Single Idea 18042

[catalogued under 19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature]

Full Idea

In Grice's theory if a sentence is trivially false, asserting it would violate the maxim of quality. For Stalnaker if p is trivially false, removing all worlds incompatible with p would result in an empty context-set, preventing any further communication.

Gist of Idea

The infelicitiousness of trivial falsity is explained by expectations, or the loss of a context-set

Source

Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.2)

Book Reference

Magidor,Ofra: 'Category Mistakes' [OUP 2013], p.112


A Reaction

[compressed] I'm not sure whether we need to 'explain' the inappropriateness of uttering trivial falsities. I take the main rule of conversation to be 'don't be boring', but we all violate that.

Related Idea

Idea 10991 Key conversational maxims are 'quality' (assert truth) and 'quantity' (leave nothing out) [Grice, by Read]