Page 26 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
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Slovenian Lectures
in an utterance like “There are seats in this room”. (Suppose we are speak-
ing about a room where a meeting is to be held.) Then, the person who was
making the objection, asked me: “Try to describe the utterance ‘There are
seats in this room’ in a way which is not informative or truth-conditional”.
My position was very difficult because that type of utterance does seem to
favour the conceptions of speech-act philosophy: nevertheless, I think I can
answer such objections. To do that, I suggest we carry out an experiment.
Take the two utterances “There are seats in the room” and on the oth-
er hand “They’re uncomfortable”. Suppose now that to connect those two
utterances “There are seats in the room” and “They’re uncomfortable” we
have to choose between two types of expressions: and moreover, and fur-
thermore, and besides or, second possibility, but. Let me ask you which of
those words you would put to connect “There are seats...” and “They’re un-
comfortable”? I think it is almost necessary here, except if one imagines
a very complicated context, to put a but in. Let us go on with this experi-
ment. Let us now take as a second utterance “They’re comfortable”, the first
utterance remaining the same. I think that the most likely connection is of
the and moreover type: “There are seats... and moreover they’re comforta-
ble”. Those facts, of course, do not allow me to say that there is no proposi-
tional or truth-conditional content in “There are seats”. I have not proved
that, and I must say that I would be hard put to prove it. But what my ex-
ample does prove is that in the utterance “There are seats” there is some-
thing else than an informative, descriptive or truth-conditional content.
And that, at this stage, is not so bad.
To prove that point, let me remind you of a general hypothesis that I
make on the connective but and equivalent connectives in other languag-
es (I believe all languages have some equivalent of but). My hypothesis is
that but always, I stress always, connects two utterances that have the op-
posite orientations. Let us call R the orientation of what precedes but and
non-R the orientation of what follows but. (Of course, I have not justified
that description of but. However, I do ask you to accept it for the time be-
ing – how shall I say this – to understand my argument.) But connects two
counter-oriented utterances. If one accepts that hypothesis, one must say
that “There are seats” and “They’re uncomfortable” are two counter-ori-
ented utterances. In “There are seats”, there is a move towards the possibili-
ty of sitting down and in “They’re uncomfortable”, there is a move towards
the impossibility of sitting down. I consider besides that and moreover al-
ways connects co-oriented utterances. There again, I reach the same conclu-
in an utterance like “There are seats in this room”. (Suppose we are speak-
ing about a room where a meeting is to be held.) Then, the person who was
making the objection, asked me: “Try to describe the utterance ‘There are
seats in this room’ in a way which is not informative or truth-conditional”.
My position was very difficult because that type of utterance does seem to
favour the conceptions of speech-act philosophy: nevertheless, I think I can
answer such objections. To do that, I suggest we carry out an experiment.
Take the two utterances “There are seats in the room” and on the oth-
er hand “They’re uncomfortable”. Suppose now that to connect those two
utterances “There are seats in the room” and “They’re uncomfortable” we
have to choose between two types of expressions: and moreover, and fur-
thermore, and besides or, second possibility, but. Let me ask you which of
those words you would put to connect “There are seats...” and “They’re un-
comfortable”? I think it is almost necessary here, except if one imagines
a very complicated context, to put a but in. Let us go on with this experi-
ment. Let us now take as a second utterance “They’re comfortable”, the first
utterance remaining the same. I think that the most likely connection is of
the and moreover type: “There are seats... and moreover they’re comforta-
ble”. Those facts, of course, do not allow me to say that there is no proposi-
tional or truth-conditional content in “There are seats”. I have not proved
that, and I must say that I would be hard put to prove it. But what my ex-
ample does prove is that in the utterance “There are seats” there is some-
thing else than an informative, descriptive or truth-conditional content.
And that, at this stage, is not so bad.
To prove that point, let me remind you of a general hypothesis that I
make on the connective but and equivalent connectives in other languag-
es (I believe all languages have some equivalent of but). My hypothesis is
that but always, I stress always, connects two utterances that have the op-
posite orientations. Let us call R the orientation of what precedes but and
non-R the orientation of what follows but. (Of course, I have not justified
that description of but. However, I do ask you to accept it for the time be-
ing – how shall I say this – to understand my argument.) But connects two
counter-oriented utterances. If one accepts that hypothesis, one must say
that “There are seats” and “They’re uncomfortable” are two counter-ori-
ented utterances. In “There are seats”, there is a move towards the possibili-
ty of sitting down and in “They’re uncomfortable”, there is a move towards
the impossibility of sitting down. I consider besides that and moreover al-
ways connects co-oriented utterances. There again, I reach the same conclu-
