The impact of literal meaning on what-is-said

Whithin the Gricean tradition, the question which stratum of an utterance one would intuitively judge as what-is-said (and what not) has been debated intensely. Several experimental approaches have been developed which are reported here. In addition, a study with examples in German has been performed. One result of the study is that the literal meaning of the utterance has a strong impact upon the tendency to judge something as what-is-said, thus it does not seem to be equal whether the suggested level of what-is-said is close to its literal meaning – the results of the studies are stronger in this case.

Published online: 14 April 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.175.03lie