Pragmatics of Conditional Marking: Implicature, Scalarity, and Exclusivity

by Scott Schwenter

Overview

First Published in 1999. This book investigates the meaning of conditional protasis markers like Spanish si 'if' and English if from a pragmatic perspective. A standard assumption in linguistics is that these words encode as part of their semantics notions like hypothetical, irrealis, or, from the speaker's point of view, uncertain, as in constructed examples like (la), where speaker B is unsure whether the proposition she's eating is true or not.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135681739
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/08/2014
Series:	Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	275
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Schwenter, Scott

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Conditional Markers: Semantics; Chapter 3 Conditional Markers: Pragmatics; Chapter 4 Exclusivity and Conditional Marker Form I: Adversative Contexts; Chapter 5 Exclusivity and Conditional Marker Form II: Scalar Contexts; Chapter 6 Conclusion;

Editorial Reviews

Investigates the meaning of conditional markers, in particular in Spanish and in English, using both naturally occurring and constructed data. Argues that the hypotheticality or irrealis-ness they express is not due to the encoded semantics of the markers themselves, but rather to a Gricean scalar generalized conversational implicature of the speaker's uncertainty associated with the canonical conditional markers. The dissertation was for Stanford University in 1998. US distribution is by Taylor and Francis. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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