When cancellation becomes unreasonable

Bibliographic Data

ID12859472
AuthorsFabrizio Macagno (0000-0003-0712-421X, University of Lisbon), Roberto Graci (University of Messina, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume21
Issue3
Pages403-430
Publication date2024-05-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIntercultural Pragmatics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1612-295X • E-ISSN: 1613-365X
PublisherDe Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ip-2024-3005
OpenAlexW4396932714
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited58

Cancellability – one of the most important tests for implicatures – has been attacked from different perspectives, and its reliability challenged by several cases and examples in which conversational implicatures seem to be hard or even impossible to cancel. To account for these phenomena, distinct approaches have been advanced aimed at weakening Grice’s cancellability test. However, what do we exactly mean when we claim that an implicature cannot be cancelled? Grice pointed out that implicatures are triggered by a possible conflict with the cooperativeness principle, and for this reason it is always possible to opt out of the observation thereof. This theoretical possibility needs to be distinguished from the practical problem of explaining why some implicatures are intuitively less cancellable than others, or even not cancellable. To address this latter – practical – dimension of cancellability, the reasoning and the presumptive premises involved in drawing an implicature and justifying its cancellation needs to be represented and evaluated. This approach will be shown to provide a possible instrument for evaluating the reasonableness of cancellability and its costs

Advanced Algebra and Logic · Computer Science · Logic, Reasoning, and Knowledge · Multi-Agent Systems and Negotiation · Psychology