A Formal Characterization of Explicature and its Consequences to Explicating in Chinese

Jiang, Yan

Abstract

This paper studies the notion of explicature and the process of explicating in relevance-theoretic pragmatics against the background of the minimalism versus contextualism controversy. It attempts to give a formal definition of explicature, which has not yet been spelt out in the literature. It then applies the formal characterization to the study of a range of related cases in Chinese grammar. The findings are used to re-examine the minimalism/contextualism debate. We argue that explicature theory does not by nature favour either of the two sides.

Citation

Jiang, Y. (2012). A Formal Characterization of Explicature and its Consequences to Explicating in Chinese. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 8(2), 241-253. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v8i2.243

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2012
• Deposit Date: Dec 4, 2015
• Journal: Linguistics and the Human Sciences
• Print ISSN: 1742-2906
• Electronic ISSN: 1743-1662
• Publisher: Equinox Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 241-253
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v8i2.243
• Keywords: explicature, minimalism, contextualism