Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 04:36:07 -0700

From: James Beniger beniger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RCF.USC.EDU

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Relevant true story: At a major international conference, a pompous

speaker droned on and on to a packed crowd. After what seemed an

eternity, he finally built to his point, declaring: "In English, for

example, there is not a single example of a double positive which means

its negative." At this point, the noted Princeton philosopher, Saul

Kripke, rose from his seat near the back of the audience and shouted;

"SURE, SURE!" The speaker has not been seen much since.



-- Jim Beniger

University of Southern California

*******



On Fri, 7 Oct 1994, Dennis.Preston wrote:



The term you are looking for (or at least one of them), when the compositional

semantics does not add up to the pragmatic meaning (or illocutionary force) is

indirect speech act. When one finds these (and even direct speech acts and

other matters misinterpreted cross-linguistically, the generally agreed upon

area of study appears to be interlanguage pragmatics.

This ought to convince people that there are linguists out there. At least we

have a code.

Dennis Preston

22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu