Page 60 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 60
Slovenian Lectures
one connects two discourse-segments with but, those two segments must
be compatible with one another. I cannot say “Peter has come but he has
not come” or “Peter is fair-haired but he is brown-haired” (at least in the or-
dinary use of language, that is the use which depends on the idea, or the il-
lusion, of informative value). Consequently, if one can say “He has worked
LITTLE but still, he has done so A LITTLE” without any difficulty, it is
because little and a little are compatible. To complete my demonstration,
I must point out that if those two quantities are compatible, they must be
identical. If there were a difference between little and a little, the two indi-
cations would be incompatible. For example, if little were less than a little,
there would be a contradiction in saying “little but a little”, – a contradic-
tion which no-one is aware of ! So there again is a case where two expres-
sions with wholly different and even opposite argumentative values cannot
be distinguished from the informational point of view (for argumentative
purposes, I am making myself out as accepting the use of that notion of in-
formation!).
I am now going to take examples from another area (if I have time af-
ter that, I shall come back on little and a little) so as to show that what we
have here is a wholly general phenomenon in language. First, a common-
place remark, one that has been made for a long time: how is the differ-
ence between “The bottle is half full” and “The bottle is half empty” to be
described? From the informational point of view, the difference is rather
hard to establish. If I make a little drawing to depict the bottle which is half
empty, it is going to be the same as the drawing depicting the bottle which
is half full, is it not? But from the argumentative point of view, the two ex-
pressions have fundamentally different values. The utterance “The bottle
is half empty” can be connected with conclusions of the type: “It must be
filled up” or “Another one must be bought”, in other words, with conclu-
sions which are relevant to the empty or half-empty state of the bottle. On
the contrary, if I start by saying “The bottle is half full”, the expected con-
clusions are of the type: “It’s not worth buying another straight now”, “We
can still wait a little”, and so on. The conclusions we have here are relevant
to the filled-up state. That is brought out in a spectacular way if you put
an interjection like “unfortunately!” before or after either sentence. In say-
ing “The bottle is half empty. Unfortunately!”, you are complaining about
the empty state of the bottle. It is the remark to be expected from a heavy-
drinker on his noticing that half his wine is already gone. But in saying “The
bottle is half full. Unfortunately!”, what you are complaining about is that
there should be something left in the bottle. That, our heavy-drinker is not
one connects two discourse-segments with but, those two segments must
be compatible with one another. I cannot say “Peter has come but he has
not come” or “Peter is fair-haired but he is brown-haired” (at least in the or-
dinary use of language, that is the use which depends on the idea, or the il-
lusion, of informative value). Consequently, if one can say “He has worked
LITTLE but still, he has done so A LITTLE” without any difficulty, it is
because little and a little are compatible. To complete my demonstration,
I must point out that if those two quantities are compatible, they must be
identical. If there were a difference between little and a little, the two indi-
cations would be incompatible. For example, if little were less than a little,
there would be a contradiction in saying “little but a little”, – a contradic-
tion which no-one is aware of ! So there again is a case where two expres-
sions with wholly different and even opposite argumentative values cannot
be distinguished from the informational point of view (for argumentative
purposes, I am making myself out as accepting the use of that notion of in-
formation!).
I am now going to take examples from another area (if I have time af-
ter that, I shall come back on little and a little) so as to show that what we
have here is a wholly general phenomenon in language. First, a common-
place remark, one that has been made for a long time: how is the differ-
ence between “The bottle is half full” and “The bottle is half empty” to be
described? From the informational point of view, the difference is rather
hard to establish. If I make a little drawing to depict the bottle which is half
empty, it is going to be the same as the drawing depicting the bottle which
is half full, is it not? But from the argumentative point of view, the two ex-
pressions have fundamentally different values. The utterance “The bottle
is half empty” can be connected with conclusions of the type: “It must be
filled up” or “Another one must be bought”, in other words, with conclu-
sions which are relevant to the empty or half-empty state of the bottle. On
the contrary, if I start by saying “The bottle is half full”, the expected con-
clusions are of the type: “It’s not worth buying another straight now”, “We
can still wait a little”, and so on. The conclusions we have here are relevant
to the filled-up state. That is brought out in a spectacular way if you put
an interjection like “unfortunately!” before or after either sentence. In say-
ing “The bottle is half empty. Unfortunately!”, you are complaining about
the empty state of the bottle. It is the remark to be expected from a heavy-
drinker on his noticing that half his wine is already gone. But in saying “The
bottle is half full. Unfortunately!”, what you are complaining about is that
there should be something left in the bottle. That, our heavy-drinker is not
