Thoughts and Utterances The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication [Paperback]

Thoughts and Utterances is the first sustained investigation of two distinctions which are fundamental to all theories of utterance understanding: the semantics/pragmatics distinction and the distinction between what is explicitly communicated and what is implicitly communicated.

• Features the first sustained investigation of both the semantics/pragmatics distinction and the distinction between what is explicitly and implicitly communicated in speech.

1. Pragmatics and Linguistic Underdeterminacy:.

Saying and Meaning.

The Underdeterminacy Thesis.

Eternal Sentences and Effability.

Metarepresentation, Relevance and Pragmatic Inference.

Underdeterminacy, Truth Conditions and the Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction.

Radical Underdeterminacy and the Background.

Underdeterminacy of Thought?.

Summary.

2. The Explicit/Implicit Distinction:.

Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction.

Grice: Saying/Implicating.

Sperber and Wilson: Relevance-theoretic Distinctions.

Travis and Recanati: Enriched ‘What is Said'.

Bach: What is Said/Impliciture/Implicature.

Pragmatic Meaning: Enrichment or Implicature?.

Postscript: Hidden Indexicals or ‘Free Enrichment?.

Conclusion: From Generative Semantics to Pro-active Pragmatics.

3. The Pragmatics of 'And'-Conjunction:.

Preserving the Truth-functionality of 'And'.

A Relevance-based Pragmatics of Conjunction.

The Semantic Alternatives.

Cognitive Fundamentals: Causality l³V