Lauren: The thing that all of the examples in this episode have in common is that the implicature comes up because we can put these things on a scale, but that’s not the only way that implicature works.
Gretchen: You can also imply things that don’t really seem to be scalar. There was an example of a tweet that went up a little while ago where somebody posted a photo of a house that was for sale. There was a big sign on top of the “For Sale” sign that said, “Not Haunted.”
Lauren: Okay, so, I have a lot of questions that I possibly wouldn’t have had if there was just a normal “For Sale” sign.
Gretchen: Right, exactly. The “Not Haunted” sign is doing this implicature of “Wait, but I am supposed to expect this house might be haunted?” But it’s not doing so on a particular scale. Like, it’s haunted or not haunted, which is not really a scale. It’s just a “Wait. Suddenly this information is relevant?”
Lauren: This feels like an example of that meme of “My ‘House Not Haunted’ sign has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my ‘House Not Haunted’ sign.”
Excerpt from Lingthusiasm episode 'Cool things about scales and implicature'
Listen to the episode, read the full transcript, or check out more links about semantics and pragmatics
The philosophy of pragmatics is a branch of philosophy that focuses on the study of language use in context, particularly the ways in which speakers use language to communicate effectively and achieve their communicative goals. Pragmatics is concerned with how meaning is inferred from context, how speakers convey and interpret meaning beyond the literal content of their words, and how language is used to perform actions and achieve social purposes.
Key aspects of the philosophy of pragmatics include:
Speech Acts: Pragmatics examines the performative aspect of language, studying how utterances are used to perform actions and bring about changes in the world. Speech act theory, developed by philosophers such as J.L. Austin and John Searle, investigates the illocutionary force of utterances (what speakers do in uttering sentences) and the perlocutionary effects of utterances (the effects they have on hearers).
Implicature and Inference: Pragmatics explores implicature, which refers to the meaning that is conveyed indirectly or implied by an utterance beyond its literal meaning. Philosophers analyze how hearers infer implicatures based on conversational context, background knowledge, and pragmatic principles. Gricean maxims, formulated by philosopher H.P. Grice, outline principles of conversation that guide speakers and hearers in cooperative communication.
Presupposition: Pragmatics investigates presupposition, which refers to the assumptions that speakers make about what their interlocutors already know or accept as true. Philosophers examine how presuppositions are conveyed linguistically and how they affect the interpretation of utterances.
Context and Contextual Meaning: Pragmatics considers the role of context in shaping meaning and interpretation. Philosophers analyze how linguistic meaning is enriched or modified by contextual factors such as situational context, linguistic context, and social context.
Reference and Anaphora: Pragmatics explores issues related to reference and anaphora, studying how speakers refer to entities in the world and how they establish coherence and cohesion in discourse through pronouns, demonstratives, and other referring expressions.
Politeness and Face: Pragmatics examines politeness and face-saving strategies in communication, investigating how speakers manage interpersonal relationships and social status through language use.
Overall, the philosophy of pragmatics offers insights into the dynamic and interactive nature of language use, shedding light on how speakers navigate the complexities of communication to convey meaning effectively and achieve their communicative goals.
Often, I feel the desire to write something, but it feels too "obvious". And then I wait a while and see that if I had taken the time to write it out I could have pointed people to my writing when it was useful, and probably would have developed the idea better just by having written it. So I'll start an intermittent series where I describe something that may or may not be obvious, and I'm sure will occasionally be blatantly wrong.
Let's start with a real softball: the choice between whether something is a "rule" or "exception" in any kind of system is purely aesthetic.
If I say "there are no even primes except 2" that's fine. If I say, "anything is a prime that has at least two unique divisors, one and itself, therefore 2 is a prime, but no other even numbers are" that's also fine. These are the same, in terms of the precise system they describe, but of course they encourage different kinds of thinking. The first one gives a general rule people can use to easily test if something isn't a prime in half of all integers, while the second gives implies the causal reason why 2 is prime and other even numbers aren't.
Aesthetics aren't meaningless. If a teacher says, "everyone who got at least an A-" can go to lunch now" that has a very different impact than if they say "everyone can go to lunch now, except Johnny" (implicitly, because he's the only one who apparently couldn't ace this easy test). Obviously the second one signals that an authority is singling Johnny out, by name.
