Showing posts with label reference assignment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reference assignment. Show all posts

Saturday, August 06, 2011

I realized she meant for me to get in out of the rain

From A Farewell to Arms:

"Good-by," I said. I stepped out into the rain and the carriage started. Catherine leaned out and I saw her face in the light. She smiled and waved. The carriage went up the street, Catherine pointed in toward the archway. I looked, there were only the two carabinieri and the archway. I realized she meant for me to get in out of the rain. (Book II, Ch. 24)

Just a nice example that demonstrates that non-verbal communication is inferential (not very controversial) and that part of what has to be inferred is illocutionary force (probably more controversial).

If that is too cryptic, consider this question: What does Catherine mean by pointing? What might Frederic have initially thought she meant?

Friday, April 15, 2011

Dromiceiomimus explains exclusive-we

... better than me?? Here's her explanation.



Here's mine:

Number and person [on pronouns] interact in interesting ways. One example is the first person plural (‘we’/’us’), which usually picks up from context a set containing the speaker and sometimes but not always containing the hearer too. Some languages mark this inclusive-we/exclusive-we distinction linguistically, either on the verb, or with different forms of the pronoun. For example in Taiwanese, ‘góan’ means we-excluding-you and ‘lán’ means we-including-you. (Allott 2010, p. 57)


T-rex's exclusive-you is not, as far as I know, lexicalised or otherwise encoded in any language, and, not unconnectedy, I suspect, it seems impossible to use 'you' to communicate it.



Allott, N. (2010). Key Terms in Pragmatics. Continuum.