Journal of Pragmatics 16 (1991) 381-397

North-Holland

381

On the pragmatic modules: A lecture

Asa Kasher*
In memory o f Yehoraz, my son, my son, 1966-1991
The gist of what we intend to claim is: First, that the core of language use is divided between two
different pragmatic competences: a purely linguistic pragmatic competence, of a certain nature,
and a non-linguistic pragmatic competence, related to general cognitive systems, such as that of
intentional action in general. Secondly, that there are reasons to believe that the linguistic
pragmatic competence is represented in our minds as a cluster of modules, in a certain, revised
sense of the term. And thirdly, that at least part of the cluster of pragmatic modules is related to
the left hemisphere of the brain, while the right hemisphere, held by some to be the residence of
pragmatics, is related to pragmatic competences in an utterly different way.

1. Pragmatics
The field of pragmatics has experienced a real metamorphosis: 'As Gregor
Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed
in his bed into a gigantic insect'. Veterans of the battles of pragmatics (for
instance, Jacob Mey, Kun~ Lorenz, Dorothea Franck and myself, to mention
those who participate in the present symposium) used to exert themselves to
see their own pragmatic studies of language associated with major trends in
the study of language. However, presently, some of us exert themselves to see
their own brand of pragmatics rather dissociated from some current trends in
pragmatics itself. Thus, at the outset of our presentation, we would like to
make two remarks of dissociation.
The gist of what we intend to claim is: First, that the core of language use is
divided between two different pragmatic competences: a purely linguistic
pragmatic competence, of a certain nature, and a non-linguistic pragmatic
competence, related to general cognitive systems, such as that of intentional
action in general. Secondly, that there are reasons to believe that the linguistic
pragmatic competence is represented in our minds as a cluster of modules, in
* Author's address: Asa Kasher, A. Horodisch Chair of Philosophy of Language, Department
of Philosophy, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel: e-mail: ASA0425~TAUNIVM.Bitnet
The present paper is a revised version of a lecture delivered during the Tel-Aviv University
Cognitive Symposium 3, Text and Context, July 1988. The style of a lecture has, however, been
retained and is reflected in the title.
The author wishes to thank the participants in that symposium for their helpful comments and
encouragement.
0378-2166/91/$03.50 ~ 1991 - - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

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A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

cognitive studies. This may sound as a merely classificatory remark, but it is

far from being meretriciously taxonomical in nature.
One of the most interesting results of work that has been done within the
broad field of cognitive studies, including generative linguistics and the
associate philosophy of language, is the emergence of the conception of
'modularity'. Presently, our initial, fundamental hypothesis with respect to
any interesting family of cognitive phenomena would be that it should be
explained in terms of 'modules', highly independent systems of knowledge,
each with its owfi distinctive properties. The principles of a module specify its
content as a system of knowledge. They also enter into the processes of
acquisition of this knowledge and of its employment.
Within the area of language studies, this modular approach seems to be a
distinguishing feature of the research program of Chomskyan generative
linguistics and the associate philosophy of language, ~ and it would, therefore,
be particularly interesting, from our point of view, to see what happens when
we pursue this modular path in our study of pragmatic competence.

4. Pragmaties and modules

A major issue in cognitive pragrnatics, as presently portrayed, is whether there
is any pragmatic module. Demonstration of an affirmative answer, a theoretical accomplishment of evident importance, would be tantamount to establishment of the autonomy of pragmatics. A proof of a negative answer, also a
theoretical achievement of significance, might cast doubt on the very coherence of the whole field of pragmatics.
It would, indeed, be inadvisable to set ourselves to look for a 'pragmatic
module' without having in mind some clear notion of 'pragmatics' and some
distinct notion of a 'module'. Seemingly conflicting answers that can be given
to the question as to whether a pragmatic module exists, involve, as a matter
of fact, different delimitations of pragmatics or different characterizations of
modularity.
We have already suggested what seems to us to be a sensible delimitation of
'pragmatics', one which will bring us closer to an answer to our question,
simply because it is going to render clearer the question itself. However,
without some clarification of the notion of 'module' as well, the question is
going to remain hopelessly ambiguous.
It would be natural to consider, first of all, Fodor's notion of 'module', as
presented in his Modularity of mind (1983: 47-101). On Fodor's view, input
systems are modular, since they are domain-specific, mandatory, informationally encapsulated, "exhibit characteristic and specific breakdown patterns"
6 See Newmeyer (1983: 2-3).

