Homework 2
As we noted in class, if someone utters the following sentence, it can be interpreted as having the implication listed below it:
The dog killed my pet hamster.
+> My pet hamster is dead.
This implication is an undeniable implication (an entailment) of the sentence. I know this because if I imagine that someone said:
The dog killed my pet hamster and/but my pet hamster isn't dead.
I would think that the speaker was contradicting herself. However, sometimes, an apparent implication of an utterance can be denied without contradiction. Those deniable implications we consider to be conversational implicatures. For each of the following cases below, say whether the suggested implication is an entailment or an implicature of the utterance of the sentence.
1.
Ian was able to eat the pizza.
+> Ian ate the pizza.
2.
Ian wanted to eat the pizza.
+> Ian didn't eat the pizza.
3.
Ian managed to eat the pizza.
+> Ian ate the pizza.
4.
Johnna read some of the books on the list.
+> John didn't read all of the books on the list.
5.
Ian failed to eat the pizza.
+> Ian didn't eat the pizza.
6.
Johnna read several of the books on the list.
+> Johnna read more than one of the books on the list.
7.
Kara isn't here right now.
+> Kara was here earlier.
Assume that I work at a local car dealership. Explain what would be conveyed by my utterance of (1) in a conversation with a colleague at work. Explain which aspects of the interpretation follow from the conventional meaning of the words and which are implicatures that arise through the assumptions of the maxims of quality, quantity, and relevance.
1. I washed most of the cars.
Address the consequences of each of the maxims in turn, showing how different aspects of understanding arise from specific assumptions about the context. When you propose that some inference is a conversational implicature, give a denial/cancellation test to justify that claim.
How would the interpretation change if (1) were uttered to my spouse at home?
Over the next few days, find a live example of a conversational implicature from a conversation that you participate in or over hear. Present your example by giving the utterance(s) to be interpreted, the proposed conversational implicature, and an explanation of why you think it is a conversational implicature and how it arises in terms of the maxims of conversation.