DEIXIS B.

IMPLICIT MEANING (PRESUPPOSITIONS)

A melamed (Hebrew teacher) discovering that he had left his comfortable slippers back in the house, sent a student after them with a note for his wife. The note read: Send me your slippers with this boy. When the student asked why he had written your slippers, the melamed answered: Yold! (Fool) If I wrote my slippers, she would read my slippers and would send her slippers. What could I do with her slippers? So I wrote your slippers, shell read your slippers and send me mine.

2. MICROPRAGMATICS

DEIXIS
It is the anchoring of language use in a real world by pointing at variables along some of its dimensions (indexicals) : Person deixis (social deixis) the speaker (I); the addressee (you); the others (he, she, it) Time deixis ( with now as the conventional deictic centre) Spatial deixis (with here as the conventional deictic centre) Discourse deixis (cohesion and coherence devices in a text)

Person deixis operates on a basic three part division, the speaker (I), the addressee (you) and other(s) (he, she, it). in many languages these deictic expressions are elaborated with markers of social status Yule (1996) . Expressions which indicate higher status are described as honorifics (social deixis). For example, in French and Romanian there are two different forms that encode a social contrast within person deixis, tu (tu) and vous(dumneavoastra). This is known as T/V distinction .

PERSON DEIXIS HONORIFICS

Using a third person form, where a second person would be possible, is one way of communicating distance. This can also be done for humorous or ironic purposes, as in: Would his highness like some coffee? The distance associated with third person forms is also used to make potential accusations less direct, as in: Somebody didnt clean up after himself. There is also a potential ambiguity in the use in English of the first person plural. There is an exclusive we (speaker plus others, excluding addressee) and inclusive we (speaker and addressee included), as in the following possible reply to the accusation: We clean up after ourselves around here.

PERSON DEIXIS

Deictic projection = speakers being able to project themselves into other locations, time or shift person reference. Eg. via dramatic performances, when using direct speech to represent the person, location and feelings of someone else. E.g.: I was looking at this little puppy in a cage with such a sad look on its face. It was like, Oh, Im so unhappy here, will you set me free? (taken from Yule, 1996:13) All indexical expressions refer to certain world conditions, either subjective or objective in nature. The following story, borrowed from Levinson 1983:68) is meant to illustrate the importance of having the right point of view, and how one can anticipate the way people will construe the world in terms of their point of view. One basic type of temporal deixis in English is in the choice of verb tense, which has only two basic forms, the present and the past (the proximal and the distal ). The past tense is always used in English in those if-clauses that mark events presented by the speaker as not being close to present reality. E.g. If I had a yacht(source: Yule, 1996:15) The idea expressed in the example is not treated as having happened in the past. It is presented as deictically distant from the speakers current situation. So distant, that it actually communicates the negative (we infer that the speaker has no yacht).

DEICTIC PROJECTION

TEMPORAL DEIXIS

The concept of distance is relevant to spatial deixis, where the relative location of people and things is being indicated.

SPATIAL DEIXIS

Contemporary English makes use of two adverbs, here and there, for the basic distinction. Some verbs of motion, such as come and go, retain deictic sense when they are used to mark movement toward the speaker (Come to bed) or away the speaker (Go to bed).

TASK Identify indexicals in the following text

Debby: Go anywhere today? Dan: Yes, we went down to Como. Up by bus, and back by hydrofoil. Debby: Anything to see there? Dan: Perhaps not the most interesting of Italian towns, but its worth the trip. Debby: I might do that next Saturday. Jane: What do you mean when you say perhaps not the most interesting of Italian towns? Jack: He means cer tainly not the most interesting Dan: Just trying to be polite.

Study the following sign, appearing at selected private parking sites throughout the Greater Chicago area (Mey, 1993:15). What does this sign tell you explicitly? And implicitly? _________________________________________ ALL UNAUTHORIZED VECHICLES WILL BE TOWED BY LINCOLN TOWING SERVICE TO 4884 N.CLARK FEE $80.00 CASH, VISA & MASTER CHARGE ACCEPTED PHONE 561-4433

IMPLICIT MEANING

= what can be meant or communicated beyond what is explicitly or literally said, by means of presuppositions, implications and implicatures Conventional means for conveying implicit meaning: PRESUPPOSITIONS

IMPLICIT MEANING

PRESUPPOSITIONS

= implicit meaning that must be pre-supposed, understood, taken for granted for an utterance to make sense. a. Existential presuppositions : Presuppose the existence, at a given place and/or time, of entities in the real world (eg. possessives, definite NPs Eg: The King of France is talking to Napoleon said at this time in history and using the present tense, is devoid of real meaning because the existential presuppositions carried by the referring expressions The King of France and Napoleon are not satisfied.

b.Factive presuppositions

A number of verbs (know, realise, regret) or phrases invoving be aware, be glad Eg: She didnt realise he was ill. (He was ill) We regret telling him (We told hem) I wasnt aware that she was married. (She was married) I am glad that its over (Its over).

I dreamed that I was rich (I wasnt rich)

c. Non-factive presuppositions
d. Lexical presuppositions

The use of one form with its asserted meaning is conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that another (non-asserted) meaning is understood. Eg. manage (presupposing tried) He stopped smoking (He used to smoke) They started complaining (They werent complaining before) Some sentence structures conventionally presuppose that part of the structure is already assumed to be true.

e. Structural presuppositions

Eg. wh-constructions When did you leave (You left) Where did you buy the bike (You bought the bike).
Analyse the following utterances in terms of presuppositions: I regret the year of prosperity and peace has ended. The UN managed to bring about peace. A time of prosperity and peace will return. What the UN did was to bring about peace in Bosnia. 1996, which was a year of prosperity and peace, will be remembered forever.

TASKS