A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

387

(1983: 99) and have several other properties. It is a 'main thesis' of Fodor's
Modularity of mind that in general 'central' cognitive systems do not share
with some input systems the properties in virtue of which the latter are
mndular.
If a module is an input system which has some special properties, then there
is no pragmatic module that embodies the knowledge which we should, or
even commonly will find under 'pragmatics'. Conditions of appropriate use of
sentences in contexts involve not only a syntactic analysis of an input sentence
and a perceptual analysis of some contextual features, but also an institutional
analysis of the context of use, thereby al!uding to beliefs entertained by the
user at the context. Many of these beliefs belong to some central cognitive
system rather than to any input device. For instance, the speaker's beliefs
required by rules which are constitutive of promising, such as "S believes H
would prefer his doing A to his not ~doing A" (Searle 1969: 58), seem to be
beliefs to which input systems do not have access. Generally, conditions of
appropriate use of sentences in contexts involve beliefs which are manufactured, revised and stored by a general central system, and are not accessible to
the input systems of processing. Hence, pragmatic competence could not be
fully embodied in a module, if all modules are input systems.
If a module is not necessarily an input system, but does have all the other
properties by which Fodor characterized modules, there still is no pragmatic
module that embodies each part of our pragmatic knowledge.
Consider, for example, the knowledge used in deriving conversational
implicatures. It would be plausible to take this knowledge to constitute part of
our pragmatic knowledge. We have argued elsewhere that Grice's maxims
follow from some rationality 'most effective, least cost' principles. ~ Each of
these principles applies to various intentional acts, including acts of language
use but also artistic acts, to mention just one example. Accordingly, a
cognitive system which derives conversational implicatures involves application, to the output of some linguistic system, of some general central principles of rationality in intentional action. Hence, to the extent that it seems
plausible to assume that such rationality principles belong to a central
cognitive system, it would be implausible to assume that some domain-specific
cognitive system produces conversational implicatures. Domain-specificity
being a property shared by modules, in Fc~dor's sense of the term, it follows
that there is no pragmatic module that embodies all parts of our pragmatic
knowledge, including that employed in production of conversational implicatures.
Recall, furthermore, that conversational implicatures have been shown by
Grice to be cancelable ('John read the book and intended to see the movie,
but not necessarily in this order'). This property of conversational implicatures makes it implausible to assume that they are generally produced by some
Kasher (1976, 1982, and forthcoming).

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mandatory cognitive system. Again, mandatoriness is a property shared by

modules, according to Fodor's conception.
An additional argument rests on the case of the so-called 'indirect speech
acts'. It is commonly held that fully understanding such speech acts involves
putting to use part of one's pragmatic knowledge. Understanding an 'indirect'
speech act is, in our view, an attempt to understand a use of a sentence as
meant to attain more than one end. For example, an utterance of the sentence
'It is much too dark here', as made in some appropriate context, will involve
two theoretical, pragmatic levels. First, there is the 'literal end', the one
determined by the rules governing the point of assertoric use of this sentence.
Then, for some reason or other, this literal end is understood as an intermediate one, a sub-goal, and an attempt is made to find another end, a 'higher'
intended end, in our case, an end which could have served as that of a certain
request. Attainment of the 'higher' intended end would be served by attaining
thc qiteral' one. Indeed, under quite ordinary circumstances, such an attempt
requires access to one's general system of beliefs. Thus, if the addressee
believes that she can do something in order to lighten the darkness of the
room, and she has no reason to doubt that this belief is part of the mutual
belief of the speaker and herself, then she might conclude that the speaker's
~higher' intended end was that she will do something in order to lighten that
darkness. If the addressee believed that there is nothing that she can do about
it and that the speaker shares with her this belief, she would not reach that
conclusion, as to the 'higher' intended end of the assertoric speech act, if
indeed it has one under such circumstances of use. Hence, no informationally
encapsulated cognitive system could embody the knowledge required for
full-fledged understanding of indirect speech acts, that is to say, understanding
which includes identification of 'higher" intended ends. Again, it follows that
there is no pragmatic module, in Fodor's sense of the term, that embodies all
parts of our pragmatic knowledge, including pragmatic knowledge that is
employed in understanding 'indirect' speech acts.
Some of you may have concluded by now that our observations ~hould be
taken to lead one to suspect the suggested combina:.ion of our . tion of
pragmatic competence with Fodor's notion of modularity. Either of these
notions might, indeed, be found to be too strong, 8 but presently there seems
to be a better way of obviating the apparent incompatibility of these notions.
Our proposal has three parts, the first two of which are introductory.
The first part of our proposal is the introduction of a distinction between
different types of phenomena that hitherto have been mingled with each other
under the vague heading of "pragmatics'. For example, on the one hand, we
have knowledge of basic speech act types, such as assertion and question,
which is definitely part of one's knowledge of language, while on the other
hand, we have knowledge of principles of intentional action. The categc.ry of
8 ! thank Noam Chomsky and Zenon Pylyshyn for helpful discussions of this point.

