Laurence R Horn
Biographic Data
| ID | 550553 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laurence R Horn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laurence R |
| FAMILY NAME | Horn |
| SIGNATURE | HORN L R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 138 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The stigma enigma: When the personal (dative) is political
Insincerely yours: On the uses of sarcasm
A lie commits the speaker to the truth of an assertion they believe false. But a speaker uttering a falsehood in jest or sarcasm arguably neither asserts that falsehood nor lies. The insincere speaker essentially “uncommits” to the truth of their remark. Social media posters, criminal defendants, and politicians facing pushback regularly appeal to the sarcasm defense as a get-out-of-accountability-free card, often supporting this move by citing a…
Contrast and clausal order: On beyond Behaghel
Since Aristotle first set out rules of natural priority, rhetoricians and linguists have sought to establish the ‘natural order’ of words, phrases, and clauses. Accounts of constituent order by classical rhetoricians and philologists and by modern linguists and psychologists have addressed word order within phrases and phrasal order within clauses. However, they have not tended to investigate clausal order within sentences, with the important but…
Negation and Opposition: Contradiction and contrariety in logic and language
The treatment of negation has long been linked to the treatment of opposition between propositions (or sentences) and between terms (or subsentential constituents). The primary types of opposition, usefully displayed on the post-Aristotelian Square of Opposition, are contradiction (two contradictories always differ in truth value) and contrariety (two contraries can both be false, but not both be true). The law of non-contradiction governs both o…
Neg-raising
Neg-raising is “the strong tendency in many languages to attract to the main verb a negative which should logically belong to the dependent nexus [=clause]”: a speaker uttering I don’t believe that p is typically taken to have conveyed ‘I believe that not-p’. Such lower-clause understandings of higher-clause negations are possible across certain predicates (believe, think, want) but not others (realize, regret, deny) in English and other language…
Words in Edgewise
Well before I turned pro linguist, words were my life. In my career I have been not just a word consumer (or word processor) but a periodic donor, a supplier of lexical utensils for the semanticist's arsenal. My proposed coinages have experienced varying degrees of success and ignominy within several overlapping areas of the field—the “Border Wars” between semantics and pragmatics, the nature of negation and polarity, and the exploration of lexic…
Ellen F. Prince
Ellen F. Prince Gregory Ward, Betty J. Birner, Laurence R. Horn, Barbara Abbott, Pauline Jacobson, and Jerrold M. Sadock Ellen F. Prince, president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008 and a major figure in the fields of discourse, pragmatics, and information structure, died peacefully in her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 2010, of lung cancer. She was sixty-six. At the time of her death, Ellen was Professor Emeritus (…
Among the New Words
Research Article| August 01 2011 Among the New Words Benjamin Zimmer; Benjamin Zimmer Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Charles E. Carson; Charles E. Carson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Laurence R. Horn Laurence R. Horn Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2011) 86 (3): 355–376. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-1503937 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Fac…
Hypernegation, Hyponegation, and Parole Violations
The Handbook of Pragmatics
This handbook is valuable resource for both students and professional researchers investigating the properties of meaning, reference, and context in natural language
On the other hand: A response to some reflections on a recent handbook
More issues in neo- and post-Gricean pragmatics: A response to Robyn Carston's response
I am grateful to Robyn Carston for her judicious and constructive commentary on my recent prise de position (Horn 2005a). In the spirit of Carston's remarks, I will touch on both some of the areas of agreement and some of the domains of divergence between her model of pragmatics and mine, while somewhat slighting the territories in which our approaches are more complementary
Spitten Image: Etymythology and Fluid Dynamics
Research Article| February 01 2004 SPITTEN IMAGE: ETYMYTHOLOGY AND FLUID DYNAMICS LAURENCE R. HORN LAURENCE R. HORN Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2004) 79 (1): 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-79-1-33 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation LAURENCE R. HORN; SPITTEN IMAGE: ETYMYTHOLOGY AND FLUID DYNAMICS. American Speech 1 February 2004;…
From if to iff: Conditional perfection as pragmatic strengthening
Geis and Zwicky's squib on “conditional perfection” (1971) released a hornet's nest of rebuttal and counter-rebuttal into the pragmatic atmosphere, with many scholars in the area playing alternately the roles of stinger and stingee. Geis and Zwicky's goal was to explain the notorious tendency among introductory logic students and ordinary speakers to ‘perfect’ an if-then conditional of the form of If you mow the lawn, I'll give you five dollars i…
Phatic communication and Relevance Theory: A reply to Žegarac & Clark
Recent work in Relevance Theory (henceforth RT) illustrates the coming of age of modern pragmatic scholarship in creating an environment in which a particular theory of pragmatics can be taken for granted, without explanation or justification, and an analysis of a phenomenon previously unaccounted for within that theory can be advanced. One is reminded of much of the recent syntactic work within GB/Principles & Parameters/Minimalist Theory: the d…
Progovac on polarity
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Said and the Unsaid
No abstract.
