Page 57 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 57
Lecture III
is quite obvious that one is not going to use it, in a piece of reasoning, to
prove that Peter did come. My notion of argumentativity is linguistic: it
does not correspond to logical inference.
***
In the first part of this lecture, I tried to explain to you what I meant
by the argumentative function of a discourse-segment, that is to say, by the
argumentative orientation of a point of view. Now, I must try to prove my
thesis, according to which the argumentative function of a discourse-seg-
ment is at least partly determined (I would like to be able to say totally but
I am not confident enough to say that) by its linguistic structure, that is to
say, by the sentence which that segment is an occurrence of, and that irre-
spective of the information which that segment provides. To show this, I
am going to give examples, which will all be of just about the same nature: I
am going to be comparing two sentences which provide the same informa-
tion, or more precisely, the utterances of which provide the same informa-
tion but which nevertheless have wholly different argumentative functions.
So, I am going to indicate a certain number of pairs of sentences, in which
there is no change as to the informative value but a very important change
as to the argumentative value.
To begin, I am going to compare “It’s eight” and “It’s only eight”. Let us
suppose that someone starts a stretch of discourse saying “It’s eight”. One
can very well imagine his going on with a conclusion of the following type:
“It’s early, don’t hurry, take your time”. But one can also imagine that after
having said “It’s eight”, the same locutor should go on with: “It’s late, hurry,
there’s not a minute to waste”. So, two types of follow-ups are possible af-
ter “It’s eight”. But notice now what happens after “It’s only eight”. I think it
is impossible to follow up with: “It’s late, hurry”. The string “It’s only eight,
it’s late, hurry!” makes no sense. What would be possible on the other hand
would be “It’s only eight BUT it’s nevertheless late, you must hurry”. What
there would be no difficulty in understanding is “It’s only eight, so it’s ear-
ly. Don’t hurry!” whereas it would be absurd to replace so by but. The argu-
mentative function of the utterance of those two sentences is thus extreme-
ly different: “It’s eight” can be oriented either towards earliness or towards
lateness; “It’s only eight” can be oriented only towards earliness and not at
all towards lateness.
Now, I think you will admit without difficulty that the information
provided by those two utterances is exactly the same. I am giving exactly
the same piece of information when I say “It’s eight” as when I say “It’s only
is quite obvious that one is not going to use it, in a piece of reasoning, to
prove that Peter did come. My notion of argumentativity is linguistic: it
does not correspond to logical inference.
***
In the first part of this lecture, I tried to explain to you what I meant
by the argumentative function of a discourse-segment, that is to say, by the
argumentative orientation of a point of view. Now, I must try to prove my
thesis, according to which the argumentative function of a discourse-seg-
ment is at least partly determined (I would like to be able to say totally but
I am not confident enough to say that) by its linguistic structure, that is to
say, by the sentence which that segment is an occurrence of, and that irre-
spective of the information which that segment provides. To show this, I
am going to give examples, which will all be of just about the same nature: I
am going to be comparing two sentences which provide the same informa-
tion, or more precisely, the utterances of which provide the same informa-
tion but which nevertheless have wholly different argumentative functions.
So, I am going to indicate a certain number of pairs of sentences, in which
there is no change as to the informative value but a very important change
as to the argumentative value.
To begin, I am going to compare “It’s eight” and “It’s only eight”. Let us
suppose that someone starts a stretch of discourse saying “It’s eight”. One
can very well imagine his going on with a conclusion of the following type:
“It’s early, don’t hurry, take your time”. But one can also imagine that after
having said “It’s eight”, the same locutor should go on with: “It’s late, hurry,
there’s not a minute to waste”. So, two types of follow-ups are possible af-
ter “It’s eight”. But notice now what happens after “It’s only eight”. I think it
is impossible to follow up with: “It’s late, hurry”. The string “It’s only eight,
it’s late, hurry!” makes no sense. What would be possible on the other hand
would be “It’s only eight BUT it’s nevertheless late, you must hurry”. What
there would be no difficulty in understanding is “It’s only eight, so it’s ear-
ly. Don’t hurry!” whereas it would be absurd to replace so by but. The argu-
mentative function of the utterance of those two sentences is thus extreme-
ly different: “It’s eight” can be oriented either towards earliness or towards
lateness; “It’s only eight” can be oriented only towards earliness and not at
all towards lateness.
Now, I think you will admit without difficulty that the information
provided by those two utterances is exactly the same. I am giving exactly
the same piece of information when I say “It’s eight” as when I say “It’s only