A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

389

principles which govern intentional activity in general is, of course, much

more general than the category of principles which govern linguistic activity,
but the two are closely related. Actually, we have claimed that some aspects of
linguistic activity are governed by principles which are the results of applying
general principles of intentional activity to particular cases of linguistic
activity. In a sense, the first part of our proposal amounts to an introduction
into pragmatics of a distinction between the 'analytic' knowledge, which is
purely linguistic in nature, and the 'synthetic' knowledge, which is not.
The second part of our proposal is an introduction of a new notion of
"module'. We lep!aee the notion of 'module' as an input cognitive system of
certain properties by a notion of 'module' as a cognitive system that is
independent, in several significant respects:
(I)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)

it is domain specific (= property ~III.I, in Fodor's list);

it is informationally encapsulated (= III.5);
it is associated with fixed neural architecture (= III.7);
it has specific breakdown patterns (= III.8);
its ontogeny has a characteristic pace and sequencing (= III.9). 9

The major part of our proposal can now be put forward:

The Modularity of Pragmatic Knowledge Hypothesis:

The pragmatic knowledge, of appropriateness relations between sentences
and contexts of use, consists of two separate parts:
(I) Modular, pragmatic knowledge, which is purely linguistic and
(II) Central, pragmatic knowledge, which is not purely linguistic.
What about the rest of the properties of Fodor's modules?
A pragmatic module whose processing domain is basic speech acts may well have mandatory
aspects, but there is no reason to assume that unless the operation of a system is mandatory
( = I!!.2) it is not sufficiently autonomous, not a module.
Fodor's next requirement is that there be only limited central access to intermediate representations that a system computes, for it to be a module (III.3). Recall that Fodor's discussion is
confined to mandatory, fast input systems. The requirement that such systems be "relatively
inaccessible to consciousness" (ibid., 55 f.) is interesting and plausible, but when we move from
input systems to ones that are claser to the general-purpose-center but still are not parts of it, it is
no more reasonable to assume such inaccessibility. We don't know much about intermediate
representations that are computed by a pragmatic module, if there are any. if such intermediate
stages do exist and are related to the different parts of the structure of basic speech acts, e.g., the
point of the act or its background beliefs, there seems to be reason to assume that the related
intermediate representations are accessible to the center.
Fodor's modules are supposed to be fast (-- Ill.4) and to have 'shallow' output (-- Ill.6) but we
don't see why these should be constitutive elements of modularity, rather than of just input
modules.

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,4. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

Accepting our Modularity of Pragmatic Knowledge Hypothesis commits one

to admit the existence of at least one pragmatic module. The question whether
the whole modular pragmatic knowledge is embodied in one pragmatic module
or rather in several ones remains open. Each different part of pragmatic
knowledge should be separately examined in order to find out whether it is
embodied in a pragmatic module of its own, so to speak, whether it forms just
part of the pragmatic knowledge embodied in some pragmatic module, or
whether it belongs to a central cognitive system. The following parts of
pragmatic knowledge are suggested as proper subjects for such an inquiry:

