Single Idea 21639

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

Full Idea

'Background deletion' is the pheomenon that what isn't focused in an answer, what is the background, can be left out of the answer, with the resulting sub-sentential answer nonetheless being appropriate.

Gist of Idea

'Background deletion' is appropriately omitting background from an answer

Source

Thomas Hofweber (Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics [2016], 02.6.2)

Book Reference

Hofweber,Thomas: 'Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics' [OUP 2018], p.45


A Reaction

[I'm struck by the verbosity of this sentence, from an over-long book] It is not unreasonable to think that each conversational exchange has an implicit and agreed domain of quantification. Well, 'focus', then.

Related Idea

Idea 21638 Syntactic form concerns the focus of the sentence, as well as the truth-conditions [Hofweber]