Page 63 - Oswald Ducrot, Slovenian Lectures, Digitalna knjižnica/Digital Library, Dissertationes 6
P. 63
Lecture III
Peter that “he’s worked a little” and about John that “he’s worked little”. The
members of the audience who had raised the objection therefore conclud-
ed: “Well you see, there is a quantitative difference between a little and lit-
tle, a little does designate a greater quantity than little”.
Now, I am going to try to answer those objections, which rely on facts
of that sort. To do so, I shall use my definition of little and of a little. I will
say that to work little is an argument, say, for the insufficiency of the amount
of work and that to work a little is an argument for the opposite conclu-
sion, that is to say, for the idea that the amount of work is sufficient. In a
class-room situation (and that was the situation for the experiment), He has
worked little is an argument for the insufficiency of the amount of work: for
example, for some form of punishment. On the contrary, He has worked a
little is indirectly an argument for some sort of reward. So, quite disregard-
ing any fact or information, and simply from my argumentative description
of little and a little, you can predict that He has worked little can be used
as an argument for punishment and He has worked a little can be used as
an argument for reward. So when the question for the experiment is asked
(here are two children, Peter has worked two hours and John has worked
one hour, about which of the two do you say that he has worked little?), giv-
en that to say He has worked little is one reason among others to punish him
and to say He has worked a little is a reason to reward him, it is pretty clear
that the experimental subjects are going to choose worked little for John,
who has worked for an hour, and worked a little for Peter, who has worked
for two hours. It is merely a sense of fairness which makes you attribute the
little, which is a source of punishment, to John and the a little, which is a
source of reward, to Peter. But that stems from cultural considerations re-
lated to our notions about justice, and not at all from the meaning of the ex-
pressions worked little and worked a little themselves. So, the information-
al difference which you read into those two expressions are really extremely
indirect differences, which can appear in very particular situations, such as
the one which was imagined here, where someone, the subject of the exper-
iment, had to choose between the two expressions. But that by no means
changes the fact that in the linguistic structure of little and of a little, there
is no informational difference to distinguish them by, no information-relat-
ed difference: there is only an argumentation-related difference.
***
What am I going to do in the next lectures? Well, today I tried to in-
troduce and justify the general thesis of the theory of argumentation in the
Peter that “he’s worked a little” and about John that “he’s worked little”. The
members of the audience who had raised the objection therefore conclud-
ed: “Well you see, there is a quantitative difference between a little and lit-
tle, a little does designate a greater quantity than little”.
Now, I am going to try to answer those objections, which rely on facts
of that sort. To do so, I shall use my definition of little and of a little. I will
say that to work little is an argument, say, for the insufficiency of the amount
of work and that to work a little is an argument for the opposite conclu-
sion, that is to say, for the idea that the amount of work is sufficient. In a
class-room situation (and that was the situation for the experiment), He has
worked little is an argument for the insufficiency of the amount of work: for
example, for some form of punishment. On the contrary, He has worked a
little is indirectly an argument for some sort of reward. So, quite disregard-
ing any fact or information, and simply from my argumentative description
of little and a little, you can predict that He has worked little can be used
as an argument for punishment and He has worked a little can be used as
an argument for reward. So when the question for the experiment is asked
(here are two children, Peter has worked two hours and John has worked
one hour, about which of the two do you say that he has worked little?), giv-
en that to say He has worked little is one reason among others to punish him
and to say He has worked a little is a reason to reward him, it is pretty clear
that the experimental subjects are going to choose worked little for John,
who has worked for an hour, and worked a little for Peter, who has worked
for two hours. It is merely a sense of fairness which makes you attribute the
little, which is a source of punishment, to John and the a little, which is a
source of reward, to Peter. But that stems from cultural considerations re-
lated to our notions about justice, and not at all from the meaning of the ex-
pressions worked little and worked a little themselves. So, the information-
al difference which you read into those two expressions are really extremely
indirect differences, which can appear in very particular situations, such as
the one which was imagined here, where someone, the subject of the exper-
iment, had to choose between the two expressions. But that by no means
changes the fact that in the linguistic structure of little and of a little, there
is no informational difference to distinguish them by, no information-relat-
ed difference: there is only an argumentation-related difference.
***
What am I going to do in the next lectures? Well, today I tried to in-
troduce and justify the general thesis of the theory of argumentation in the
