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The process of communication involves two types of meaning: explicit and implicit. An attempt is made to draw a distinction between two carriers of implicit meaning- presupposition and implicature. It is argued that presupposition is what the speaker assumes before making an utterance, and implicature is what the addressee infers from a linguistic structure used in an appropriate linguistic context. Implicature is of two types: non-contextual (or non-situational) and contextual (or situational). Although both types of implicature are determined by the context, they are generated using different types of context. Non-contextual implicature arises in contexts which are familiar to the addressee, while contextual implicature arises in contexts (situations) which are new to the addressee. Pragmatic competence is the ability to discover implicit meaning. Thus, of great importance is the description of the mechanism that carries implicit meaning. There are two such mechanisms: 1) linguistic structures used in appropriate linguistic contexts and 2) linguistic structures used in appropriate situations. The first mechanism is responsible for the generation of non-contextual implicature while the second mechanism is responsible for the generation of contextual implicature. Both types of implicature contribute to the economy of language. However, of the two types of implicature, the more important in the respect is contextual implicature- it makes possible to use one and the same... [to full text]

Anna Šmilauerová: TV Sitcom Friends: Analysis of character humor strategies based on the violation of Grice's Conversational maxims Abstract The purpose of this diploma thesis is the analysis of the humor strategies employed by the characters of Phoebe and Chandler in the TV Sitcom Friends. The discovered prevailing strategies were then compared with the personalities of the two characters. The data analyzed were the written script of five exemplary episodes from the Season 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9, in which the utterances eliciting laughter from the audience were thoroughly analyzed from the point of Grice's Cooperative Principle: only those utterances were considered in which the characters violated one or more of the conversational maxims (quality, quantity, relation and manner). Phoebe was found to violate most often the maxim of relation, thus it is her being non-factual and non-conventional that constitutes her most entertaining quality. As she develops and grows more mature as a character, the frequency counts of this humor strategy evince a descending tendency. Chandler, on the other hand, is mostly being ironic, violating the maxim of quality. His character also gradually changes but his sense of humor remains the same - ironic throughout the show, as follows from the instances of almost fixed frequency....

In this dissertation, I deal with the problem of presupposition projection. I mostly focus on compound sentences composed of two clauses and conditional sentences in which the second clause carries a presupposition. The central claim is that the presupposition carried by the second clause projects by default, with the exception of cases in which the presupposition entails the first clause (or, in disjunctive sentences, the negation of the first clause). In the latter cases, the presupposition should not project, since it is logically stronger than the first clause (or its negation). Thus, in conjunctions, if the presupposition projected, the speaker’s assertion of the first clause would be uninformative. As for conditionals and disjunctions, if the presupposition projected, the speaker would show inconsistency in his/her beliefs by showing uncertainty about the truth value of the first clause (or its negation). I argue that, in conditionals, this uncertainty is conversationally implicated whereas, in disjunctions, it results from the context’s compatibility with the first disjunct. I maintain that, in cases where projection is blocked, the presupposition is conditionalized to the first clause (or its negation). I demonstrate that the conditionalization is motivated in a straightforward way by the pragmatic constraints on projection just described and that, contrary to what is defended by the so-called ‘satisfaction theory’, presupposition conditionalization is a phenomenon independent from local satisfaction. / En esta tesis, trato el problema de la proyección de presuposiciones. Me centro mayoritariamente en oraciones compuestas de dos cláusulas y en oraciones condicionales cuya segunda cláusula contiene una presuposición. El argumento central es que la presuposición contenida en la segunda cláusula proyecta por defecto, con la excepción de casos en los que la presuposición entraña la primera cláusula (o, en las oraciones disyuntivas, la negación de la primera cláusula). En estos últimos casos, la presuposición no debería proyectar, puesto que es lógicamente más fuerte que la primera cláusula (o su negación). Por tanto, en las oraciones conjuntivas, si la presuposición proyectase, la aseveración de la primera cláusula por parte del hablante no sería informativa. En cuanto a las oraciones condicionales y disyuntivas, si la presuposición projectase, el hablante mostraría inconsistencia en sus creencias al mostrar incertidumbre acerca del valor de verdad de la primera cláusula (o su negación). Sostengo que, en oraciones condicionales, esta incertidumbre es implicada conversacionalmente mientras que, en las oraciones disyuntivas, resulta de la compatibilidad contextual de la primera cláusula. Mantengo que, en casos en los que la proyección es bloqueada, la presuposición es condicionalizada a la primera cláusula (o su negación). Demuestro que la condicionalización es motivada de manera directa por las restricciones de tipo pragmático descritas arriba y que, contrariamente a la idea defendida por la así llamada ‘teoría de la satisfacción’, la condicionalización de la presuposición es un fenómeno independiente de la satisfacción local de la misma.