Our task is to reconcile several Striking Facts about language …

1. Our task is to reconcile several Striking Facts about language … • Striking fact (a) If someone utters a sentence and you know which proposition her utterance expresses, then it’s likely that you will also understand which propositions other utterances of the same sentences express • Striking fact (b) Linguistic abilities are systematic—someone who understands an utterance of “Leo ate John” can probably also understand an utterance of “John ate Leo” • Striking fact (c) Linguistic abilities are productive—we can understand utterances of an indefinitely large range of sentences we have never heard before. Example: “John ate Leo who ate Ayesha who ate …” • Striking fact (d) Utterances of a sentence can be used to communicate an open-ended range of messages. • Striking fact (e) Any fact can be relevant to determining which message an utterance communicates.

2. an intuitive distinction…. YOU How do you like the conference? ME The coffee is good. Intuitively, the proposition the utterer means to convey is about the quality of the conference, and she communicates this by means of an utterance which expresses a proposition about the coffee. • proposition the utterer means to convey—the conference is not good • proposition the utterance expresses—the coffee is good

3. How can this distinction help us to reconcile the Striking Facts and so understand something about what makes communication by language possible? In outline, the idea will be that the distinction enables us to break down our task into two parts. First we explain how knowing the meaning of a sentence enables one to know which proposition any utterance of that sentence expresses. This should be comparatively easy because it will turn out that the meaning of a sentence is closely related to the proposition an utterance of that sentence expresses. Second, we explain how knowing which proposition an utterance expresses enables one to know what the utterer means to convey.

4. we need two things: • (a) a rigorous account of the distinction between the proposition an utterance expresses and the proposition the utterer means to convey, and • (b) an account of how knowing which proposition an utterance expresses enables one to know what an utterer means to convey. We can get both of these things from Grice’s co-operative principle.

5. from Intolerable Cruelty: MILES What do you want? MARYLIN I want to nail your ass. […] I'm reporting you to the IRS. […] MILES Did our marriage ever mean anything to you? MARYLIN Drop the bogus forgery charge and I'll forget about your generous friends slash clients. MILES That's blackmail. MARYLIN That's marriage.

6. Cooperative Principle: “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” (26) Quantity • 1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). • 2. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.” (25) Quality—“try to make your contribution one that is true” • 1. Do not say what you believe to be false. • 2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.” (27) • Relation—“be relevant” • Manner—“Be perspicuous” • 1. Avoid obscurity of expression. • 2. Avoid ambiguity. • 3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). • 4. Be orderly. (27)

7. Do the Maxims identify the sense in which conversation is cooperative? This can be broken down into two parts. (a) Are the maxims necessaryfor cooperation—is every violation of a maxim a failure to cooperate?; (b), Are the maxims sufficientfor cooperation—do failures to be conversationally co-operative involve violating at least one of these Maxims?

8. With respect to (b), here is a conversation which is uncooperative, and yet no Maxim is obviously violated (from Intolerable Cruelty): MILES I'll have the tournedos of beef. And the lady will have the same? (To Marylin) I assume you're a carnivore. MARYLIN I know you do. Marylin’s contribution is informative, truthful, relevant and perspicuous. Yet it is clearly uncooperative: she is wresting the conversation away from Miles’ direction.

9. Quantity (be informative) MONICA Is your tongue swelling up? ROSS Either that or my mouth is getting smaller. Ross violates Quantity (be informative) by saying something which is uninformative. It’s funny but hinders conversation.

10. not all violations of this type appear to be uncooperative: JOEY Oh mommie, oh daddie, I am a big old baddie! Oh mommie, oh daddie, I am a big old baddie! ROSS I guess he musta gotten the part in that play. CHANDLER Yeah, either that, or Gloria Estefan was right, eventually, the rhythm is going to get you. Chandler is violating a Maxim by not being informative but is he being uncooperative? It’s hard to say because his conversation with Ross has no obvious “accepted purpose or direction”.

11. This raises illustrates a feature of the Maxims. When the Maxim of Quality tells us to be informative, it can’t mean that our utterances have to be informative when taken at face value. It must mean that what we mean to convey by those utterances must be informative.

12. Quality (“try to make your contribution one that is true”) CHANDLER All right, look, look. What did... what did you get for Angela Delveccio for her birthday? JOEY She didn't have a birthday while we were going out. CHANDLER For three years? He does believe this but he’s not trying to be truthful. Actually, this is not a very good example because Joey is not that bright. ROSS […] No big deal? Right? JOEY Right. No big deal. ROSS Okay. JOEY In Bizarro World!! […] Joey violates Quality (be truthful) and also Manner (unorderly) in order to emphasise his view.

