Gricean views of exhaustification A note on Westera (2022)
Main Article Content
Abstract
As a puzzle for the Gricean view of exhaustification, Fox (2014) describes a game show scenario where the maxim of Quantity is arguably canceled, but the use of a disjunctive sentence still invites an exclusivity inference. Westera (2022) proposes that this puzzle can be solved in an Attentional Pragmatics, where the Gricean maxims are supplemented with Attention-maxims. In this commentary, we identify a gap in Westera’s solution and propose two possible amendments. We point out that under either amendment, the resulting proposal requires a departure from Grice’s original view of exhaustification as arising from a clash between the maxims of Quantity and Quality.
EARLY ACCESS
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Articles appearing in Semantics and Pragmatics are published under an author agreement with the Linguistic Society of America and are made available to readers under a Creative Commons Attribution License.