Given as new: When redundant affirmation isn't
Hamburgers and Truth: Why Gricean Explanation is Gricean
Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1990), pp. 453-471
Showdown at Truth-Value Gap: Burton-Roberts on presupposition
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity
When 'marked' or 'external' negation has not been treated as an additional semantic operator alongside the straightforward truth-functional, presupposition-preserving ordinary ('internal') negation, it has been collapsed with internal negation into a unified general logical operator on propositions. Neither of these approaches does justice to the differences and kinships between and within the two principal varieties of negation in natural langua…
In Defense of Privative Ambiguity
Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1984), pp. 141-156
Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity
When 'marked' or 'external' negation has not been treated as an additional semantic operator alongside the straightforward truth-functional, presupposition-preserving ordinary ('internal') negation, it has been collapsed with internal negation into a unified general logical operator on propositions. Neither of these approaches does justice to the differences and kinships between and within the two principal varieties of negation in natural langua…
From if to iff: Conditional perfection as pragmatic strengthening
Geis and Zwicky's squib on “conditional perfection” (1971) released a hornet's nest of rebuttal and counter-rebuttal into the pragmatic atmosphere, with many scholars in the area playing alternately the roles of stinger and stingee. Geis and Zwicky's goal was to explain the notorious tendency among introductory logic students and ordinary speakers to ‘perfect’ an if-then conditional of the form of If you mow the lawn, I'll give you five dollars i…
Given as new: When redundant affirmation isn't
Showdown at Truth-Value Gap: Burton-Roberts on presupposition
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Spitten Image: Etymythology and Fluid Dynamics
Research Article| February 01 2004 SPITTEN IMAGE: ETYMYTHOLOGY AND FLUID DYNAMICS LAURENCE R. HORN LAURENCE R. HORN Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2004) 79 (1): 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-79-1-33 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation LAURENCE R. HORN; SPITTEN IMAGE: ETYMYTHOLOGY AND FLUID DYNAMICS. American Speech 1 February 2004;…
Words in Edgewise
Well before I turned pro linguist, words were my life. In my career I have been not just a word consumer (or word processor) but a periodic donor, a supplier of lexical utensils for the semanticist's arsenal. My proposed coinages have experienced varying degrees of success and ignominy within several overlapping areas of the field—the “Border Wars” between semantics and pragmatics, the nature of negation and polarity, and the exploration of lexic…
Contrast and clausal order: On beyond Behaghel
Since Aristotle first set out rules of natural priority, rhetoricians and linguists have sought to establish the ‘natural order’ of words, phrases, and clauses. Accounts of constituent order by classical rhetoricians and philologists and by modern linguists and psychologists have addressed word order within phrases and phrasal order within clauses. However, they have not tended to investigate clausal order within sentences, with the important but…
Among the New Words
Research Article| August 01 2011 Among the New Words Benjamin Zimmer; Benjamin Zimmer Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Charles E. Carson; Charles E. Carson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Laurence R. Horn Laurence R. Horn Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2011) 86 (3): 355–376. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-1503937 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Fac…
More issues in neo- and post-Gricean pragmatics: A response to Robyn Carston's response
I am grateful to Robyn Carston for her judicious and constructive commentary on my recent prise de position (Horn 2005a). In the spirit of Carston's remarks, I will touch on both some of the areas of agreement and some of the domains of divergence between her model of pragmatics and mine, while somewhat slighting the territories in which our approaches are more complementary
Phatic communication and Relevance Theory: A reply to Žegarac & Clark
Recent work in Relevance Theory (henceforth RT) illustrates the coming of age of modern pragmatic scholarship in creating an environment in which a particular theory of pragmatics can be taken for granted, without explanation or justification, and an analysis of a phenomenon previously unaccounted for within that theory can be advanced. One is reminded of much of the recent syntactic work within GB/Principles & Parameters/Minimalist Theory: the d…
Progovac on polarity
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
In Defense of Privative Ambiguity
Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1984), pp. 141-156
Metalinguistic Negation and Pragmatic Ambiguity
When 'marked' or 'external' negation has not been treated as an additional semantic operator alongside the straightforward truth-functional, presupposition-preserving ordinary ('internal') negation, it has been collapsed with internal negation into a unified general logical operator on propositions. Neither of these approaches does justice to the differences and kinships between and within the two principal varieties of negation in natural langua…
Hamburgers and Truth: Why Gricean Explanation is Gricean
Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1990), pp. 453-471
Showdown at Truth-Value Gap: Burton-Roberts on presupposition
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Given as new: When redundant affirmation isn't
The Said and the Unsaid
No abstract.
