Carston R. Thoughts and Utterances. The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication

Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 2002. — 430 p.Thoughts and Utterances is the first sustained investigation of two distinctions that are fundamental to all theories ofutterance understanding: the semantics/pragmatics distinction andthe distinction between what is explicitly and what is implicitly communicated.
The central claim of this book is that the linguisticallyencoded meaning of an utterance underdetermines the propositionsexplicitly communicated by the utterance. The arguments andanalyses are developed within the relevance-theoretic framework of Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, so the approach is resolutelycognitive, focussing on the representational levels and mentalprocesses involved in utterance interpretation. However, extensivecomparison is made throughout with other pragmatic frameworks,including those of Paul Grice, François Recanati and Kent Bach, which are more philosophically based, and that of Stephen Levinson, which has a more linguistic and computationalorientation.
Finally, this volume assesses and attempts to reconcile thedifferent perspectives of theories of human semantic competence andaccounts of the pragmatic processes involved in communication andinterpretation.Acknowledgements ix.Pragmatics and Linguistic Underdeterminacy.
Saying and Meaning.
The Underdeterminacy Thesis.
Eternal Sentences and Effability.
Metarepresentation, Relevance and Pragmatic Inference.
Underdeterminacy, Truth Conditions and the Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction.
Radical Underdeterminacy and the Background.
Underdeterminacy of Thought?Notes.
The Explicit/Implicit Distinction.
Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction.
Grice: Saying/Implicating.
Sperber and Wilson: Relevance-theoretic Distinctions.
Travis and Recanati: Enriched ‘What is Said’.
Bach: What is Said/Impliciture/Implicature.
Pragmatic Meaning: Enrichment or Implicature?
Postscript: Hidden Indexicals or ‘Free’ Enrichment?
Conclusion: From Generative Semantics to Pro-active Pragmatics.
Notes.
The Pragmatics of ‘And’-Conjunction.
Preserving the Truth-functionality of ‘And’.
A Relevance-based Pragmatics of Conjunction.
The Semantic Alternatives.
Cognitive Fundamentals: Causality and Explanation.
Relevance Relations and Units of Processing.
Processing Effort and Iconicity.
Residual Issues.
Conclusion: From Generalized Conversational Implicature to Propositional Enrichment.
Notes.
The Pragmatics of Negation.
Some Data and Some Distinctions.
Semantic Ambiguity Analyses.
Strong Pragmatic Analyses.
‘Presupposition’-cancelling Negation and Metalinguistic Negation enrichment.
The Pragmatics of ‘Presupposition’-denial.
Conclusion: From Multiple Semantic Ambiguity to Univocal Semantics and Pragmatic Enrichment.
Notes.
The Pragmatics of On-line Concept Construction.
Encoded Concepts and Communicated Concepts.
A Symmetrical Account of Narrowing and Broadening.
Metaphor: Loose Use and Ad Hoc Concepts.
Word Meaning and Concepts.
Conclusion: The Long Road from Linguistically Encoded.
Meaning to the Thought(s) Explicitly Communicated.
Notes.
Appendix 1: Relevance Theory Glossary.
Appendix 2: Gricean Conversational Principles.