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Is Unsaying Polite?

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Part of the book series: Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science ((LEUS,volume 25))

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Abstract

This paper is divided in five sections. Section 11.1 sketches the history of the distinction between speech act with negative content and negated speech act, and gives a general dynamic interpretation for negated speech act. “Downdate semantics” for AGM contraction is introduced in Section 11.2. Relying on semantically interpreted contraction, Section 11.3 develops the dynamic semantics for constative and directive speech acts, and their external negations. The expressive completeness for the formal variants of natural language utterances, none of which is a retraction, has been proved in Section 11.4. The last section gives a laconic answer to the question posed in the title of the paper.

‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked.

‘There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.

‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.

‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the March Hare.

—Alice’s Adventures in the Wonderland [6, p. 96]

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In [26] Veltman develops a semantics for counterfactuals and introduces “retraction function” that shares the same traits as the function presented here. They differ only in technical sense: since Veltman relies on use of partial valuations (“situations”) while I use relation of minimal difference between full valuations.

  2. 2.

    A more advanced semantics for AGM theory, but without contraction, is given in [22].

  3. 3.

    See Yamada, Chapter 10, this volume.

  4. 4.

    The unbound variables are assumed to be universally quantified in all the formulas.

  5. 5.

    Proposition on recovery is stronger than acceptability claim: it shows that what has been “undone” can also be “redone.”

  6. 6.

    Change expression syntax for imperatives was re-introduced in [31].

  7. 7.

    The March Hare’s suggestion in the motto violates positive condition.

  8. 8.

    In [32] contrariety of imperative is called “negative imperative.”

  9. 9.

    For discussion on varieties of relations of meaning inclusion that can be distinguished within dynamic semantics see [4].

  10. 10.

    Note that a translation for the conditional imperative in dynamic modal language can be given by:

    $$\begin{aligned}&\left(\left(\cdot(\varphi/\top)\right)\mathsf{?};\mathsf{ex}\left(!(\top/\psi)\right)\right) \\ &\cup \\ &\left(\left(\mathsf{do}(\mathsf{ex}( \cdot(\lnot\varphi/\top))\lor \mathsf{do}(\mathsf{ex}(!(\top/\lnot\psi))))\right)\mathsf{?};\mathsf{ex}\left(\mathsf{do}(!(\varphi/\psi))\land \lnot\mathsf{do}(!(\varphi/\lnot\psi))\right)\right)\textrm{.} \end{aligned}$$

    Therefore, the claim put forward in Section 11.1.1 has been proved as well.

  11. 11.

    For this idea I am indebt to Vukičević, Damir. 2001. Digraph Representation of a Model of Dynamic Semantics. Unpublished manuscript.

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Acknowledgments

The investigation presented in the paper is supported by the MZOŠ project “Logical structures and intentionality” (191-1911111-2730). Parts of the paper were presented at the 1st World Congress on Universal Logic 2005 (Montreux, Switzerland), the Analytic Philosophy and Logical Investigations 2006 conference (Rijeka, Croatia), and the Logical Foundations of Metaphysics 2007 course (Dubrovnik, Croatia). I wish to thank Srećko Kovač and Tomoyuki Yamada for discussion, and Mirjana Dedaić and Siniša Ninčević for language advice. All mistakes remain mine.

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  1. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Split, Split, Croatia

    Berislav Žarnić

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  1. Berislav Žarnić
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Correspondence to Berislav Žarnić .

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  1. , Faculty of Philosophy, University of Rijeka, Slavka Krautzeka bb, Rijeka, HR-51000, Croatia

    Majda Trobok

  2. , Department of Philosophy, University of Maribor, Koroška cesta 160, Maribor, 2000, Slovenia

    Nenad Miščević

  3. , Faculty of Philosophy, University of Split, Teslina 12, Split, 21000, Croatia

    Berislav Žarnić

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Žarnić, B. (2012). Is Unsaying Polite?. In: Trobok, M., Miščević, N., Žarnić, B. (eds) Between Logic and Reality. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 25. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2390-0_11

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