Negative Inversion Social Meaning And Gricean Implicature

Relying on a wealth of new data, this book argues that long-standing puzzles of Negative Inversion (NI) syntax are not puzzles at all when viewed through the lenses of Gricean pragmatics and Labovian sociolinguistics. Focusing on sentences such as "Can't nobody lift that rock" in African American, Anglo, and Chicano Englishes in Texas, the book provides tidy solutions to problems such as: the NI’s relationship to its non-inverted counterpart, its relationship to existential “there” sentences, to modal existential sentences, to the definiteness effects surrounding its NP subject, the emphatic meaning with which it seems to be associated, and more. The book argues that such issues, which have been explored in the syntax and semantics literature since the late 1960s, are handled more fruitfully via Gricean reasoning, demographics of use, and a simple semantics. As such, the book argues that NI can be freed from the “syntactico-semantic straitjacket” into which it has often been forced. It also demonstrates ways in which pragmatic and sociolinguistic thought can be brought together to inform larger linguistic analyses.

This book revives the study of conventional implicatures in natural language semantics. H. Paul Grice first defined the concept. Since then his definition has seen much use and many redefinitions, but it has never enjoyed a stable place in linguistic theory. Christopher Potts returns to the original and uses it as a key into two presently under-studied areas of natural language: supplements (appositives, parentheticals) and expressives (e.g., honorifics, epithets). The account of both depends on a theory in which sentence meanings can be multidimensional. The theory is logically and intuitively compositional, and it minimally extends a familiar kind of intensional logic, thereby providing an adaptable, highly useful tool for semantic analysis. The result is a linguistic theory that is accessible not only to linguists of all stripes, but also philosophers of language, logicians, and computer scientists who have linguistic applications in mind.

Publisher Description

"In the period following the country's independence in 1981, Kriol has risen to the level of a national language. While the prestige enjoyed by English and Spanish is indisputable, a range of historical and socio-economic developments has given Kriol an elevated status in the coastal districts at the potential expense of more vulnerable minority languages also spoken there. Using fieldwork, ethnographic observations, interviews, and surveys of language attitudes and use, Gâomez Menjâivar and Salmon show the attenuation of Mopan and Garifuna alongside the stigmatized yet robust Kriol language. Examin[es] how large-scale economic restructuring can unsettle relationships among minority languages" --

This is an introduction to pragmatics, the study of how people make sense of each other linguistically. The author explains, and illustrates, basic concepts such as the co-operative principle, deixis, and speech acts, providing a clear, concise foundation for further study.

Leading scholars examine languages ranging from old Egyptian to modern Afrikaans. They consider the insights parametric theory offers to understanding the dynamics of language change and test new hypotheses against an extensive array of data. In both the broad range of languages it discusses and its use of linguistic theory this is an outstanding book.

The Handbook of Pragmatics is a collection of newly commissioned articles that provide an authoritative and accessible introduction to the field, including an overview of the foundations of pragmatic theory and a detailed examination of the rich and varied theoretical and empirical subdomains of pragmatics. Contains 32 newly commissioned articles that outline the central themes and challenges for current research in the field of linguistic pragmatics. Provides authoritative and accessible introduction to the field and a detailed examination of the varied theoretical and empirical subdomains of pragmatics. Includes extensive bibliography that serves as a research tool for those working in pragmatics and allied fields in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. Valuable resource for both students and professional researchers investigating the properties of meaning, reference, and context in natural language.