Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics - Developers

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only and even (Only Philip is going to London, with the conventional implicature being:
‘No one else is going to London’), and certain types of aspect such as a resultative (The
rosebush has wilted, with the conventional implicature: ‘The rosebush was previously
thriving’). Conventional implicatures cannot be canceled, i.e. the speaker cannot debate
their validity without contradicting or correcting him-/herself, but they can be detached,
i.e. there is always a paraphrase that says the same thing without triggering the
implicature.
Where an implicature rests not only on the conventional meaning of the uttered
expression but also on the supposition that the speaker is following or is intentionally
breaking certain maxims of conversation then that implicature is called a
‘conversational implicature.’ If it appears in all normal contexts, it is called a
‘generalized conversational implicature’; and if it only appears in certain utterance
contexts, it is called a ‘particularized conversational implicature.’ In contrast with
conventional implicatures, conversational implicatures can be canceled, but cannot be
detached. An indefinite article can trigger conversational implicature: in Philip is meeting
a woman this evening, the generalized conversational implicature is that the woman is not
Philip’s wife. The reasoning is that speakers ordinarily, and in a co-operative spirit,
observe such maxims of conversation as the quantity maxim, which enjoins speakers to
supply a contextually appropriate amount of information; the addressee assumes the
speaker would not misleadingly refer to Philip’s wife as a’woman’ if reference to his wife
were indeed intended; the addressee therefore ‘conversationally implies’ that the speaker
intends the reference to be someone other than Philip’s wife. Particularized
conversational implicatures are not triggered by certain elements in vacuo, but rather by
interaction of utterances and contexts: for example, Mr Smith has an excellent command
of his native tongue and attended my seminars regularly (in the context of a letter of
recommendation for a college graduate who has applied for a position), may have the
(cancelable) particularized conversational implicature that Mr Smith has no other
qualities that make him particularly suited for the position sought.
References
Grandy, R. 1990. On the foundations of conversational implicature, PBLS 16: General session and
parasession on the legacy of Grice. Berkeley, CA. 405–10.
Grice, H.P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P.Cole and J.L.Morgan (eds), Syntax and semantics,
vol. 3: Speech acts. New York. 41–58. (Orig. 1968.)
Karttunen, L. and S.Peters. 1979. Conventional implicatures. In C.Oh and D.Dinneen (eds), Syntax
and semantics. vol.11: Presuppositions. New York. 1–56.
Kemmerling, A. 1991. Implikatur. In A.von Stechow and D.Wunderlich (eds), Semantik: ein
internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung (Semantics: an international
handbook of contemporary research). Berlin. 319–33.
conversation analysis, maxim of conversation