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Implicature: Comparison
Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Dean Liu and Version 1 by Dean Liu.

In pragmatics, an implicature is a meaning that hearer or reader infers from an utterance in its communicative context, although that meaning is not explicitly stated and is not part of the expression’s conventional semantic content [1][2]. The inference arises from the assumption that the speaker’s contribution is interpretable in relation to the purposes of the exchange, contextual information, and expectations governing communication [1]. Conversational implicatures are derived pragmatically from these circumstances and are generally defeasible: they may be cancelled without logical contradiction when a speaker explicitly rejects the inferred meaning [1][3]. By contrast, conventional implicatures are associated with particular linguistic expressions and contribute additional meaning independently of the truth conditions of the proposition expressed [1][4]. Implicature is distinct from entailment, because an entailed proposition must be true if the utterance is true, whereas an implicature need not be; it is also distinct from presupposition, which concerns information treated as already accepted or taken for granted in discourse [2][3].

  • pragmatics
  • conversational implicature
  • inference
  • contextual meaning

Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies • Language and Linguistics • Arts and Humanities • Social Sciences

Philosophical and Theoretical Analysis • Philosophy • Arts and Humanities • Social Sciences

References

  1. Grice, H. P. Studies in the Way of Words; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1989.
  2. Implicature. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2026-9-16
  3. Jef Verschueren. Continental European Perspective View; Oxford University Press (OUP): Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, 2014; pp. 120-131. [CrossRef]
  4. Christopher Potts. The Logic of Conventional Implicatures; Oxford University Press (OUP): Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, 2004. [CrossRef]
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