Questions tagged [pragmatics]
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning.
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Reference request: ways of indicating disagreement
There are lots of ways to indicate you disagree with some aspect of an utterance. I'm thinking here of the spectrum that includes "No, not-X," "Well, not-X," "Hey, wait a minute! Not-X!" "Yes, you're ...
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Is there any evidence pro/contra Du Bois' Preferred Argument Structure (ergative patterning in discourse)?
In The Discourse Basis of Ergativity published in Language in 1987, John W. Du Bois proposed a theory which stated that (p. 850)
[universally] the distribution of new information vs. old ...
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Historical changes from 'not yet' to 'not again' and vice-versa
A two part question. Are there attested historical changes whereby a construction C in some language means 'not yet', and then C changes in meaning so that it means 'not again' at a later time (or ...
user483
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Quantitative methodology for contrastive pragmatics in corpus-based settings
I am interested in literature regarding methodology that could be relevant for quantitative research into differences in pragmatic meaning between two 'equivalent' concepts in two languages (in other ...
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A question regarding semantics of "only"
I have a question regarding semantics of only provided by Beaver & Clark (2009) and Chierchia (2013).
for something like "Sandy only met [Bush]F" (let this proposition be called p). ...
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Syntax as error-correction-code
I vaguely recall from my academic studies that a professor mentioned that the syntax of sentence could be seen as error-correction-code in signal processing.
In other words, from a pragmatic view - ...
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Are there any studies on marked adjective order in the NP in head initial languages like Spanish or Albanian?
For example, Spanish unmarked NP order is Noun-Adjective ("libro rojo", "casa grande"). However, there are many situations where the order is reversed ("un rojo atardecer", "es un buen libro", "tienes ...
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presupposition and trigger in emphatic sentences
It was Jenny who stole the cake from the bakery.
I'm learning presuppositions & trigger words in my linguistics class. In an emphatic sentence like above am I correct in my understanding that...
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What factors determine how you continue the sentence "Are you together with your brother or..." with the word "sister"?
For example if I call my friend. I know he is wether with his brother or sister, and then I ask further: Are you together with your brother or...
you can finish the question in several ways:
... ...
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Is language "necessarily underspecified"?
I've read an exam question given in a class on Semantics, that was asking
Why is language necessarily underspecified
I did not find much about this at the time, which is surprising because it ...
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Is pragmatics a waste basket？
Is pragmatics a waste basket？ this sentence is abstracted from the study of language of Yule. I want to know why this statement comes into being( pragmatics is a waste basket.)
And is it really true? ...
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Why is it often the "large" one between the two words for a polar dimension that is marked?
When we talk about a dimension neutrally, we usually say:
"How large is it?"
"How long is it?"
"How many did you buy?"
"How tall is the cup?"
"How heavy is the box?"
rather than "small, short, few, ...
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Is there a meaning difference between "each" and "every" as NP modifier?
I have an ineffable feeling that there is a pragmatic difference between "each N" and "every N", which has to do with evaluating the individuals denoted by "each N" one at a time, vs. evaluating them ...
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Origin of Buchowski's paradox
According to Wolfram Math World, Buchowski's paradox concerns the use of comparative adjectives in apparently paradoxical statements such as "My younger brother is older than me" (possible if the ...
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exclamative (claust type) properties
My lecture notes state that exclamatives "cannot be answers to questions"
eg. Did you enjoy it? How I enjoyed it! (*)
How about clauses with 'such' and 'so' though? Are they only ...
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Paralinguistic features
If pragmatics deal with how the extralinguistic environment affects the interpratation of an utterance, which branch of linguistics deals with how the paralinguistic environment affects the ...
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What is the use of Critical Discourse Analysis Theory?
Can Critical Discourse Analysis be used to analyse the speech acts in a given Speech, and simply interpret the different orientations that those Speech acts impose upon that Speech (like joy, ...
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What is the place of `word associations' in the field of pragmatics?
Let me immediately start off with an example:
Consider a group of nomadic people that is sustained by fishing. Occasionally, members of the community will travel to the sedentary world, to a city, to ...
