Single Idea 18043

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

Full Idea

In Grice's theory if a sentence is trivially true, asserting it would violate the maxim of quantity. For Stalnaker, if p is trivially true, it involves no update to the context-set, and is thus pointless.

Gist of Idea

The infelicitiousness of trivial truth is explained by uninformativeness, or a static context-set

Source

Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.2)

Book Reference

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


A Reaction

'Let us remind ourselves, before we proceed, of the following trivial truth: p'.

Related Idea

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