Progovac on polarity
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Phatic communication and Relevance Theory: A reply to Žegarac & Clark
Recent work in Relevance Theory (henceforth RT) illustrates the coming of age of modern pragmatic scholarship in creating an environment in which a particular theory of pragmatics can be taken for granted, without explanation or justification, and an analysis of a phenomenon previously unaccounted for within that theory can be advanced. One is reminded of much of the recent syntactic work within GB/Principles & Parameters/Minimalist Theory: the d…
From if to iff: Conditional perfection as pragmatic strengthening
Geis and Zwicky's squib on “conditional perfection” (1971) released a hornet's nest of rebuttal and counter-rebuttal into the pragmatic atmosphere, with many scholars in the area playing alternately the roles of stinger and stingee. Geis and Zwicky's goal was to explain the notorious tendency among introductory logic students and ordinary speakers to ‘perfect’ an if-then conditional of the form of If you mow the lawn, I'll give you five dollars i…
Spitten Image: Etymythology and Fluid Dynamics
Research Article| February 01 2004 SPITTEN IMAGE: ETYMYTHOLOGY AND FLUID DYNAMICS LAURENCE R. HORN LAURENCE R. HORN Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2004) 79 (1): 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-79-1-33 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation LAURENCE R. HORN; SPITTEN IMAGE: ETYMYTHOLOGY AND FLUID DYNAMICS. American Speech 1 February 2004;…
The Handbook of Pragmatics
This handbook is valuable resource for both students and professional researchers investigating the properties of meaning, reference, and context in natural language
On the other hand: A response to some reflections on a recent handbook
More issues in neo- and post-Gricean pragmatics: A response to Robyn Carston's response
I am grateful to Robyn Carston for her judicious and constructive commentary on my recent prise de position (Horn 2005a). In the spirit of Carston's remarks, I will touch on both some of the areas of agreement and some of the domains of divergence between her model of pragmatics and mine, while somewhat slighting the territories in which our approaches are more complementary
Hypernegation, Hyponegation, and Parole Violations
Ellen F. Prince
Ellen F. Prince Gregory Ward, Betty J. Birner, Laurence R. Horn, Barbara Abbott, Pauline Jacobson, and Jerrold M. Sadock Ellen F. Prince, president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2008 and a major figure in the fields of discourse, pragmatics, and information structure, died peacefully in her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 24, 2010, of lung cancer. She was sixty-six. At the time of her death, Ellen was Professor Emeritus (…
Among the New Words
Research Article| August 01 2011 Among the New Words Benjamin Zimmer; Benjamin Zimmer Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Charles E. Carson; Charles E. Carson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Laurence R. Horn Laurence R. Horn Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Speech (2011) 86 (3): 355–376. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-1503937 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Fac…
Words in Edgewise
Well before I turned pro linguist, words were my life. In my career I have been not just a word consumer (or word processor) but a periodic donor, a supplier of lexical utensils for the semanticist's arsenal. My proposed coinages have experienced varying degrees of success and ignominy within several overlapping areas of the field—the “Border Wars” between semantics and pragmatics, the nature of negation and polarity, and the exploration of lexic…
Negation and Opposition: Contradiction and contrariety in logic and language
The treatment of negation has long been linked to the treatment of opposition between propositions (or sentences) and between terms (or subsentential constituents). The primary types of opposition, usefully displayed on the post-Aristotelian Square of Opposition, are contradiction (two contradictories always differ in truth value) and contrariety (two contraries can both be false, but not both be true). The law of non-contradiction governs both o…
Neg-raising
Neg-raising is “the strong tendency in many languages to attract to the main verb a negative which should logically belong to the dependent nexus [=clause]”: a speaker uttering I don’t believe that p is typically taken to have conveyed ‘I believe that not-p’. Such lower-clause understandings of higher-clause negations are possible across certain predicates (believe, think, want) but not others (realize, regret, deny) in English and other language…
Contrast and clausal order: On beyond Behaghel
Since Aristotle first set out rules of natural priority, rhetoricians and linguists have sought to establish the ‘natural order’ of words, phrases, and clauses. Accounts of constituent order by classical rhetoricians and philologists and by modern linguists and psychologists have addressed word order within phrases and phrasal order within clauses. However, they have not tended to investigate clausal order within sentences, with the important but…
The stigma enigma: When the personal (dative) is political
Insincerely yours: On the uses of sarcasm
A lie commits the speaker to the truth of an assertion they believe false. But a speaker uttering a falsehood in jest or sarcasm arguably neither asserts that falsehood nor lies. The insincere speaker essentially “uncommits” to the truth of their remark. Social media posters, criminal defendants, and politicians facing pushback regularly appeal to the sarcasm defense as a get-out-of-accountability-free card, often supporting this move by citing a…
Philosophy (17 works) · Linguistics (16 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Pragmatics (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies (6 works)