, Where does Professor Lepore

live? and you answer, Somewhere in NJ.(You know the student wants to find my house, but

you don’t know exactly. To avoid violating themaxim of quality – providing info you know to beuntrue – you violate the maxim of quantity –providing less info than asked for – possible CI:

You don’t know exactly where I live.)

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Flouting a maxim to exploit it:

Unlike someone who is simply violating a maxim, someone who is flouting a maximexpects the listener to notice.

Flouting the first Maxim of Quality (avoid falsehoods):

A: Tehran's in Turkey, isn't it?B: Uh-huh, and Boston's in Armenia.

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Ways of Flouting

Flouting the first Maxim of Manner (obscurity): A: What are you baking?B: Be I are tea aitch dee ay wye see ay kay ee.

Flouting the third Maxim of Manner (prolixity):A: I hear you went to the opera last night; how was the

lead singer?B: The singer produced a series of sounds corresponding

closely to the score of an aria from '"Rigoletto."

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Flouting

Flouting the Maxim of Relation (be relevant): A: What on earth has happened to the roast beef? B: The dog is looking very happy.

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Standard Implicatures

� Not all CI-s require flouting.

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Quality Implicatures

1. John has two PhD’s

2. I believe John has two PhD’s, and have adequate evidence that he has.

3. Does your farm contain 400 acres?

4. I don’t know that your farm does contain 400 acres, and I want to know if it does.

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Quantity Implicatures

1. Nigel has fourteen children.

2. Nigel has no more than fourteen children.

� 1. The flag is white.

� 2. The flag is only white

� 1. A: How did Harry fare in court today?

� B: Oh, he got a fine

� 2. He got no more than a fine.

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Relation Implicatures

1. Pass the salt

2. Pass the salt now

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Manner Implicatures

1. A: How do I get into you apartment?

� B: Walk up to the front door, turn the doorhandle clockwise as far as it will go, and

then pull gently towards you.

� 2. Pay particular attention and care to each step of the instructions I’ve given you.

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� A: John ate some of the cookies.

� B: I figured he would. How many are left?

� Q: What is the basis for these inferences?

� A: We customarily obey, and assume our interlocutors do as well, rules of conversation:

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Feature 2: Non-Detachability

� If an utterance of P conversationally implicates q in C, then an utterance of Q conversationally implicates q in C, too, given that utterances of P in C and of Q in C say the same thing.

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Feature 3: Calculability

� Assuming that rational speakers comply with the set of maxims, CI-s can calculated from what is said in conjunction with info about the conversational context broadly construed—including, e.g., the intentions, goals and presuppositions of the conversational participants.

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A: Can I get gas somewhere around here?B: There’s a garage around the corner.

[A can get gas at that garage..]� Calculation: B just said there is a garage around

the corner in response to my question whether I can get gas somewhere around here. That information is irrelevant for my purposes, unless the garage is open and I can get gas there. B is cooperative and wouldn’t respond with irrelevant information to my question. Moreover, B has done nothing to prevent me from thinking that I can get petrol at the garage around the corner. So that must be what B meant to convey by her utterance.

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Let’s return to original 3 utterances

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i. Can I have French Toast?

1. Little doubt addressee has the ability.

2. But a speaker who asks might hope to follow up with an order – obviously a link.

3. Ordering is a collaborative goal a customer and waiter can be expected to share, and so, utterance is cooperative.

4. So, he must have intended addressee to identify the indirect order suggested by the link.

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ii. Oil prices doubled and demand for consumer goods plunged

1. Speaker used “Oil prices doubled,” and continuedwith “and demand for consumer goods plunged”.

2. She must intend clauses to be related.3. Given what she said, and presumption of

cooperation, only possible relation is plunge followed doubling; describe events in order.

4. So, speaker intends to convey as much.

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iii. Well, it looked red.

1. 1st speaker already offered stronger claim that the handkerchief was red.

2. This requires 2nd speaker to assent to the stronger claim if she can.

3. So, 2nd speaker conveys doubt about stronger claim by virtue of asserting a weaker claim.

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My First Goal

Challenge these standard classic pragmatic, non-linguistic inferences, by documenting the conventions that interlocutors exploit in deriving specific interpretations.

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Interpreting (i): asking vs. requesting

� Different contexts impose different practical constraints that render one purpose more appropriate than another.

� But citing purposes doesn’t by itself explain how uses of (i) receive different interpretations.

� We can also invoke purposes in disambiguating ambiguities. Think ‘bank’.

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Positing 2 Meanings� Felicitous to use please in many contexts.

(5) Please turn the music down.

(6) I would like to have eggs please.

