Chapter published in:
Implicitness: From lexis to discourse
Edited by Piotr Cap and Marta Dynel
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 276] 2017
► pp. 15–36

What’s a reading?

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Linguists sometimes assume that the readings associated with linguistic utterance, both explicit and implicit, are self-evident. I here problematize the concept of a reading associated with linguistic expressions, and restrict it to interpretations systematically intended by the speaker using the utterance. This is a stronger condition than is sometimes adopted, namely, meshing the utterance with the objective reality that must lie behind the utterance (according to the speaker). I reanalyze assumptions commonly considered part of the reading associated with and, or and scalar quantifiers as Background or as Truth-Compatible inferences. On this account, these assumptions do not fall under the speaker’s communicative intention, and therefore do not constitute readings.
Keywords: what is said, Truth-Compatible inferences, Background assumptions, scalar quantifiers, explicature
Published online: 30 June 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.276.02ari
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