(a) Core-Pragmatics, by which we mean knowledge of basic speech act

types, e.g., assertion, question and command. Knowledge of these types is
universally required and as long as one has not mastered them one is taken
not to have fully mastered one's language. There are reasons to put forward
the Core-Pragmatics Modularity Hypothesis, namely that there is a pragmatic
module that embodies just the pragmatic knowledge of basic speech act types.
(b) Amplified Core-Pragmatics, by which we mean knowledge of all the
systems of rules governing 'things done with words' which are not of basic
speech act types, e.g. congratulation and proclamation. Here there seem to be
reasons to put forward a different hypothesis, the Amplified Core-Pragmatics
Centrality Hypothesis, according to which these parts of pragmatic knowledge
do not constitute a module and rest on some central cognitive systems, lo
(c) Talk-in-Interaction Pragmatics, which is pragmatic knowledge governing
basic aspects of conversation, such as organization of turn-taking, organization
of sequences and organization of repair. 11 Studies of these types of action seem
to lend plausibility to the Talk-in-lnteraction Modularity Hypothesis, according
to which this part of pragmatic knowledge is embodied in a separate module.
Thus, the distinction between linguistic pragmatics and non-linguistic pragmatics and our revised notion of 'module' can be used in formulating a new
family of theoretical hypotheses, which may well turn out to play a significant
role in deepening our understanding of pragmatics.

5. Central pragmatics
In addition to core-pragmatic knowledge, amplified core-pragmatic knowl1o To be sure, the input of a central cognitive system may well be the output of a certain
pragmatic module. The supposedly central systems of rules which govern speech act types such as
testifying, admitting and confessint~, may be plausibly assumed to be amplifications of the system
which governs assertion.
11 See, for example, Schegloff(1987, 1988).

A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

391

edge and talk-in-interaction pragmatic knowledge, we would like to introduce

two other parts of pragmatic knowledge which seem to be related to the
general center of cognition.
We would like to stress the difference between the nature of central
pragmatic knowledge and that of modular pragmatic knowledge. The center is
a general-purpose device, while the modules are special-purpose devices. In
the center we find, first and foremost, principles of general cognitive systems,
such as performing human intentional action or understanding human intentional action, and such as forming and revising beliefs. Pragmatic knowledge
in the center is related to these general cognitive systems, on the one hand,
and to language use, on the other hand.

(d) Central Pragmatics, by which we mean pragmatic knowledge which

involves application of some general principles or strategies, such as those
governing rational intentional action in general, to cases of speech activity, or
involves use of information stored in some general cognitive system to cases of
speech processing, in production or understanding.
This is how (and, in a sense, where) conversational implicatures are
generated and where the 'higher' intended ends of 'indirect' speech acts are
identified. 12 This is also where politeness, registry and style considerations
participate in speech activity. 13
(e) Interface Pragmatics, by which we mean pragmatic knowledge which
involves integration of data from a linguistic channel with data from other
channels. For example, understanding certain indexical expressions, such as
'she' or 'there', involves integration of the output of a language module with
the output of some perception module, each serving as input for some central
unit which produces the integrated understanding of what has been said in the
context of utterance. 14
Notice that central pragmatics and interface pragmatics seem to involve
types of pragmatic knowledge related to different parts of the context in
which a speech act is performed. They also are respectively related to different
theoretical operations which take place when the center is activated in
language use, namely integration and application.
To be sure, both performance and understanding of speech acts which
suggest some conversational implicatures or of 'indirect' speech acts are not
t2 A full-fledged theory of cognitive modularity will have to tackle the problem of whether a
domain of applications of some general knowledge to a particular case of a certain family could
be governed by a module or not. Conversational implicatures are, on our account, products of
applying general principles of intentional action to particular cases of language use.
aa On treating politeness and rationality together within the present framework, see Kasher
(1986). Fraser's (1990: 287) summary of it hardly bears any similarity to the paper itself.
x4 For a detailed discussion of this point, see Kasher (1984).

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A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

purely central, simply because in each case a major role is being played by a
sentence which has particular structure, lexical elements, compositional literal
meaning and literal force. Assuming these properties of the sentence are
identified by some linguistic modules, the overall operation seems to involve
some module-center interaction. It remains to be determined whether this
pragmatic interaction takes the form of a special pragmatic interaction device.
Such a device, if it exists, embodies pragmatic knowledge of an interesting
intermediate nature, namely pragmatic principles which are the results of
applying general principles of intentional action to the case of linguistic
action. Alternative hypotheses would not posit a separate pragmatic interaction device, but either a device which is more general in nature or one which is
more specific. A more general device would embody general principles only
and apply them each time to the particular case on hand. More plausibly,
perhaps, a less general device will include a variety of linguistic strategies
which embody applications of general principles to certain cases that have or
might have arisen.
We move now from our discussion of pragmatics in the mind to an even
briefer discussion of pragmatics in the brain.