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Is it common for languages to incorporate hortative modality when there is one speaker present? i.e. talking to themselves?
I am an undergrad working with a papuan language. There is one sentence that was in the data that has me wondering about hortatives.
The sentence, in english, translates to “Okay, I’ll just leave.” ...
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basic studies on declaratives in speech act theory
I am looking for some sources on declaratives in speech act theory. I have basic studies like Austin, Searle or Bach & Harnish. What I'm looking for is more specific books or articles on basic or ...
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Performative verbs - speech act
The sentence: "I order you to do X". order is a performative verb, it is a speech act which has the illocutionary force is an order.
The sentence: "I inspire you to do X". Although ...
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What's it called? Indicating no exceptions to the rule
In my study of an ancient language, I’m seeing certain phrasing that, in a prescription of proper behavior, means emphatically: “without exception!” My question is: Do linguists have a label for this ...
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How do I explicitly calculate this indirect-speech-ish conversational implicature?
I'm self-studying pragmatics, and I stumbled upon this exercise on MIT OpenCourseWare:
[from a text
book by Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet]
In each of the pairs below,
sentence (a) conversationally ...
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Necessity and Possibility, Domain Widen, Indeterminate Phrase
I wanna ask a question about semantics. It's on page 20 in the paper "Indeterminate Pronouns: The View from Japanese" (Kratzer & Shimoyama, 2002).
What I don't understand is the part Computing ...
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How is a meaningful sentence or paragraph constructed?
I don't have a formal background of linguistics, but I'd like to know how a sentence or paragraph becomes meaningful to a reader, and how one can construct that. I think it falls to the areas of ...
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Terminology for a phrase that changes meaning over time within a closed community
I am looking for the linguistic terminology for the phenomenon of semantic change in a discourse within a closed community. This closed community could be a couple, a company etc.
For example, ...
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Linguistic term for difficulty in expressing something in a particular language
Example: I need 480 words in an indigenous language to express quantum theory because they haven't integrated it into their thinking. In English, however, I only need one. Or vice versa, in English I ...
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Hidden philosophy in languages?
The 'usual self-introduction' in English is 'I am [name]' or 'My name is [name].' The former indicates that someone's name is something they are, while the latter suggests that the name is a property ...
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What are the tenets of Relevance Theory?
What are the elements upon which one can base to process a speech with relevance theory?
I've been reading but I couldn't find an answer to this question.
I take the example of the Speech act Theory ...
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Does lying violate the maxim of quality?
Hope to find someone here to help me decide whether this is a violation or opting out of the quality maxim in the following example:
A: Did you pass the driving test?
B: No. (A knows that B passed the ...
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Do the two meanings of "badass" belong to pragmatics or semantics?
As far as I know, pragmatics is about context-dependent meanings and semantics is about literal i.e. context-independent meanings.
For example, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/badass says:
badass (...
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What are the differences between speech acts and implicatures?
Here's what I have come up with.
What I understand is that implicature is always indirect and not explicit, so the hearer must infer from the context.
Speech act, on the other hand, may be direct ...
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Silence, Listening, Body Language, Miscommunication
Do linguists study silence, listening, and/or body language as types of communication? Also, do they study miscommunication in general? If so, what type of sub fields of linguistics would these topics ...
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Is there a term generalizing a pragmatics utterance and a body or facial gesture?
What is called in pragmatics an utterance, and what is called a body gesture or a facial gesture, are all acts of communication. Is there any term in any context or discipline, that unites these ...
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Is the Logical meaning of 'only if' produced by 'only' (that widens 'if')?
I'm asking for multiple languages, and use grey colour to refer to the concepts denoted by the English words.
Abbreviate Necessary Condition to NC, Sufficient Condition to SC. I already know that:
...
user5306
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How to annotate a corpus of written discourse for pragmatic analysis (speech acts)?
I am currently creating a small-ish corpus of online conversations that I wish to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively from a pragmatic perspective (speech acts level mainly). The problem is that ...
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Is interpreting a topic as subject pragmatics?
The phrases "the fire, the firefighters extinguished" and "the firefighters, the fire extinguished" both follow the same pattern, switching the place of the words, but without switching the arguments ...
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