Page 59 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 59
Lecture III
sents). “It’s almost eight”, I think, can be oriented only towards conclusions
of the “It’s late” type: “It’s almost eight, hurry! It’s almost eight, walk fast-
er if you want to be on time!” I could not say: “It’s almost eight, you’ve got
plenty of time”. With almost eight, the time is viewed as late. On the con-
trary, when I say “It’s not eight yet”, it is the opposite type of conclusions
which become possible: “It’s not eight yet, you’ve got plenty of time! It’s not
yet eight, there’s no need to hurry!” However, you will agree with me that
the information given by almost eight and not eight yet is exactly the same: in
both cases, it is, I don’t know, say, five to eight, ten to eight. So, once again,
we have two utterances which give the same information but which have a
wholly different argumentative function and that argumentative function
is necessarily linked to the words themselves, the words those utterances are
made of, that is to say, to the language-system, to the linguistic structure,
quite irrespective of the information given.
I take a third example (taking examples is all I am going to be doing un-
til the end of this lecture). I am going to speak to you about the two ex-
pressions little and a little. In English, in most Romance languages [like
French] and also in some other Germanic languages like German (perhaps
also in some other languages that I do not know), those two expressions
are, – how shall I say? – “built” in the same way: the idea of a little is ob-
tained by putting an indefinite article before the word which designates the
idea little. In other languages, things are more complicated and the differ-
ence between the two notions is marked in a more subtle way. We are go-
ing to compare the semantic effects of little and a little. Let us compare “Pe-
ter has worked a little” and “Peter has worked little”. Within an argumen-
tative framework of analysis, to compare these expressions means looking
for their possible follow-ups. After having said “Peter has worked little”, it
seems wholly reasonable to me to go on and say “He can’t be tired”. On
the contrary, after “Peter has worked a little”, I would go on in the oppo-
site way: “He must be more or less tired” or even quite simply “He must be
tired”. So the expressions go in completely different directions. However, I
think one can say (although there is much debate on this point) that the in-
formation given by “Peter has worked a little” and “Peter has worked little”
is nearly identical.
To show that the information given by those two segments “Peter has
worked a little” and “Peter has worked little” are roughly identical, I would
like to make you notice that one can very well say “Peter has worked LIT-
TLE but still, he has done so A LITTLE”. I point out that fact to show, I
remind you, that in both cases, there is the same information. Indeed, when
sents). “It’s almost eight”, I think, can be oriented only towards conclusions
of the “It’s late” type: “It’s almost eight, hurry! It’s almost eight, walk fast-
er if you want to be on time!” I could not say: “It’s almost eight, you’ve got
plenty of time”. With almost eight, the time is viewed as late. On the con-
trary, when I say “It’s not eight yet”, it is the opposite type of conclusions
which become possible: “It’s not eight yet, you’ve got plenty of time! It’s not
yet eight, there’s no need to hurry!” However, you will agree with me that
the information given by almost eight and not eight yet is exactly the same: in
both cases, it is, I don’t know, say, five to eight, ten to eight. So, once again,
we have two utterances which give the same information but which have a
wholly different argumentative function and that argumentative function
is necessarily linked to the words themselves, the words those utterances are
made of, that is to say, to the language-system, to the linguistic structure,
quite irrespective of the information given.
I take a third example (taking examples is all I am going to be doing un-
til the end of this lecture). I am going to speak to you about the two ex-
pressions little and a little. In English, in most Romance languages [like
French] and also in some other Germanic languages like German (perhaps
also in some other languages that I do not know), those two expressions
are, – how shall I say? – “built” in the same way: the idea of a little is ob-
tained by putting an indefinite article before the word which designates the
idea little. In other languages, things are more complicated and the differ-
ence between the two notions is marked in a more subtle way. We are go-
ing to compare the semantic effects of little and a little. Let us compare “Pe-
ter has worked a little” and “Peter has worked little”. Within an argumen-
tative framework of analysis, to compare these expressions means looking
for their possible follow-ups. After having said “Peter has worked little”, it
seems wholly reasonable to me to go on and say “He can’t be tired”. On
the contrary, after “Peter has worked a little”, I would go on in the oppo-
site way: “He must be more or less tired” or even quite simply “He must be
tired”. So the expressions go in completely different directions. However, I
think one can say (although there is much debate on this point) that the in-
formation given by “Peter has worked a little” and “Peter has worked little”
is nearly identical.
To show that the information given by those two segments “Peter has
worked a little” and “Peter has worked little” are roughly identical, I would
like to make you notice that one can very well say “Peter has worked LIT-
TLE but still, he has done so A LITTLE”. I point out that fact to show, I
remind you, that in both cases, there is the same information. Indeed, when
