Quotation and the Use-Mention Distinction

Saka, Paul

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-01011-3_16

Cited by 8 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Direct quotations are treated as verbatim reproductions of the original utterance, and indirect quotations as reproductions of its content. (For discussion, see Cappelen & Lepore 1997a, 1997bDavidson 1968Davidson , 1979Noh 1998a;Saka 1998). This assumption is too strong.…”

Section: Resemblance In Linguistic Metarepresentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(5) illustrates the four main types of quotation discussed in the literature: direct quotation, as in (5a), indirect quotation, as in (5b), mixed direct and indirect quotation, in (5c), and free indirect quotation, in (5d). Here, both the higher-order representation and the lower-order representations are utterances, and both are components of the speaker's meaning: they are part of what Peter intends to communicate by uttering (5a-d) (Cappelen & Lepore 1997;Coulmas 1986;Davidson 1968Davidson , 1979McHale 1978;Noh 1998a;Partee 1973;Saka 1998). So far, all the lower-order metarepresentations I have looked at have been attributed utterances or thoughts.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Metarepresentation in linguistic communication

Wilson

2012

Meaning and Relevance

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This paper is designed to illustrate and consider the relations between three types of metarepresentational ability used in verbal comprehension: the ability to metarepresent attributed thoughts, the ability to metarepresent attributed utterances, and the ability to metarepresent abstract, non-attributed representations (e.g. sentence types, utterance types, propositions). Aspects of these abilities have been separately considered in the literatures on "theory of mind", Gricean pragmatics and quotation. The aim of this paper is to show how the results of these separate strands of research might be integrated with an empirically plausible pragmatic theory. IntroductionSeveral strands of research on metarepresentation have a bearing on the study of linguistic communication. On the whole, there has been little interaction among them, and the possibility of integrating them with an empirically plausible pragmatic theory has not been much explored. This paper has two main aims: to illustrate the depth and variety of metarepresentational abilities deployed in linguistic communication, and to argue that a pragmatic account of these abilities can both benefit from and provide useful evidence for the study of more general metarepresentational abilities.A metarepresentation is a representation of a representation: a higher-order representation with a lower-order representation embedded within it. The different strands of research on metarepresentation that have a bearing on the study of linguistic communication vary in the type of metarepresentations involved and the use to which they are put. First, there is the philosophical and psychological literature on mindreading (or "theory of mind"), which deals with the ability to form thoughts about attributed thoughts

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Section: Resemblance In Linguistic Metarepresentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Metarepresentation in linguistic communication

Wilson

2012

Meaning and Relevance

161

162

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“…Saka, 1998 only direct speech is a demonstration), while indirect speech allows for symbolic interpretation. 21 Many authors make a sharp distinction between reported speech constructions introducing specific reported speakers/cognisers and 'hearsay' constructions of the type 'they (non-specific) say'/'it is said', labelling one, e.g., 'quotative' and the other 'reportative', although such labels are by no means used consistently.…”

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confidence: 99%

Defenestration: deconstructing the frame-in relation in Ungarinyin

Spronck

2017

Journal of Pragmatics

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The Australian Aboriginal language Ungarinyin (Worrorran) has one single complex-clause construction for expressing reported speech ('say'), that can also signal reported thought ('think') and attribute intentions ('want'). By demonstrating which formal and functional distinctions are essential to the interpretation of this Ungarinyin construction, the present paper aims to contribute to understanding the exact nature of the syntactic relation involved in reported speech constructions. Following the account of McGregor (1994; 1997;, I analyse the clausal syntax of reported speech constructions as a dedicated syntactic relation, separate from more familiar clausal relations such as coordination and subordination. I call this relation the 'frame-in' construction.Subsequently, I compare the conventionalised reported speech construction in Ungarinyin to a variety of more loosely integrated non-conventionalised or semi-conventionalised strategies for expressing speech and thought attribution in the language. Collectively I refer to these strategies as examples of 'defenestration', constructions without the typical marking of the syntactic frame-in relation, while expressing the meaning associated with a regular frame-in construction. Instances of defenestration differ from syntactic frame-in in that they express the meaning of a frame-in construction through transparent compositional means.I argue that types of defenestration show remarkable regularities in Ungarinyin, and, tentatively, crosslinguistically, which has consequences for the analysis of indexicality and iconicity in syntax and presents a new context for analysing the syntax of reported speech constructions in relation to multimodal features, particulary for the category of free (in)direct speech and 'zero quotatives'.

