Implicature:

Implicature is a technical term in the pragmatics subfield of linguistics, coined by H. P. Grice, which refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied (that is, entailed) by the utterance.[1] For example, the sentence "Mary had a baby and got married" strongly suggests that Mary had the baby before the wedding, but the sentence would still be strictly true if Mary had her baby after she got married. Further, if we add the qualification " not necessarily in that order" to the original sentence, then the implicature is cancelled even though the meaning of the original sentence is not altered. "Implicature" is an alternative to "implication," which has additional meanings in logic and informal language.

Types of implicature
Conversational implicature
The basic assumption in conversation is that, unless otherwise indicated, the participabt are adhering to the cooperative principle and the maxims. In the following example, Dexter may appear to be violating the requirements of the quantity maxim. Charlene: I hope you brought the bread and the cheese. Dexter: Ah, I brought the bread. After hearing Dexters response in above example, Charlene has to assume that Dexter is cooperating and not totally unaware of the quantity maxim. But he didnt mention the Cheese. If he had brought the cheese, he would say so, because he would be adhering to the quantity maxim. He must intend that what is not mentioned was not brought. In this case, Dexter has conveyed more than he said via a conversational implicature. We can represent the structure of what was said, with b (=bread) and c (=cheese) as in . Using the symbol +> for an implicatures, we can also represent the additional conveyed meaning. Charlene: b & c? Dexter: b (+>NOT c)

It is important to note that it is speakers who communicate meaning via implicatures and it is listeners who recognize those communicated meaning via inference. The inferences selected are those which will preserve the assumption of coopration.

Paul Grice identified three types of general conversational implicature:

1. The speaker deliberately flouts a conversational maxim to convey an additional meaning not expressed literally. For instance, a speaker responds to the question "How did you like the guest speaker?" with the following utterance: Well, Im sure he was speaking English. If the speaker is assumed to be following the cooperative principle, in spite of flouting the Maxim of Quantity, then the utterance must have an additional nonliteral meaning, such as: "The content of the speakers speech was confusing." 2. The speakers desire to fulfill two conflicting maxims results in his or her flouting one maxim to invoke the other. For instance, a speaker responds to the question "Where is John?" with the following utterance: Hes either in the cafeteria or in his office. In this case, the Maxim of Quantity and the Maxim of Quality are in conflict. A cooperative speaker does not want to be ambiguous but also does not want to give false information by giving a specific answer in spite of his uncertainty. By flouting the Maxim of Quantity, the speaker invokes the Maxim of Quality, leading to the implicature that the speaker does not have the evidence to give a specific location where he believes John is. 3. The speaker invokes a maxim as a basis for interpreting the utterance. In the following exchange: Do you know where I can get some gas? Theres a gas station around the corner. The second speaker invokes the Maxim of Relevance, resulting in the implicature that the gas station is open and one can probably get gas there Scalar implicature According to Grice (1975), another form of conversational implicature is also known as a scalar implicature. This concerns the conventional uses of words like "all" or "some" in conversation. Scalar implicatures typically arise where the speaker qualifies or scales their statement with language that conveys to the listener an inference or implicature that indicates that the speaker had reasons not to use a stronger, more informative, term. For example, where a speaker uses the term "some" in the statement, "Some students can afford a new car.", the use of "some" gives rise to an inference or implicature that "Not all students can afford a new car." As with pragmatic inference generally, such inferences are defeasible or cancellable - the inferred meaning may not be true, even though the literal meaning is true. This distinguishes such inferences from entailment. They are also non-detachable. A conversational implicature is said to be non-detachable when, after the replacement of what is said with another expression

with the same literal meaning, the same conversational implicature remains. This distinguishes them from conventional implicatures. In a 2006 experiment with Greek-speaking five-year-olds' interpretation of aspectual expressions, the results revealed that children have limited success in deriving scalar implicatures from the use of aspectual verbs such as "start" (which implicates non-completion). However, the tested children succeed in deriving scalar implicatures with discrete degree modifiers such as "half" as in half finished. Their ability to spontaneously compute scalar implicatures was greater than their ability to judge the pragmatic appropriateness of scalar statements. In addition, the tested children were able to suspend scalar implicatures in environments where they were not supported. Griceans attempt to explain these implicatures in terms of the maxim of quantity, according to which one is to be just as informative as required. The idea is that if the speaker were in a position to make the stronger statement, they would have. Since they did not, the hearer must believe that the stronger statement is not true.

