Abstract

The concept of implicature has its origin in the work of the late English philosopher H. P. Grice, though some proto-Gricean ideas can be traced back to classical times. Since its inception, the notion of conversational implicature has become one of the single most important pragmatic ideas in linguistics and the philosophy of language. It has spurred numerous new concepts such as explicature, the ‘pragmatically enriched said’, and impliciture in various neo- and post-Gricean enterprises. This chapter provides a critical overview of the current state of play in implicature and its related concepts in linguistics and the philosophy of language.