ET118_2-8_Pragmatics1_Lecture__1_

Entailment

A relationship where if proposition A is true, then proposition B is also necessarily true.

Proposition

A statement that can be evaluated for truth or falseness.

Presupposition

An assumption that must be true for a statement to make sense, applicable to various sentence types.

Conversational Implicature

Inferences drawn from context and cooperation in conversation rather than from explicit statements.

Cooperative Principle

The principle proposed by Paul Grice that speakers should contribute to conversations as required by the purpose of the exchange.

Maxim of Quality

One of Grice’s maxims stating that contributions should be truthful.

Maxim of Quantity

One of Grice’s maxims stating that contributions should be as informative as required, without being overly informative.

Maxim of Relevance

One of Grice’s maxims stating that contributions should be relevant to the conversation.

Maxim of Manner

One of Grice’s maxims stating that contributions should be clear and orderly.

Flouting a Maxim

Deliberately failing to fulfill a maxim to convey a deeper meaning or implicature.

Negation Test

A method to distinguish between entailment and presupposition; presupposition survives negation, while entailment does not.

Factive Verbs

Verbs that presuppose the truth of their complements, such as 'realize' or 'discover'.

Cleft Sentence

A complex sentence used for emphasis that contains an embedded clause and often has presuppositions.

Truth Conditions

The circumstances that must be known to determine the truth of a proposition.

Hyponymy

A lexical relationship where the meaning of one word (hyponyms) is included within the meaning of another (hypernym).

Implicature

A conclusion or inference that is drawn from a statement based on the context and the listener’s assumptions.

Semantic Anomaly

A contradiction that occurs when a statement defies logic or common sense.