Abstract
Intuitively, an utterance of: (1) Alice said that life is "difficult to understand" would not be true unless Alice uttered the very words "difficult to understand." However, several recent theories of "mixed quotation" contend that the intuition here is a misleading one. According to these theories, the truth conditions of (1) are identical to those of: (2) Alice said that life is difficult to understand. On such accounts, the quotation marks in (1) are of only pragmatic significance. That Alice uttered the quoted words is something the speaker might well convey in uttering (1); it is not something literally expressed by the utterance itself. Whatever its theoretical motivations, these contentions are undeniably counter-intuitive and the pragmaticist owes us an explanation of where they come from. This paper presents and evaluates various strategies that a pragmaticist with respect to mixed quotation might appeal to in an effort to explain the source of the counter-intuitive consequences of his theory.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 167-186 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Belgian Journal of Linguistics |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| State | Published - 2003 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language
Cite this
Too counter-intuitive to believe? Pragmatic accounts of mixed quotation. / Reimer, Margaret -.
In: Belgian Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2003, p. 167-186.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Too counter-intuitive to believe? Pragmatic accounts of mixed quotation
AU - Reimer, Margaret -
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Intuitively, an utterance of: (1) Alice said that life is "difficult to understand" would not be true unless Alice uttered the very words "difficult to understand." However, several recent theories of "mixed quotation" contend that the intuition here is a misleading one. According to these theories, the truth conditions of (1) are identical to those of: (2) Alice said that life is difficult to understand. On such accounts, the quotation marks in (1) are of only pragmatic significance. That Alice uttered the quoted words is something the speaker might well convey in uttering (1); it is not something literally expressed by the utterance itself. Whatever its theoretical motivations, these contentions are undeniably counter-intuitive and the pragmaticist owes us an explanation of where they come from. This paper presents and evaluates various strategies that a pragmaticist with respect to mixed quotation might appeal to in an effort to explain the source of the counter-intuitive consequences of his theory.
AB - Intuitively, an utterance of: (1) Alice said that life is "difficult to understand" would not be true unless Alice uttered the very words "difficult to understand." However, several recent theories of "mixed quotation" contend that the intuition here is a misleading one. According to these theories, the truth conditions of (1) are identical to those of: (2) Alice said that life is difficult to understand. On such accounts, the quotation marks in (1) are of only pragmatic significance. That Alice uttered the quoted words is something the speaker might well convey in uttering (1); it is not something literally expressed by the utterance itself. Whatever its theoretical motivations, these contentions are undeniably counter-intuitive and the pragmaticist owes us an explanation of where they come from. This paper presents and evaluates various strategies that a pragmaticist with respect to mixed quotation might appeal to in an effort to explain the source of the counter-intuitive consequences of his theory.
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=34248692879&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34248692879
VL - 17
SP - 167
EP - 186
JO - Belgian Journal of Linguistics
JF - Belgian Journal of Linguistics
SN - 0774-5141
IS - 1
ER -