Presuppositions as pragmemes: The case of exemplification acts
-
Alessandro Capone
Alessandro Capone is Full Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of Messina. He is editor-in-chief of the Springer series
Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy, and Psychology and a member of the editorial board of three top international pragmatics journals. Dr Capone has published several papers in many important pragmatics and linguistics journals. He has edited numerous volumes in linguistics and pragmatics.
Abstract
This paper is an example of how contextual information interacts with the interpretation of noun phrases (NPs) in discourse. When we encounter an NP escorted by the definite article or a proper name, the expectation is triggered that the speaker is referring to some referent x that the hearer can normally identify. Strawson and Russell have agreed that a referent must be associated with a definite description so that the assertion containing it can be said to be true. In the case where a description does not refer to anything, the assertion is considered by Russell to be false, while Strawson says that the issue of truth or falsity does not arise. In this paper, we examine a case in which contextual information interacts with the interpretation of NPs in discourse and the hearer is not expected to identify a referent when hearing a proper name. In this case, the issue of truth or falsity does not arise, because the hearer does not identify the referent. In fact, s/he does not intend for the discourse to about a referent at all. These situations are primarily represented by sentences uttered during the course of a grammar lecture, in which the lecturer is explaining a rule of language and does not focus on external reality. The hearers are aware of this focus and do not process the NP (in general a proper name) to identify a specific referent. This discourse is of three types, which will be discussed at the end of this paper.
About the author
Alessandro Capone is Full Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Cognitive Science at the University of Messina. He is editor-in-chief of the Springer series Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy, and Psychology and a member of the editorial board of three top international pragmatics journals. Dr Capone has published several papers in many important pragmatics and linguistics journals. He has edited numerous volumes in linguistics and pragmatics.
References
Bezuidenhout, Anne. 1997. Pragmatics, semantic underdetermination and the referential/attributive distinction. Mind 106. 375–409.10.1093/mind/106.423.375Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. 2005. Pragmemes (a study with reference to English and Italian). Journal of Pragmatics 37(9). 1355–1371.10.1016/j.pragma.2005.01.013Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. 2016. The pragmatics of indirect reports. Socio-pragmatic considerations. Cham: Springer.10.1007/978-3-319-41078-4Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. 2017a. Conversational presuppositions. Presupposition as defeasible inference. Intercultural Pragmatics 14(4). 557–583.10.1515/ip-2017-0025Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. 2017b. Presuppositions as conversational phenomena. Lingua 198. 22–37.10.1016/j.lingua.2017.06.014Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. 2018a. Pragmemes again. Lingua 209. 89–104.10.1016/j.lingua.2018.04.004Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. 2018b. Embedding explicatures in implicit indirect reports. Simple sentences and substitution failure cases. In A. Capone, M. Carapezza & F. Lo Piparo (eds.), Further advances in pragmatics and philosophy, 97–136. Cham: Springer.10.1007/978-3-319-72173-6_6Search in Google Scholar
Capone, Alessandro. Forthcoming. Pragmemes at the market. Submitted to Journal of Pragmatics.Search in Google Scholar
Cappelen and Lepore. 2005. Insensitive semantics. A defence of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470755792Search in Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro & Sally McConnell-Ginet. 1990. Meaning and grammar. An introduction to semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
DeRose, Keith. 2009. The case for contextualism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199564460.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Devitt, Michael. 1996. Coming to our senses: A naturalistic program for semantic localism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511609190Search in Google Scholar
García-Carpintero, Manuel. 2015. Is fictional reference rigid? Organon 22. 145–168.Search in Google Scholar
García-Carpintero, Manuel. 2018. The Mill-Frege theory of proper names. Mind 127. 1107–1168.10.1093/mind/fzx010Search in Google Scholar
Goldberg, Sanford. 2015. Assertion. On the philosophical significance of assertoric speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732488.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael & Kasia Jaszczolt. 2012. Speaker intentions and intentionality. In K. Allan & K. Jaszczolt (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of pragmatics, 87–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139022453.006Search in Google Scholar
Jaszczolt, Kasia. 1999. Discourse, beliefs and intentions. Semantic defaults and propositional attitude ascription. Oxford: Elsevier.Search in Google Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan. 2010. The paradox of communication: A socio-cognitive approach. Pragmatics & Society 1(1). 50–73.10.1075/ps.1.1.04kecSearch in Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813313Search in Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics (Volumes 1 & 2). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Macagno, Fabrizio & Alessandro Capone. 2016. Uncommon ground. Intercultural Pragmatics 13(2). 151–180.10.1515/ip-2016-0007Search in Google Scholar
McDowell, John. 1998. Meaning, knowledge and reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mey, Jacob L. 2001. Pragmatics. An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Mey, Jacob L. 2010. Reference and the pragmeme. In A. Capone (ed.). Pragmemes. Journal of Pragmatics 42(11). 2882–2888.10.1016/j.pragma.2010.06.009Search in Google Scholar
Michaelson, Eliot & Marga Reimer. 2019. Reference. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.Search in Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1905. On denoting. Mind 14(56). 479–493.10.4324/9780203822586-6Search in Google Scholar
Stainton, Robert J. 2006. Words and thoughts: Subsentences, ellipsis, and the philosophy of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1978. Assertion. In P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and semantics 9, 315–332. New York: Academic Press.10.1163/9789004368873_013Search in Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 2002. Common Ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25. 701–721.10.1023/A:1020867916902Search in Google Scholar
Strawson, Peter. 1950. On referring. Mind 59(235). 320–344.10.1093/mind/LIX.235.320Search in Google Scholar
Van der Sandt, Rob. 2012. Presupposition and accommodation in discourse. In K. Allan & K. Jaszczolt (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of pragmatics, 329–350. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139022453.019Search in Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun. 1980. Macrostructures. An interdisciplinary study of global structures in discourse, interaction, and cognition. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.Search in Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2009. Society and discourse. How social contexts influence text and talk. Cambridge: Cambridge Unviersity Press.10.1017/CBO9780511575273Search in Google Scholar
Voltolini, Alberto. 2019. Varieies of fictional operators. In A. Capone, M. Carapezza & F. Lo Piparo (eds.), Further advances in pragmatics and philosophy, vol. 2, 199–210. Cham: Springer.Search in Google Scholar
Wettstein, Howard. 2019. Reference and fixing referents. In A. Capone, M. Carapezza & F. Lo Piparo (eds.), Further advances in pragmatics and philosophy, vol. 2, 101–111. Cham: Springer.10.1007/978-3-030-00973-1_6Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Impoliteness in negative online consumer reviews: A cross-language and cross-sector comparison
- Intercultural and interpersonal communication failures: analyzing hostile interactions among British and Spanish university students on WhatsApp
- Presuppositions as pragmemes: The case of exemplification acts
- Forum
- How to do things with images: the editor, the cartoonist, and the reader
- Book Reviews
- Karen Grainger and Sara Mills: Directness and indirectness across cultures
- Maria Dasli and Adriana Raquel Diaz: The critical turn in language and intercultural communication pedagogy: Theory, research and practice
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Impoliteness in negative online consumer reviews: A cross-language and cross-sector comparison
- Intercultural and interpersonal communication failures: analyzing hostile interactions among British and Spanish university students on WhatsApp
- Presuppositions as pragmemes: The case of exemplification acts
- Forum
- How to do things with images: the editor, the cartoonist, and the reader
- Book Reviews
- Karen Grainger and Sara Mills: Directness and indirectness across cultures
- Maria Dasli and Adriana Raquel Diaz: The critical turn in language and intercultural communication pedagogy: Theory, research and practice