6. A puzzle: Neuropragmatic results

An apparent portrayal of pragmatics in the brain which seems to emerge from
current literature in neuropsychology of language is quite puzzling.
Roughly speaking and as far as we can tell, pragmatics is portrayed as
forming an independent part of language which operates in the right hemisphere of the brain (of right-handed persons). Thus, Sheila Blumstein offers the
following comparison of the role of the right hemisphere processing to that of
the left one: "While the left hemisphere appears to be specialized for processing the linguistic grammar per se ... the right hemisphere contributes to the
"pragmatics" of language use, on the one hand, and the integration of the
linguistic grammar with cognitive (nonverbal) processes, on the other"
(Blumstein ! 98 i, quoted by Newmeyer 1983: 25-26).
Although it has already been established that the right hemisphere has
considerable linguistic ability, ~s the idea that the right hemisphere contains the
pragmatic module is rather puzzling. If according to one's general conception
of language, ordinary uses of sentences involve both the grammatical competence and the pragmatic competence, it would follow that common use of
sentences by subjects with complete cerebral commissurotomy 16 would
involve minute coordination on the part of informationaUy disconnected
is See,for example, Eran Zaidel's survey 0985).
x~ I.e.,split brain subjects

A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

393

components, grammar in the left hemisphere and pragmatics in the right

hemisphere.
However, the puzzle of pragmatics in the right hemisphere disappears when
the evidence is more closely scrutinized.
What are the main types of evidence?
First, Howard Gardner and his associates found that right-brain damaged
subjects have deficits in interpreting metaphors and idiomatic expressions, in
understanding sarcastic or humorous texts as well as cartoons, and in retelling
stories and getting their point, x7
Secondly, Heeschen, Gardner and others discovered that right-brain damaged subjects have severe deficits in understanding 'indirect' speech acts. For
example, when such subjects encounter an interrogative sentence used as an
indirect request, they consistently respond to the literal interpretation rather
than fulfill the intended request.
These are highly interesting phenomena, but with the view of defending the
hypothesis that the pragmatic competence is embodied in the right hemisphere
the evidence seems rather weak in several respects.
First, if the hypothesis of pragmatics in the right hemisphere was the best
explanation of these deficits, found in right-brain damaged subjects, one
would have expected that in a case of complete cerebral commissurotomy the
disconnected left hemisphere would manifest the same deficits in an even
greater measure. This is not what happened, when the 'Right Hemisphere
Communication Battery" was recently administered to LB, a split-brain
subject, at UCLA, as well as to other split-brain subjects. 18 Whereas rightbrain damaged subjects show severe deficits in all the subtests, LB showed
severe deficits only in a few of them, including story retelling and interpretation of indirect speech acts. Only mild deficits have been found in other
subtests, such as understanding sarcasm and pictorial metaphors. Similar
results hold for other split-brain subjects. Consequently, the hypothesis that
pragmatics is embodied in the right hemisphere should be significantly revised
or even replaced by an utterly different one. A,:tuaily, our recent experiments
show that the abilities examined by that battery are neither purely right
hemisphere ones nor are they purely left hemisphere ones.
Secondly, notice that most !f not all of the deficits found by administering
that battery to right-brain damaged subjects involve phenomena which are
hardly well understood on any abstract theoretical level. In the absence of
appropriate theories of metaphor, sarcasm and humor, for example, it is not
clear what exactly is being tested. Moreover, without better understanding of
each of these phenomena there seems to be no good reason for combining
them to form a separate competence. Again, a hypothesis that a pragmatic
17 See Gardner et al. (1983), Foldi et al. (1983) and Gardner (1987).
is For some preliminary results, see Spence et al. (1989).

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A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

