Example

• Logically, P1 & P2 = P2 & P1

• Example
• Pita : What did Laura do when she heard that Lauri’s boat had
arrived?
• Tiwi : observed Laura jumped and ran to the pier.
• One finds this conversation normal. Why?
• Because the Maxim is observed.
Example
• Pita : What did Laura do when she heard that Lauri’s boat had
arrived?
• Tiwi : Laura ran to the pier and jumped.

• One finds this bewildering. Why?

• Because the Maxim is violated.
Example
• Logically, P1 & P2 = P2 & P1
• But being orderly in the presentation of information is important in
conversations. This is an effect of the Maxim of Manner.
Violation
• Pita : What did Laura do when she heard that Lauri’s boat had
arrived?
• Tiwi : Laura ran to the pier and jumped.

• Deliberate and apparent violation of maxims is called “flouting” .

• We do not expect the Maxim to be violated. Flouting must be
motivated.
• Inferences obtained from flouting of maxims are called implicatures .
• The woman in red may be implicating that Lauri is Laura’s nemesis.
Scope of Manner

Violations of the Maxim of Manner can take many forms:

• Order of presentation of information
• Vagueness and ambiguity
• Volume and pace
• Choice of words
• Attitude
• Even facial/gestural expressions.
Criticism
Conversational implicature
• The basic assumption in conversation is that the participants are adhering
to the cooperative principle and the maxim.

• Example:
• Wife: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese.
• Husband : Ah, I brought the bread.

• In this case the husband does not mention the cheese .Then, he must
intend that the wife infers what is not mentioned was not brought.The
husband has conveyed more than he has said via a conversational
implicature.
• Through this example, it is possible to perceive that there isn o special
background required in the context to calculate the additional
conveyed meaning.Thus, it is called a GENERALIZED CONVERSATIONAL
IMPLICATURE
Conversational implicatures
According to Grice, utterance interpretation is not a matter of decoding
messages, but rather involves
(1) taking the meaning of the sentences together with contextual
information,
2) using inference rules
3) working out what the speaker means on the basis of the assumption
that the utterance conforms to the maxims. The main advantage of this
approach from Grice’s point of view is that it provides a pragmatic
explanation for a wide range of phenomena, especially for
conversational implicautres --- a kind of extra meaning that is not
literally contained in the utterance.
• According to Grice, conversational implicatures can arise from either strictly and directly
observing or deliberately and openly flouting the maxims, that is, speakers can produce
implicatures in two ways: observance and non-observance of the maxims.
Ex. (1) Husband: Where are the car keys?
Wife: They’re on the table in the hall.
The wife has answered clearly (manner) and truthfully (Quality), has given just the right
amount of information (Quantity) and has directly addressed her husband’s goal in asking
the question (Relation). She ahs said precisely what she meant, no more and no less.

(2) He is a tiger.
Example (2) is literally false, openly against the maxim of quality, for no human is a tiger.
But the hearer still assumes that the speaker is being cooperative and then infers that he is
trying to say something distinct from the literal meaning. He can then work out that
probably the speaker meant to say that “he has some characteristics of a tiger”.
Particularized conversational implicatures

Occur when a conversation takes place in a very specific context in which

locally recognized inferences are assumed.

Rick: Hey, coming to the wild party tonight?

Tom: My parents are visiting.

In order to make Tom’s response relevant, Rick has to draw on some

assumed knowledge that one college student in this setting expects another
to have. Tom will be spending that evening with his parents, and time spent
with parents is quiet ( consequently +> Tom not at party).
Bert: Do vegetarians eat hamburger?
Ernie: Do chickens have lips?
In the above example, Ernie’s response does not provide a ‘yes’ or ‘no’
answer. Bert must assume that Ernie’s response

Bert: Do vegetarians eat hamburger?

Ernie: Do chickens have lips?
means ‘ of course not!’.
Scalar implicature
• Scalar implicatures occur when certain information is communicated by chhosing a WORD which expresses one value from a scale
of values.
• From the highest to the lowest
• (all, most, many, some , few)
• (always, often sometime)

• The basis of the scallar implicature is that when any form in a scale is asserted, the negeitive of all forms higher on the scale is
implicated.
• I’m studying linguistics and I have completed some of the required course.
• BY using(some of the required courses), the speaker creates an implicature (+> not all), but this is only one of the scale:
• <all, most, many , some few)
• Infact, the speaker creates the implicature( +> not all, +> not most,+> not many).

• Conventional implicatures are not based on the cooperative principle or the maxims. They do not have to occur in conversation,
and they do not depend on special contexts for their interpretation.
Conventional implicatures
• Conventional implicatures are associated with specific words and result in additional conveyed
meanings when those words are used. The English conjunction ‘ but’ is one of these words.
• YET
• BUT
• EVEN

• Mary suggested black, but I chose white. In this sentence, ‘ Mary suggested black’ is contrasted,
via the conventional implicature of ‘but’, with my choosing white. Other English words such as
‘yet’ also have
• Conventional implicatures:
• Dennis isn’t here yet.
• In uttering this statement, the speaker produces an implicature that she/he expects the
statement ‘Dennis is here’. The conventional implicature of ‘yet’ is that the present situation is
expected to be different, or perhaps the opposite, at a later time .