notes on conventional implicature (was Re: tu'o usage

[And Rosta <arosta@uclan.ac.uk>]

Lionel Vidal <nessus@free.fr> 09/23/02 08:40am >>>
[....]
#> > {lo pa broda naku brode} = {su 'o lo pa broda naku brode}
#> > = {naku zu'o ro lo pa broda cu brode} = {ro lo pa broda na brode}
#> I don't agree that the last 2 are equivalent to the first 2, since
#> the first 2 mean:
#> ge su'o broda na ku brode gi lo'i broda cu pa mei
#> and the second two mean:
#> na ku ge ro broda cu brode gi lo'i broda cu pa mei
#
#I agree and so now we reach the problem that bothered me for a while:
#consider {OUTER lo INNER broda na brode}
#Would you say that this is true when:
#     the brode relationship is false
# or the cardinality of the underlying set of broda given by  INNER is false
# or the cardinality of the broda involved in the relationship given
#     by OUTER is false
#(with of course inclusive or).

That's a convoluted question! But now that I work out what you're
saying, surely the answer is a totally uncontroversial Yes. Oh, hang
on -- I see what you meant. You are asking if each of the conditions
is sufficient to make the sentence true (-- my first reading was that
you were asking if one of the conditions was sufficient to make the
sentence true). Okay -- my answer is Yes, though not an uncontroversial
Yes -- I'm still waiting to hear from pc his reasons for saying No.

#I would say yes and this invalidates my previous claims on the implication
#of the broda referent existence when using {na}.
#And so {tu'o}, because of its lesser sensitivity to the problems
#negations involve, seems indeed useful to me now:  thank you
#for your patient explanations.

Wow! I can't remember the last time I ever persuaded anybody of
anything on this list!

#and:
#>This is because
#>Lojban makes little if any use of presupposition/conventional
#>implicature (outside of UI, at least),
#pc:
#>I thnk that there are a variety of facts that suggest that internal
#>quantification is presuppositional
#
#Sorry, I may have a problem with my english there: I am not sure of
#what you mean with 'presupposition implicature'.

There is a linguistic phenomenon variously called 'presupposition'
(and older but still current term) and 'conventional implicature'
(following the work of H. P. Grice -- see Wiki). I prefer the latter
term (and I don't want to get into arguments about whether
presupposition is different from conventional implicature).
What this phenomenon involves is that something is contained
in the linguistically-encoded meaning of the sentence, yet
is outside the scope of what is asserted. A classic way of
testing this is to apply negation, which does not cancel
conv-implic. So for example, 

1  "He is poor but happy"

means

2  "[unasserted:] There is an incongruity between being poor and 
    being happy 
    and I assert that he is poor and happy"

while

3  "He isn't poor but happy"

means

4  "[unasserted:] There is an incongruity between being poor and 
    being happy 
    and I assert that he isn't poor and happy"

and not

5  "It is not the case that [unasserted:] There is an incongruity between 
    being poor and being happy 
    and I assert that he is poor and happy"
 
(There is a phenomenon called 'metalinguistic negation' -- Lojban na'i
-- which in English involves special intonation and the appropriate
context -- which can cancel conv-implic; cf.

6.  He isn't 'poor BUT happy'; he's poor AND happy.

)

Lojban definitely has conventional implicature:
* some UI
* "le broda" is equivalent to 
      "[unasserted:] da poi ro lu'a ke'a broda .... [asserted:] ro lu'a da"
However, these are special cases. Other debated cases have been
resolved against conv-implic. For example, in English the object of
"know" is conventionally-implicated to be true: "She didn't know he
was bald" still implicates that "he was bald", but in Lojban it doesn't.

--And.