Transcript Slide 1
What happened to my sandwich? The pragmatics of implicit objects ? Some seemingly transitive verbs can occur without their objects (1) The guide started walking and the tourists followed. (2) John sat down and read (3) *She locked (4) (5) A: What happened to my sandwich? B: *Fido ate John brought the sandwiches and Ann ate. What did Ann eat? Fillmore, C. 1986. Two types of null complements: Definite (DNC) e.g. (1) The guide started walking and the tourists followed. “the missing element must be retrieved from something given in the context” p96 Indefinite (INC) e.g. (2) John sat down and read. “referent’s identity is unknown or a matter of indifference” p96 “obligatorily disjoint in reference with anything saliently present in the pragmatic context” p97 Fillmore: ‘to eat’ takes an indefinite null complement (4) A: What happened to my sandwich? B: *Fido ate What about ‘Fido was eating’? (6) A: What happened to my sandwich? B: Fido was eating Fido was eating ≠ Fido was eating it Different pragmatic processes at work. Why do we not get the same implicature with, ‘Fido ate’? Is Fillmore right? Groefsema’s objection: (5) John brought the sandwiches and Ann ate. What does Ann eat? ? Prediction of Fillmore’s account : NOT the sandwiches Groefsema’s intuition : Some of the sandwiches but we do not know how many. Groefsema, M. 1995. The difference in the behaviour of DNCs and INCs is due to different kinds of semantic selection restrictions on the object. INCs only put a restriction on the type of THING DNCs specify an instance of a particular THING Eat includes a selection restriction – ‘a type of food’ ‘to eat’ includes the selection restriction ‘type of food’ (5) John brought the sandwiches and Ann ate Sandwiches are included as they are a type of food, but not necessarily all of them and not exclusively. (4) What happened to my sandwich? *Fido ate Selection restriction narrows it down to type of food, but not the specific instance that A’s question requires. Groefsema’s account: A verb can only be used with an understood argument if the interpretation of the argument is constrained in one of two ways: 1. If the verb puts a selection restriction on the argument such that it gives us an interpretation in accordance with the principle of relevance 2. If the rest of the utterance makes immediately accessible an assumption (or assumptions) which gives us an interpretation in accordance with the principle of relevance. Criticism of Groefsema • Doesn’t work cross linguistically • Doesn’t allow for the influence of extra linguistic factors • Prefer principles over conditions Are we expecting one account to do too much? Iten et al. 2004. Two issues: 1. Which verbs allow null complements? Grammatical issue 2. When and why does a speaker make use of this potential? Pragmatic issue – what sort of pragmatic processes might be involved? What effect does omission have on interpretation? Issue 2 – What can relevance theory suggest? Optimal Relevance: (a) The ostensive stimulus is relevant enough for it to be worth the addressee’s effort to process it. (b) The ostensive stimulus is the most relevant one compatible with the communicator’s abilities and preferences Objects are omitted when doing so contributes to the speaker being optimally relevant. (5) John brought the sandwiches and Ann ate. 1. Produces more cognitive effects. 2. Reduces hearer effort 3. Speaker is being as relevant as she is able. What does Ann eat? Ann eats enough of the sandwiches to be relevant in a given context Conclusions? Many different factors come into play with this phenomenon. It is best broken down into two issues. We need to consider any grammatical factors which might constrain the distribution of implicit arguments. We also need to consider the speaker’s motivation for using one form over another and the effect this might have on interpretation. References. Fillmore, C.J. 1986. Pragmatically controlled zero anaphora. In V. Nikiforidou et al (eds.), Proceedings of the XII Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, CA: BLS Groefsema, M. 1995. Understood arguments: A semantic/pragmatic approach.. Lingua 96: 139-161. Iten, C et al. (2004). Null complements: Licensed by syntax or pragmatics? In M.O. Junker, M. McGinnis & Y.Roberge (eds.) Proceedings of the 2004 Canadian Linguistics Association, pp. 1-15. Sperber, D and Wilson, D. (1986). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.