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>

>