Analysis 75 (1):9-16 (2015)
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Abstract |
Frege’s distinction between force and sense is a central pillar of modern thinking about meaning. This is the idea that a self-standing utterance of a sentence S can be divided into two components. One is the proposition P that S’s linguistic meaning and context associates with it. The other is S’s illocutionary force. The force/sense distinction is associated with another thesis, the embedding principle, that implies that the only content that embeds in compound sentences is propositional content. We argue that both the Force/Sense distinction and the principle of embedding are seriously challenged by figurative language, and irony in particular. We conclude that theorists need to go back to the drawing board about the nature of illocutionary acts
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Keywords | irony figurative language force/sense distinction proposition speech act semantics embedding pretence |
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DOI | 10.1093/analys/anu104 |
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References found in this work BETA
Sarcasm, Pretense, and The Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction.Elisabeth Camp - 2012 - Noûs 46 (4):587 - 634.
Pretence and Echo: Towards an Integrated Account of Verbal Irony.Mihaela Popa-Wyatt - 2014 - International Review of Pragmatics 6 (1):127–168.
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Citations of this work BETA
Embedding Irony and the Semantics/Pragmatics Distinction.Mihaela Popa-Wyatt - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (6):674-699.
Figurative Speech: Pointing a Poisoned Arrow at the Heart of Semantics.Stephen Barker - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (1):123-140.
Compound Figures: Priority and Speech-Act Structure.Mihaela Popa-Wyatt - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (1):141-161.
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2014-11-12
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771 ( #9,175 of 2,498,786 )
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24 ( #36,217 of 2,498,786 )
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