stumped? Or just can't be bothered?!

[Steven Schaufele]

On Mon, 24 Jun 1996, Arnold D J wrote:

> To be clear, when I said "What a short book!" did not express a
> proposition, I meant that it did not have the semantics one associates
> with sentences. I did not mean that it does not express/convey any
> information -- it is clearly used to convey information about the
> speakers attitude (as you say, amazement) and so on. But I don't think
> it expresses a PROPOSITION.

Yes it does, and speaker's attitude is not the only thing it conveys 
information about.  The exclamation `What a short book!' conveys, first 
of all, the information that the book is short -- it is quite likely to 
be uttered in a social context in which not all hearers, intended or 
otherwise, are aware of the brevity of the book.  And the proposition 
that the book is short is precisely the sort of semantics one associates 
with sentences.

> Similarly, I don't think exclamation "ARGHHHHH!"  (e.g. when I drop
> something on my foot) expresses a proposition (of course, it conveys
> the information that "that hurt", but this is something
> different). Similary, if I call out "Sam!", I may convey the
> information that I want to talk to Sam, but this does not mean that
> the semantics of "Sam" is the proposition "I want to talk to Sam".

I'll agree with you about `ARGHHHH!'.  But there's a grammatical 
difference between the NP `Sam', without discourse context, and the 
exclamation `Sam!' -- at least, in certain languages.  Some languages 
explicitly mark the latter as `vocative case', or whatever, and the 
semantics of the vocative case is precisely `I want to talk/am talking to X'.

Best,
Steven
---------------------
Dr. Steven Schaufele
712 West Washington
Urbana, IL  61801
217-344-8240
fcosws at prairienet.org

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