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“…It is compositional because of the particular way sentential meaning is conceived. The account differs fundamentally from current approaches to quotation where the utterance of the quotation, the token, matters for what the quotation contributes to the meaning of the sentence, both in the tradition of Davidson (1968, 1979), Cappelen/Lepore 2007 and within the more recent identity theory of quotation (Washington 1992, Saka 1998. On the present theory, the semantic contribution of quotation is based on structure, and the quotational structure is interpreted as a property of tokens.…”

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confidence: 71%

“…The standard view is that pure quotations are expression-referring terms, managing, in some way, to refer to the relevant expression type, by acting as a description (Geach 1970), as a name (Reichenbach 1947), or involving a demonstrative (quotation marks) pointing to a displayed token (Davidson 1967, 1979, Cappelen/Lepore 2007, Clark/Gerrig 1990, de Vries 2008, or else by 'presenting' it (Washington 1992, Saka 1998. 18 Direct quotations on the standard view require a different treatment since they contribute both a content (a proposition) and a form and thus cannot just act as expression-referring terms.…”

Section: Quotation In Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Levels of Linguistic Acts and the Semantics of Saying and Quoting

Moltmann¹

Interpreting J.L. Austin

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IntroductionIn How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1962) introduced not only the notion of an illocutionary act, such as an act of asserting, requesting, promising, or asking a question, but also the notion of a locutionary act, which consists in various acts 'below' the level of an illocutionary act. A locutionary act includes what Austin calls a 'rhetic act', an act characterized, roughly, as the act of uttering the words in the sentence with a specific meaning and reference. A locutionary act also includes a 'phatic act', an act of uttering words, and a phonetic act, an act of producing sounds. This paper will outline a novel semantics of verbs of saying and of quotation based on Austin's distinction among levels of linguistic acts. Austin's notion of a rhetic act is not a very clear one and tends to be considered problematic and insufficiently motivated. This paper will propose a particular way of understanding the notion of a rhetic act and argue that it is extremely well-reflected in the semantics of natural language, in particular in the semantics of verbs of saying and certain sorts of plural NPs in English (and German). The paper will furthermore outline a novel semantics of quotation making crucial use of Austin's distinction among lower-level linguistic acts, a semantics that promises a unified and compositional semantics of quotation. Two ideas guide that semantics. First, quotations convey properties related to lower-level linguistic acts, Austin's phonetic or phatic acts; second, such meanings of quotations are strictly based on syntactic structure, namely a lowerlevel linguistic structure as part of the syntactic structure of the sentence that is input to interpretation. Such lower-level linguistic structures may be phonetic, phonological or morpho-syntactic structures. They will be interpreted, roughly, as properties of utterance An attitude report such as (1a) on that view has the logical form in (1b), where claim takes as its implicit Davidsonian event argument an act of claiming and product is a function mapping that act onto its product, John's claim:(1) a. John claims that Mary is happy. b. e(claim(e, John) & [that Mary is happy](product(e)))The semantic value of the that-clause, [that Mary is happy], is a property of attitudinal objects, specifying their satisfaction conditions. Crucially, speech act reports such as (2a) with a quotational complement will have the very same logical form, as in (2b): (2) a. John says 'Mary is happy'. However, the event argument of say is just a locutionary, not an illocutionary act, and the semantic value of the quotational complement, ['Mary is happy'], is a property of locutionary products, specifying, roughly, their form and semantic composition.The form-related property that the direct quote in (2a) conveys is based strictly on linguistic structure, understood roughly in terms of Generative Syntax. The idea is that quotation involves a lower-level linguistic structure (a phonetic, phonological, or morpho-syntactic structure) as part of the syntactic s...

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Quotation and the Use-Mention Distinction

Cited by 8 publications

References 22 publications

Metarepresentation in linguistic communication

Metarepresentation in linguistic communication

Defenestration: deconstructing the frame-in relation in Ungarinyin

Levels of Linguistic Acts and the Semantics of Saying and Quoting

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