LING 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, Lexical Semantics, Universal Grammar
Presuppositions: S2 presupposes S1 if both S1 and 'not S1" entail S2;
● triggers: "again", "too", "knows/regrets"
● S1:
Pragmatic meaning: The meaning of a sentence that comes about as a result of how a
speaker uses the literal meaning in context or as a part of a discourse
● Pronouns and other deictic expressions
● Implicatures
● may be different from semantic meaning: context dependent
● Context sensitive (Deictic) words
○ Some words have meaning out and regardless of context (John or run); Other
words get their meaning from the context (here, now, pronouns)
■ 1st/2nd person pronouns
● The word “I” or “you”refers to different subject when in different
sentences
■ Demonstrative pronouns/abverbs
● “this/that” or “here” change from sentence to sentence
○ Have no inherent meaning, but derive meaning from context
■ “The bear is coming into the tent” (implies speaker is inside tent)
■ “The bear is going into the tent” (implies speaker is outside tent)
Pragmatic Enrichment
● There is a lot of implicit content in sentences, which we manage to fill in unconsciously
and very quickly based on who’s speaking, who’s hearing, or even our knowledge of the
world
● The following sentence has very different meanings depending on whether it was uttered
by Prof. Hyams or Hannibal Lector
“Im having an old friend for dinner”
Implicatures
● Mary: “It’s cold in here”
○ Mary intends to convey that she wants the heat turned up. She could’ve said
directly “close the windows” or “turn up the thermostat” but instead she chooses
to implicate it
● Dad: Very nice girl. What did you think, Hon?
● Mom: The turkey sure was moist
○ Implying that the mom did not like the girl; instead of stating it outright, she
decided to take the indirect route
● Inferences that may be drawn from an utterance in context which are neither expressed
directlly (part of the litearl meaning of the sentence) nor strictly implied (entailed)
Conversational Maxims
● Quantity: Don’t say too much! Don’t say too little
● Quality: Don’t lie or say something you don’t have evidence for! (particularly relevant
these days)
● Relevance: Be relevant!
● Manner: Don’t be obscure! Be orderly
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