I think that a lot of people confuse the idea that the fact that aesthetics have an impact means they describe something differently. It's all silly definitions and I'm not tied to these exact words, but the point is that I can select the same formally recognizable options while connoting my way to all kinds of different ends, but these two processes operate at different planes of the human sphere, planes that don't always interact. I can't connote my way to new citizenship, I have to submit paperwork even if the country is happy to have me. I could possibly connote my way into a new relationship, but it depends on the other person's recognition and use of that implicit language, much as Rao describes "Powertalk".
The difference between a rule and an exception largely lie in this "connotative plane" and it is a plane we have yet to map out very well. That's because unlike the formal plane, it's much more dynamic, so rather than a map, we need a videogame tutorial. Remember kids: games are the new maps.
More discussion of the linguistics of Bucky’s assertion in Captain America:The First Avenger
Last night @dsudis and I got into a lively debate about the interpretation of Bucky’s line in TFA: “Hell, no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I’m following him.”
@dsudis claimed this sentence was illogical, while I argued that it made perfect sense. While I still believe that Bucky’s line is unproblematic, I want to concede one point to her - the sentence actually allows for two diametrically opposed interpretations, and she was seeing one while I was seeing only the other.
This meant that we were largely talking past each other.
This is like an optical illusion. If you look at the picture below and see a young woman, it can be hard to adjust your perception to realize it could also be an old lady:
Likewise with @dsudis and myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was so fascinated by this discussion that I went and consulted two other linguists I know to get their opinions on it.
There are several questions at issue:
In what contexts is it OK to say “he is too dumb not to do the thing”?
What does that even mean? That he does do the thing or that he doesn’t?
Does it make any difference if it’s “to not” or “not to”?
How often do people actually say such things, and what interpretations do they usually have when they do?
This gets pretty long, so the rest of it is behind the read more.
First I consulted @ToddTheLinguist (twitter) who’s a semanticist. He initially agreed with me on the interpretation of Bucky's utterance (that it made sense as the movie intended it - Steve doesn’t run away from fights even though he should), but then we later determined that "too dumb to" could actually be interpreted in more than one way.
I came up with some preliminary examples, but he ran with it and came up with better ones. Here's a lightly edited version of Todd's response to me (I removed the technical jargon and tried to make it more accessible to a lay audience :)
Here are two scenarios which can both lead to someone saying "He's too dumb to pick mayonnaise":
(1) [We're watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Steve has picked ketchup, the obviously wrong answer, instead of the correct answer, mayonnaise.]
A: Ugh, what is wrong with him? Why didn't he pick mayonnaise?
B: Of course he didn't pick mayonnaise! He's too dumb to pick mayonnaise.
Here we're taking for granted that Steve didn't pick mayo (because he's too dumb to have done so.)
(2) [We're watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Steve has picked mayonnaise, the correct but very challenging answer.]
A: How did he get that? He's too dumb to pick mayonnaise.
Here we're taking for granted that he did pick mayo, even though he should have been too dumb to do so.
In both scenarios, we can say, "He's too dumb to pick mayonnaise," even though it means something different in each case.
Note, however, that neither (1) nor (2) have negation. So let's change the situation a bit to include "not."
Here are two scenarios which can both lead to someone saying "He's too dumb not to pick mustard."
(3) [We're watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Steve has picked mustard, the misleading wrong answer.]
A: Ugh, of course he picked mustard. He's too dumb to not pick mustard.
A’: Ugh, of course he picked mustard. He's too dumb not to pick mustard.
(For Todd and me, both answers mean the same thing, regardless of the ordering of to and not.)
Here, in case (3) we presume that Steve didn't not pick mustard (i.e. he did pick mustard, because he's too dumb to do otherwise),
In contrast, compare
(4) [We're watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and Steve has picked mayonnaise, the correct answer, avoiding mustard, the misleading wrong answer.]
A: How did he avoid the trap of mustard? He's too dumb not to pick mustard!
A’: How did he avoid the trap of mustard? He's too dumb to not pick mustard!
(Again, for Todd and me, both answers mean the same thing, regardless of the ordering of to and not.)
In case (4), we presume that he did not pick mustard (even though he should have been too dumb to avoid doing so).
So it seems that this sort of construction is felicitous with background assumptions either of the truth of the proposition or the falsity of the proposition, regardless of the presence or placement of negation. Not much of an analysis, just yet, but at least it's a comprehensive description!
Next I consulted @nike-ravus, another colleague of mine (and also a fanfic writer!). She had the brilliant idea of consulting Google ngrams to see how common this expression actually is.
