LINGUIST List 13.1652

Tue Jun 11 2002

Diss: Pragmatics: Nemo "Contraintes de..."

Editor for this issue: Karolina Owczarzak <karolinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. francois.nemo, Pragmatics: Nemo "Contraintes de pertinence..."

New Dissertation Abstract

Institution: Paris Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Program: PhD
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 1992

Author: Francois Nemo 

Dissertation Title: 

Contraintes de pertinence et competence enonciative. L'image du
possible dans l'interlocution.

Linguistic Field: Pragmatics

Dissertation Director 1: Oswald Ducrot
Dissertation Director 2: Francois Recanati
Dissertation Director 3: Alain Berrendonner
Dissertation Director 4: Pierre Encreve


Dissertation Abstract: 

The idea that saying would be ruled by general pragmatic principles is
not giving any clue when the diversity of utterance-types is to be
accounted for. But in order to study this diversity, and for instance
that we can say things which are not informative at all (but are
argumentative or directive) but are still relevant, we need to ask the
same question, i.e. the question of their relevance to all types of
utterances, and compare the answers. It is shown here that beyond this
diversity, what makes an utterance different from a proposition is
that it associates a proposition with a modal frame. In other words,
that utterances are saying something simultanesously about what is the
case and what is not the case. It is shown then that the different
types of utterances are building different modal frames, i.e images of
what is possible, and specific descriptions are made to describe the
conditions of relevance of argumentative utterances, performative
(directive) utterances, in formative utterances, etc..