Conventional Implicature
Conventional implicatures are non-truth-conditional meanings that are tied to particular words, such as 'but', 'even', and appositives, rather than calculated from context.
Definition
A conventional implicature is a non-truth-conditional meaning conventionally attached to a particular expression, contributing a separate dimension of content that is neither part of what is said nor calculable from context.
Scope
This topic covers Grice's category of conventional implicature: content that is part of the conventional meaning of an expression yet does not contribute to truth conditions and is not cancellable, unlike conversational implicature. It treats classic examples such as the contrast conveyed by 'but' and the meaning of 'therefore', and Potts's influential reanalysis of expressives and supplements (appositives, parentheticals) as a distinct dimension of not-at-issue meaning.
Core questions
- How do conventional implicatures differ from conversational implicatures and from entailments?
- Which expressions carry conventional implicatures?
- Why are conventional implicatures not cancellable?
- How should expressives and supplements be modelled as a separate dimension of meaning?
Key concepts
- conventional vs. conversational implicature
- non-truth-conditional meaning
- non-cancellability
- expressives
- supplements (appositives, parentheticals)
- at-issue vs. not-at-issue content
Key theories
- Grice's category of conventional implicature
- Some non-truth-conditional content (e.g. the contrast signalled by 'but') is conventionally attached to words and so is neither part of what is said nor a context-derived conversational implicature.
- Multidimensional semantics of CIs (Potts)
- Expressives and supplements contribute a separate, speaker-oriented dimension of not-at-issue meaning, formalized with a logic that keeps at-issue and conventional-implicature content apart.
History
Grice distinguished conventional from conversational implicature in his William James Lectures, using examples like 'but' and 'therefore'. The category was relatively neglected until Potts's 2005 study reframed expressives and supplements as a coherent class of not-at-issue meaning with a dedicated multidimensional semantics, reviving theoretical interest.
Debates
- Whether conventional implicature is a unified or coherent category
- Whether Grice's original examples and Potts's expressives and supplements form a single natural class, or whether 'conventional implicature' collects heterogeneous phenomena better treated separately.
Key figures
- H. P. Grice
- Christopher Potts
- Stephen Levinson
Related topics
Seminal works
- grice1989
- potts2005
Frequently asked questions
- How does 'but' carry a conventional implicature?
- 'But' has the same truth-conditional contribution as 'and' but conventionally implicates a contrast between the conjuncts; this contrast is part of the word's conventional meaning, not something inferred from context, and it cannot be cancelled.