competence operates in the right hemisphere cannot be grounded on highly

interesting results which, however, pertain to such a poorly understood
combination of poorly understood phenomena.
Thirdly, even if we do cluster such phenomena under some notion of a
pragmatic competence - in a minute we will see that they do share some
features - still the problem arises of ~,he relation this competence bears to
those various families of phenomena such as the ones which we have
described and explained in previous sections: basic speech acts and performatives, conversational and conventional implicatures, politeness and the like.
Are these additional parts of the same cluster, or are they rather related to
another co:npetence, and in any case, why?
In other #ords, the suggestion that metaphors, sarcasm and humor are all
subsumed under the same competence, which, moreover, is embodied in a
pragmatic module of some sort in the right hemisphere, seems to rest on some
diffused, unwarrantable notions of pragmatics and modularity.
The question whether there is a pragmatic module, in what we have taken
to be more justifiable senses of 'pragmatics' and of 'module', as well as the
question of its location remain, then, in want of an answer on different
~rounds. It is not difficult to make some preliminary steps towards answering
these questions.
First, notice that pragmatic knowledge as embodied in modular Dragmatics,
in our :,enses of 'pragmatics' and 'module', is involved in each case a speech
act is performed. In other words, there is no ordinary employment of
grammatical knowledge without accompanying employment of pragmatic
knowledge. Since the principles of syntax and the principles of pragmatics are
quite distinct from each other, it is reasonable to assume that they constitute
different competences, embodied in different modules or clusters of modules.
As a matter of fact, there seems to be some preliminary neuropsychologicai
evidence to the effect that these competences are neurologically dissociated
from each other, but a full-fledged investigation of this point has not yet been
concluded. 19
In any case, If there is no speech without employment of pragmatic
knowledge, then it would be only natural to assume that some pragmatic
module, in our sense of the term, operates in the speaking hemisphere, the left
one (in right-handed people). This is the Modular Pragmatics in the Left

Hemisphere Hypothesis.
7. Indirect acts

In conclusion, we would like to mention a tentative explanation of the

19 A whole battery of new pragmatic tests is presently administered in Israel and the U.S. in an
attempt to investigate this issue. We have also some test cases under re-examination.

A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

395

interesting results which lead some investigators to posit a pragmatic module

in the right hemisphere.
Metaphorical expressions, sarcastic ones and 'indirect' speech acts seem to
have at least one feature in common. Roughly speaking, in each of these cases
there is a 'gap' between the literal meaning and what may be understood as
the 'intended' one. Even if it is not easy to reach a firm agreement as to what
is the 'intended' meaning of such an expression, it is always clear that it
involves going beyond the literal meaning, so to speak.
Notice that sarcasm as well as certain forms of 'indirect' speech act (e.g.,
"Could you ...'), are, in a sense, conventionalized, and we would, therefore,
not be surprised if we find them to be dissociated from metaphorical expressions and 'live', 'indirect' speech acts.
Notice also that exceeding the literal meaning does not necessarily mean
first of all computing the literal meaning and then, as a result of some
evaluation, making an attempt to identify the 'intended' meaning. It may well
be the case that the need to go beyond the literal meaning is detected without
a complete representation of the literal meaning being computed.
Now, there is no reason to assume that in understanding metaphorical
expressions we employ the same principles that identify for as the 'higher'
intended end of an 'indirect' speech act or the principles that lead us to interpret
a remark as being sarcastic, but it would be plausible to assume that since these
phenomena all involve going beyond the literal meaning they also all involve
some monitoring: if going beyond the literal meaning is going 'somewhere'
beyond the literal meaning, then some monitor should tell us 'where' to go.
If we assume (with Eran Zaidel, personal communication) that a monitor of
a left hemispheric device can operate in the right hemisphere, then an
explanation suggests itself of several experimental results"
(!) The observation that split-brain subjects, such as LB, exhibit a severe
deficit in understanding 'indirect' speech acts (though not in understanding
sarcastic expressions).
(2) Results of experiments that show that subjects with right hemisphere
damage prefer literal interpretations of metaphors and idiomatic expressions
(such as 'a heavy heart') over their 'intended' meanings.
(3) Results of experiments that show that subjects with right hemisphere
damage, when asked to judge the appropriateness of an action in response to
a 'Can you ...'-question, "judged that inappropriate actions were appropriate
more often than would be expected from random guessing alone" (Hirst et al.
1984: 30).
(4) Results of experiments that show that subjects with right hemisphere
damage had a selective difficulty appreciating the indirect commands, their
preference of the literal interpretations being "significantly different to that of
aphasics or normal controls" (Foldi 1987:88).

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A. Kasher / On the pragmatic modules

If this explanation is in the right direction, then the question 'where is

pragmatics in the brain?' takes an unexpectedly intriguing form: some pragmatic module, in our sense of the term, may be plausibly assumed to reside in
the left hemisphere (of right-handed persons). However, any detection of a
need to go beyond the literal meaning of expressions, that is, of a need to
employ a central device of interpretation of sentences in contexts of their use,
involves a monitoring device which resides in the right hemisphere. A concluding speculation would be that whereas modular pragmatics is in the left
hemisphere, parts of central pragrnatics are in the right hemisphere.

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