Examples of scalar implicature

Some examples of scalar implicature are:
1a. Bill has got some of Chomsky's papers. 1b. The speaker believes that Bill hasn't got all of Chomsky's papers. 2a. There will be five of us for dinner tonight. 2b. There won't be more than five of us for dinner tonight. 3a. She won't necessarily get the job. 3b. She will possibly get the job.

Uttering the sentence (a) in most cases will communicate the assumption in (b). This seems to be because the speaker did not use stronger terms such as 'there will be more than five people for dinner tonight' or 'she can't possibly get the job'. For example, if Bill really did have all of Chomsky's papers, the speaker would have said so. However, according to the maxim of quantity, a speaker will only be informative as is required, and will therefore not use any stronger terms unless required. The hearer, knowing this, will assume that the stronger term does not apply.

I ate some of the pie.

This sentence implies "I did not eat all of the pie." While the statement "I ate some pie" is still true if the entire pie was eaten, the conventional meaning of the word "some" and the implicature generated by the statement is "not all".

Particularized conversational implicatures:

In the preceding example, the implicatures have been calculated without special knowledge of any particular context. However, most of the time, out conversations take place in very specific contexts in which locally recognized inference are assumed. Such inferences are required to work out the conveyed meaning which result from particularize conversational implicature. As an illustration, consider example, where Toms response does not appear on the surface to adhere to relevance. ( A simply relevant answer would be yes or no) Rick: Hey, coming to the wild party tonight? Tom: My parents are visiting. In order to make Toms response relevant, rick has to draw on some assumed knowledge that one college student in this setting expects another to have. Tom will be spending that evening with his parents, and time spent with parents is quite (consequently +> Tom not at party). Because they are by far the most common, particularized conversational implicatures are typically just called implicatures. A further example, in which the speaker appears not to adhere to (i.e. to flout) the maxim of manner, is presented . Ann: Where are you going with the dog? Sam: To the V-E-T. In the local context of these speakers, the dog is known to recognize the word vet, and to hate being taken there, so Sam produces a more elaborate, spelled out (i.e. less brief) version of his message, implicating that he doesnt want the dog to know the answer to the question just asked. Leila: Whoa! Has your boss gone crazy? Mary: Lets go get some coffee. In order to preserve the assumption of cooperation, Leila will have to infer some local reason (for example, the boss may be nearby) why Mary makes an apparently non-relevant remark. The implicatures here is essentially that Mary cannot answer the question in that context. In addition to these fairly prosaic examples of implicatures, there are other more entertaining examples, as in Bert: Do you like ice-cream?

Ernie: Is the Pope Catholic? Bert: Do vegetarians eat hamburgers? Ernie: Do chickens have lips? In the above example, Ernie response does not provide a yes or no answer. Bert must assume that Ernie is being cooperative, so he considers Ernies Pope question and clearly the answer is yes. So, the answer is known, but the nature of Ernies response also implicates that the answer to the question was Obviously, yes!. An additional conveyed meaning in such a case is that, because the answer was so obvious, the question did not need to be asked. This example provides the same type of inferencing with an answer of

Conventional implicature
Conventional implicature is independent of the cooperative principle and its maxims. A statement always carries its conventional implicature. Joe is poor but happy. This sentence implies poverty and happiness are not compatible but in spite of this Joe is still happy. The conventional interpretation of the word "but" will always create the implicature of a sense of contrast. So Joe is poor but happy will always necessarily imply "Surprisingly Joe is happy in spite of being poor".