Here’s a lightly edited summary of her side of our conversation:
Linguist fights are fights I like! I think actually I have some good evidence against your interlocutor.
Google n-grams only has "too dumb not to" while "too dumb to not" is not found.
Data is always a good thing to keep it real, so here is a parallel example from a work in print:
"Soon would come dusk-calls of birds too dumb not to leave a war zone. Or too weary of searching for places in Nam without war. He and the other four were missing chow now. But Honda or Philly would have got food from home, and besides ..."
Prism International 1991 - Volume 30 - Page 73
It’s clear from context that the intended meaning is that the birds should leave the war zone, but they are not doing so because they are too dumb.
This is just like: Steve should be running from a fight, but he's too dumb to do that, so he fights.
Here's another example:
"Our parents wouldn't let us get married in high school, and we were too young and too dumb not to know that that was excellent advice"
Kansas Quarterly 1987 - Volume 19 - Page 12
(me again)
So clearly people are using “too dumb not to” in print the same way that Bucky is using it in the movie, and with the same sort of intended interpretation. This seems to be pretty standard usage, and “too dumb to not” is much less common.
I also want to give a shout out to @laylainalaska who gave a nice example supporting my assertion that language isn’t always logical:
I wonder if the problem, or part of the problem, is that the sentence is being mentally parsed in the same way as we parse a double negative? No matter how “grammatically incorrect” double negatives in English supposedly are, no matter how many times we logically try to convince our brains that a double negative “should” be a positive, double negatives in English tend to parse not as a reversal of the negative, but as a negative intensifier. Like you said, language is not logical. “No, no” doesn’t mean “Yes”; it means “even more no.” We all understand what someone means when they say “I don’t want nothing,” and trying to logically convince our brains that it actually means “I want something” DOESN’T WORK. The grammar part of the brain is like “nope, that means what it means.”
In conclusion, different people can reasonably interpret Bucky’s utterance in more than one way. One of these ways is the way @dsudis was interpreting it, and that way makes it seem illogical in context. However, it is equally feasible to interpret Bucky’s statement in the opposite way, and this is what the movie obviously intends. Context drives interpretation!
It also happens to be the case that this sort of construction is also seen in print, and the examples we’ve found all have the sort of meaning that my interpretation of Bucky’s line does. So I’m not an outlier here :)
Lingthusiasm Episode 62: Cool things about scales and implicature
We can plot the words we use to describe temperature on a scale: cold, cool, warm, hot. It’s not as precise as a temperature scale like Celsius or Fahrenheit, but we all generally agree on where these words sit in relation to each other. We can also do the same with other sets of words that don’t necessarily have an equivalent scientific scale, such as the relationship between “some", "a few" and “many“ or even words like "suppose”, “believe” and “know”.
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about the things that get implied when we use words that involve scales, aka scalar implicature. Why can we revise our description of a warm coffee by saying “actually, it’s hot” but not “actually, it’s cold”? What happens when your language breaks up the scale differently to another language (spoiler: everyone can still agree that a warm spring day is different to a scorching hot one in the height of summer). And how can implied scales be used for humorous purposes, as in the Whale Fact™ that many whales were never taught how to drive manual stick shift?
Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here
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In this month’s bonus episode we’re getting enthusiastic about linguistic illusions! We talk about the where the Yanny/Laurel illusion that became popular on social media a while back came from, the McGurk Effect, using the Stroop Test to find spies, hallucinating words from musical instruments, the Comparative Illusion (aka "More people have been to Russia than I have"), and making our own speech to song illusion to infect you with (sorry) (no but seriously).
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Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
Wikipedia entry for Scalar Implicature
Lingthusiasm Episode 11: Layers of meaning - Cooperation, humour, and Gricean Maxims
Lingthusiasm Episode 19: Sentences with baggage - Presuppositions
Etymology of ‘lukewarm’
Elizabeth Pankratz’s Twitter thread on scalar inference of emojis
Intentionally Confusing’s Tumblr post on scale and implied information
Slate article on why ‘at least 10 ducks’ is funny
All Things Linguistic post on Cabin Pressure
Balancing the (Horn) Scale: Explaining the Production-Comprehension Asymmetry for Scalar Implicatures
The trouble with quantifiers: Exploring children’s deficits in scalar implicature
Wikipedia entry for Implicature
House for Sale - Not Haunted
Know Your Meme - a lot of questions already answered by the shirt
At Least 5 Squids
Many whales were never taught how to drive stick shift
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Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
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