� But not every utterance that invites a response allows please.

(7) #I’m thirsty please.

What’s please latching on to in (5)-(6), but not (7)?

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Non-Detachability� Contrast between (i) and (9):

� (i) Can I have the French Toast?

(9) Am I able to have the French Toast?

� Maxim of Manner?

Would you do me the kindness of passing the salt?

� Do they support same indirect request?

� Google data

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Cross-linguistic Data� English has indirect meanings that its translations

don’t.

(10) Would you like a beer?

(11) Miałbys ochote˛ na pivo?

� Conversely:

kikasete itadakemasen ka (Japanese request)� listen-make you-do-us-the-favor question

Can you do us the favor of having us listen [to..]?

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Lesson

� Data are familiar, but theoretical significance is unacknowledged.

� Several commentators deny conventionality and calculability are incompatible.

1. But conventions require alternatives.

2. Their existence means it would be rational for conventional case not to hold.

3. Ergo, you can’t calculate anything from a convention, at least not in Grice’s sense.

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(ii) Oil prices doubled and demand for consumer goods plunged.

12. Short sellers bought low and sold high.

�Grice: narrative discourse in (ii) and parallel one in (12) involve a meaning for “and” neutral about temporal location ofdescribed events.

�Narrative interpretation is derived, when appropriate, by the general reasoning used to make sense of what others say.

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Standard Gricean Derivation

1. Speaker said, “Oil prices doubled,” and continued with, “and demand for consumer goods plunged;” we presume second appropriate for its context.

2. So second intended to be related to first, providing relevant continuation.

3. Given what’s said & presumed cooperation, only possibility is plunge followed doubling.

4. So, speaker means events occurred in order presented.

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Counter Claim

� Contra Grice, logical form settles whether a sentence has a narrative reading or another possible interpretation – like a list.

� In (1)-(4) a covert appeal to convention at (3).

� If this is right, then this derivation is notcalculated from what is said by principles of rationality alone.

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Role of convention in (1)-(4)� Grice’s own test of non-detachability.

14. Oil prices have doubled and demand for consumer goods has plunged.

� (14) differs from (ii) only in aspect, not in TC-s.

� Less sure about temporal succession: might be presenting two unrelated reasons why economy is in trouble.

� Its use is no violation of cooperation.

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Link between clauses

� With (ii), we understand that the speaker is using 2nd conjunct to continue a narrative.

� (14) more likely is chosen to conjoin past events because they are similar.

� Obviously, neither is the only rational choice available.

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Conventional Elements

� Choice of conventional elements, viz., choice of particular tense and aspect, guides audience towards identifying which speech act a speaker intends to relate 2nd conjunct to 1st.

� Difference between doubled and plunged, on the one hand, and have doubled and have plunged, on the other, is a conventional signal of interpretive differences.

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How Tense works

� Descriptions of past events introduce intervals.

� Once introduced, we can talk about what happened in run up, or as a result or simultaneously.

16. John played the piano. Mary played the kazoo.

17. John bought Mary some flowers. He picked out three red roses and two white ones.

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How Aspect works� For “Oil prices have doubled,” the speaker

references, conventionally, the result that oil prices remain much higher than they were at some indefinite point in the recent past.

� And with “demand for consumer goods has plunged,” the speaker references the result that demand remains lower than in recent past.

� Conventionally, this discourse is knit together as a description of two present economic challenges, not as a relationship between successive events.

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Grice vs. Strawson� Strawson: ‘and’ in English can mean ‘and then.’

� Grice: temporal order can be ‘canceled’.

1. Conventional content cannot be canceled.

� For Strawson, (12) cannot be using ‘and’ normally in, “I bought low and and sold high”.

2. More parsimonious to explain cancelable interpretations via pragmatics than by ambiguity

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Third Way� 2 salient intervals: trading one when short

sellers’ aims realized & sub one after purchase

� To interpret 2nd conjunct, we must locate selling within an interval, resolving in the way intended by writers.

� We naturally default to narrative resolution, but new information can override this.

� So, no parsimony in deriving a reading via CI; wederive both by resolving a univocal but incomplete meaning in context.

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(iii) a. He put red handkerchief on the side of the table.

b. Well, it looked red.

� Is disagreement attributable to pragmatics?

� “the speaker meant that [the handkerchief] may not have been red” because “a plausible general principle of human discourse would have it that if a second speaker insists a stronger assertion should be replaced by a weaker one, he thereby wishes to cast doubt on the stronger assertion” (Kripke 1978).

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Alternative Explanation

� The second speaker has used the grammar of English to mark her utterance as an expression of partial agreement.

