Relationship between the speaker and the maxims What can a speaker do with regard to the maxims?

He can straightforwardly observe the maxims. He can violate a maxim, i.e. he may breach the first submaxim of Quality by telling a deliberate lie. He can opt out of a maxim as shown below. He can ostentatious flour or exploit a maxim. Opting out hedges in English (a mitigating word or sound used to lessen the impact of an utterance) As far as I know, Im not sure if this is true, but I may be wrong, but As you probably already know, I cant say any more, I probably dont need to say this, but Oh, by the way, Im not sure if this is relevant, but I dont want to change the subject, but Im not sure if this is clear, but I dont know if this makes sense, but This may be a bit tedious, but

Quality

Quantity

Relation

Manner

Conversational implicature +> conversationally implicates i. Quality: Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. +> The speaker believes that Tim Bernes- Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, and has adequate evidence that he did. Quantity: John has six credit cards. +> John has at most six credit cards. Relation: John: Whats the time? Mary: The museum hasnt opened yet. +> Its at least before whenever the museum normally opens. Manner: John went to a McDonalds and bought two hamburgers. +> John first went to a McDonalds and then bought two hamburgers. / John went to a McDonalds in order to buy two hamburgers.

ii.

iii.

iv.

Explanation (i). When a speaker makes an assertion, he conversationally implies that he believes it, hence the relevant conversational implicature in (i). Moores paradox is concerned with the question why an utterance such as but I dont believe he did is pragmatically anomalous. The answer is straightforward: it is a violation of the epistemic commitment of what a speaker asserts. (ii). Since the speaker has used a semantically weaker expression (i.e. the cardinal number six), where a semantically stronger one of equal brevity (e.g. the cardinal number seven) is available, he would contradict the first submaxim of Quantity if the semantically stronger expression held. Consequently, he believes that the semantically stronger statement does not hold. Also, he has not done anything to stop the addressee from thinking that he thinks so; therefore he conversationally implicates that John has at most six credit cards, although truth-conditionally, the utterance in (ii) is not incompatible with the possibility that he in fact has, for example, seven credit cards. (iii). Assuming that in saying what Mary has uttered, Mary is co-operatively answering Johns question, we can infer that while Mary is not in a position to provide a straightforward answer, nevertheless she thinks that the museums not being open yet might help John to get a partial answer, such as the one indicated above. (iv). The speaker is expected to arrange the events in the order in which they took place, and the addressee is expected to draw inferences in such a way. (iv) is also an instance of iconicity: the ordering of the linguistic elements iconically reflects that of the events. Maxims of conservation may be overtly and blatantly breached. Faced with such a conspicuous flouting by the speaker, the addressee then has two options. I. II. One is to think that the co-operative principle has been abandoned as well. He may assume that despite the speakers apparent failure of co-operation, he is still observing the co-operative principle, and reasons roughly thus. If the speaker is still co-operative, and if he is exploiting a maxim in such a way that I should recognize the infringement, then he is doing so in order to convey some extra message, which is in keeping with the co-operative principle at some deeper level. Moreover, he knows that I am able to compute what the message is. Quality: Chomsky is a great sociolinguist. +> Chomsky is no sociolinguist at all. Quantity: War is war. +> e.g., Terrible things always happen in war. Thats its nature, and its no use lamenting that particular tragedy. Relation: John: Susan can be such a cow sometimes!

i.

ii.

iii.

iv.

Mary: Oh, what a lovely day today! +> e.g., One shouldnt speak ill of people behind their back. Manner: John smiled; The corners of Johns lips turned slightly upward. +> John did not exactly smile.

Explanation (i). Any student of linguistics know that (i) is patently false, thereby clearly and openly flouting the maxim of Quality. However, in order to preserve the assumption of co-operation, the addressee must assume that the speaker is trying to convey something rather different from what he has actually said, that is, the ironic reading which is opposite to the literal meaning of the sentence. (ii). It is a tautology, and as such, is superficially uninformative. Confronted with this blatant breaking of the maxim of Quantity, the addressee assumes that the speaker is actually cooperative and has to work out why he made such an apparently uninformative utterance. The only way to do this is to interpret it as in fact highly informative. (iii). Clearly, if the assumption that Mary is still co-operative is to be maintained, we have to interpret her response as highly relevant at some non-superficial level. One of the possible ways to do so is to read it as conversationally implicating Marys disapproval of Johns bad mouthing people behind their backs. (iv). On the assumption that the speaker is co-operative, the conversational implicature is essentially that the speaker is not in a position to use the term smile here, or that it is less than smile that he wants to communicate. Generalized versus particularized conversational implicature