13. Relation (be relevant) RACHEL Monica, what is so amazing? I gave up, like, everything. And for what? PHOEBE You are just like Jack. RACHEL ... Jack from downstairs? PHOEBE No, Jack and the Beanstalk. MONICA Ah, the other Jack. Phoebe’s contribution is inappropriate because it violates the maxim of Relation (be relevant). It’s practically impossible to have a conversation with Phoebe in this mood.

14. In summary the Maxims may capture a sense in which conversation is co-operative to this extent: violations of the Maxims appear to be uncooperative. My discussion has not been very conclusive. What I’ve tried to do is mainly to provoke you into thinking carefully about the question for yourself. But two points have emerged that will be important later: 1. To maintain this conclusion, we have to recognise that the Maxims apply to what utterers mean to convey in speaking and not to their utterances when taken at face value. 2. We may also have to recognise that doing things which are uncooperative can be a means to being cooperative.

15. “observance of the Cooperative Principle and maxims is reasonable (rational) along the following lines: that anyone who cares about the goals that are central to conversation/communication (such as giving and receiving information, influencing and being influenced by others) must be expected to have an interest, given suitable circumstances, in participation in talk exchanges that will be profitable only on the assumption that they are conducted in general accordance with the Cooperative Principle and the maxims.” Grice (30)

16. 1. Certain goals are central to conversation--communicating information, influencing and perhaps also entertaining; certainly there are others. 2. Some conversations have a certain feature—they “will be profitable only on the assumption that they are conducted in general accordance with the Cooperative Principle and the maxims”. 3. If someone cares about the goals mentioned in (1), she must be expected to have an interest in taking part in conversations with the feature identified in (2).

17. Conversational Implicature Consider an example (from Fargo): MARGE Where is everybody? LOU Well - it's cold, Margie.

18. 1. There’s reason to presume that Lou is being cooperative. 2. Unless Lou thought that coldness were the reason why everybody is not here yet, Lou’s contribution would violate Quantity and Relation and so fail to be cooperative. 3. Lou thinks, and would expect Marge to realise he thinks, that Marge can work out that (2). {Grice, 1989 #527@30–1}

19. Grice calls the proposition that Marge’s colleagues are not there because it’s cold a conversational implicature. Here is the core of Grice’s theory of implicature: “to calculate a conversational implicature is to calculate what has to be supposed in order to preserve the supposition that the //p. 40// Cooperative Principle is being observed” (39–40) So the core idea is that a conversational implicature is an assumption you need to make in order to for it to be true that a speaker is sticking to C.P.

20. In short, in some conversations supposing that the utterer is being cooperative requires us to make certain assumptions about what they think. Where there is reason to suppose that they are in fact being cooperative, these assumptions are conversationally implicated by their utterances. This gives us a mechanism by which it is possible to use utterances to convey propositions which do not correspond to anything in the meanings of sentences.

21. Schematically, here’s the picture we’re aiming for: the meaning of the sentence determines: the proposition the utterance expresses combines with the supposition that the utter is cooperative to determine: the proposition the utterer means to convey

22. The key idea for today is that we can get from the proposition an utterance expresses to the proposition the utterer means to convey by asking, Why would a cooperative speaker express the proposition that she has had breakfast? The answer to this question tells us what the utterance conversationally implicates. The key to Grice’s account of conversational implicature is the move away from a purely formal conception of linguistic communication to a conception which incorporates the fact that are intentional actions which occur in the course of conversations and are linked to presumptions about cooperation.

23. Exercise Find at least one violation of each of the the Maxims in this a conversation (from Fargo): MARGE Okay, I want you to tell me what these fellas looked like. HOOKER ONE Well, the little guy, he was kinda funny-looking. MARGE In what way? HOOKER ONE I dunno. Just funny-looking. MARGE Can you be any more specific? HOOKER ONE I couldn't really say. He wasn't circumcised. MARGE Was he funny-looking apart from that? HOOKER ONE Yah. […] MARGE Is there anything else you can tell me about him? HOOKER ONE No. Like I say, he was funny-looking. More’n most people even. MARGE And what about the other fella? HOOKER TWO He was a little older. Looked like the Marlboro man. MARGE Yah? HOOKER TWO Yah. Maybe I'm sayin' that cause he smoked Marlboros. MARGE Uh-huh. HOOKER TWO A subconscious-type thing. MARGE Yah, that can happen.