� It’s grammar, not pragmatics, that’s responsible for the interpretation of the example.

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Intonation

� 2nd speaker uses English grammar to mark utterance as a disagreement.

� Rise-fall contour conventionally associated in English with disagreement.

� Some languages do it differently, with word order, e.g., Czech; others use syntax, e.g. Catalan; and others use morphological elements, e.g., Japanese.

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Contrast case

� Put high accent on It and slightly less on red.

� Pattern signifies shocked agreement:: “It certainly was red; I saw it with my own eyes.”

� In both, 1st speaker asserts handkerchief is red and 2nd it looks red; no disagreement.

� But contingent on pattern presented, doubt or support is conveyed.

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Summary so far and Projection

� Certain features (lexical items, tense, aspect, intonation) conventionalize moves speakers can make (telling a story, providing a list, giving evidence, making comparisons, proposing, correcting, asking, answering).

� We are done with the convention part of the book and now we turn to the imagination part.

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Second GoalScope of Conventions

� Are there cases where the information the speaker intends to get across is not encoded linguistically.

� Aren’t such cases, if they exist, legitimate cases of pragmatic inference?

� Challenge Paradigm cases: figurative speech

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Metaphor

1. No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

� Literally, Donne’s text appears to characterize people as a kind of territory.

� But literal truth is not what Donne is after.

� Point: audience explore explore imagery and come to appreciate our social bonds.

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Hinting

� Examiner, looking over a completed exam, utters (2) to student.

2. You might want look at your answer to problem 3 again.

� In interpreting (2), the student must recognize the examiner’s intent and act based on it.

� Point: To invite student to revisit her answer, perhaps notice an error and correct it.

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Grice on Metaphor

� Speaker exploits pragmatic reasoning (1)-(3) to imply nobody is isolated and everyone connected.

1. What the speaker literally says flouts Quality.

2. But if audience assumes utterance is metaphorical, then Quality is not flouted.

3. Speaker’s intention, therefore, in using (1) must be to characterize people with properties like isolation and connectedness metaphorically analogous to geographic relationships literally described.

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Grice on Hinting� Examiner implies student revisit problem 3, and change

something; otherwise, she is flouting Relation.

1. When handing in tests, a range of comments are appropriate, e.g., “Thank you.”

2. Speculating about addressee’s wants is not one.

3. But supposing an error, then the addressee has a reason to re-examine the exam.

4. So, the speaker must intend the addressee to recognize this supposition.

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Role of Cooperative Principle

� Each of these Gricean explanations purports to show that the intended effect is calculable in that the audience need only know what’s said, and some general constraints on all cooperative behavior in order to derive the pragmatic inference in question.

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Big Differences btw (i)-(iii) and metaphor/hinting

� Latter are not a retrieval of what the speaker means to communicate.

� Rather, speaker invites hearer to share in insights provoked by what’s said.

� Doesn’t require exchange of propositional contents.

� Nor need effects (if any) be speaker intended.

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Grice on indeterminacy

� “Since to calculate a [CI] is to calculate what has to be supposed in order to preserve the supposition that the [CP] is being observed, and since there may be various possible specific explanations, a list of which may be open, the [CI] in such cases will be a disjunction of such specific explanations; and if the list of these is open, the [CI] will have just the kind of indeterminacy that many actual [CIs] do in fact seem to possess”.

� Not obviously compatible with Grice’s calculability constraint on CIs.

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Hinting

� Undoubtedly, when someone offers a hint there is a point(s) that she intends to make; and this point may be correctly recognized by the audience.

� When an audience is offered a hint, they face a puzzle: the speaker wants us to recover a hidden belief that makes sense of her utterance.

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Davidson on point of an utterance

� A point need not be a proposition.

� It can include feeling a certain way; thinking a certain way, or any kind of cognitive change.

� Often, the point is something hearer needs to discover for himself—or even create for himself.

� That effort involves diverse kinds of engagement with the utterance, each suited for the particular trope or mechanism the speaker appeals to in his utterance.

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Skepticism about Grice� Grice endorses a framework that characterizes “pragmatic

content” only in terms of propositions contributed to the “common ground” (Grice 1989, p. 65), in this regard it’s something on a par with conventional meaning but derived with CP.

� Problem: Hints and metaphors lack this fixed status in various ways.

� Their open-endedness, circumspectness, and even deniability is what makes them hints.

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How do we settle a point? � Not clear how to settle the point a hint requires an audience to

grasp in order to get it.

� Hinting is an invitation to think things through.

� Creative open-ended texture is essential to a successful hint, even if it’s unhealthy for assertion or for communication in general.

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