[Ads-l] Antedating of "Implicature"

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Tue Nov 22 01:48:42 UTC 2022


The correct citation is:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251842
R.M. Hare, "Some Alleged Differences Between Imperatives and Indicatives,"
_Mind_ New Series, Vol. 76, No. 303 (Jul., 1967), p. 309

And a slight correction to the quote -- it's "implicatures," not
"implicature." ("The first can, I think, be removed by a straightforward
application of Mr Grice's recent work on what he calls 'implicatures'...")

It's not clear if Hare was referring to Grice's William James lecture from
earlier in 1967, as a footnote to the article identifies it as a paper read
to a colloquium at Manchester in 1965.

On Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 1:45 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Hmmm. At first I thought this must be a consideration or review of the
> William James lectures he gave earlier in 1967 at Harvard (I believe spring
> semester), while 1968 was the date of Grice's first publication (in
> _Foundations of Language_) in which the term is used. But then I realized
> that the reference to "_Mind_ 76:12" must be to p. 12 of the 1967 volume
> (Vol. 76, or more technically LXXVI) of that journal, which would mean a
> paper published in January and hence submitted in 1966, thus antedating the
> William James lectures, which strikes me as odd. Then I checked p. 12 (and
> indeed the entire paper encompassing that page, an article about Plato's
> _Cratylus_ and its debate on the nature of language)--no mention of either
> Mr. Grice or implicature.  So a mystery.  If the volume is correctly cited
> (and the volume number and year do match up), the reference can't be to p.
> 12.  I checked other likely suspects in that issue, p. 112, p. 120, etc.,
> but didn't find the missing reference. So maybe a later issue in that
> volume (and hence a much higher page number)? That would make more sense,
> especially one coming in late spring of 1967 or after.
>
> On the other hand, I hereby guarantee there will never be an antedating of
> the OED's 1972 entry for "scalar implicature".
>
> LH
>
> On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 7:51 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > implicature (OED 1968)
> >
> > 1967 _Mind_ 76:12 (JSTOR)  Mr. Grice's recent work on what he calls
> > 'implicature.'
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
>

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