Week 10

Question 1

What is sentence meaning?

Answer 1

what a sentence means regardless of utterance context and situation

Question 2

What is utterance meaning?

Answer 2

what a speaker means when making an utterance in a particular context/situation

Question 3

Define entailment

Answer 3

a proposition A entails another proposition B if B must be true whenever A is true

Question 4

What are implicatures?

Answer 4

implicatures (symbolized with +>) are similar to entailments but cannot be directly challenged or agreed with or cancelled

Question 5

What does the Maxim of Truthfulness (Quality) say?

Answer 5

tell the truth e.g. “what time is it?” “3pm”

Question 6

What does the Maxim of Informativeness (Quantity) say?

Answer 6

tell the hearer what they need to know, no more, no less e.g. Cookie Monster at some of the cookies +> Cookie Monster didn’t eat all of the cookies

Question 7

What does the Maxim of Relevance (Relation) say?

Answer 7

keep to the topic of conversation

Question 8

What does the Maxim of Clarity (Manner) say?

Answer 8

speak in a way the hearer will understand - be clear