The Role of Deduction in Grammar
George P. Lakoff · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 1971
THE ROLE or DEDUCTION rm QR/\/\/l/\/I/\Rq‘ QGGVQC l..ak0ff The Unlvnmy of Michigan ‘’ This work was 3 , . mm ta; Hawani 3;)hPaq V Gnuq GN4934 from the National Scicnc F d * , e . ~ . 0 am am thanks 6 '« * 6 mm a. ‘“5f~5 out tn mm the mgutafmfl of €'0YEl-l1 Green and Rolf La ‘. loo and but on which thi m kg“ for Poim‘ 3 Papfir is based. In G. Lakoff (l970d) 1 showed that for many sentences it xttzakes no seme to ask whether or not they are granmmticul in any absolute settse, but only ta ask whether they are gramtnztticztl relative to certztin prmattppositiom. l*‘m‘ example, in recipmcztl cmttrztstive stress (:()lt§ll‘llt.'li()IlSi l t')hn insulted Mztr and then she insulted hhtt. Y I I I 7 (2) ‘jtrlm praised Mary and then she lnsultetl him. I I I ‘ _ I M _I (3) john rztlletl Mary :1 vtrgxtt zmtl then she ntsultcd htm. The pronouns on the right can he stxt-sstctl in (fl) cmly if it is presttpposctl that to cull smttteonc 2t virg_;in is to imttlt that ptrmnt. (2) is jttthgtztl ttttt;r;tm~ In.'Ili(.'ll 5lll(L' hy the (lt‘lll)lll()l‘l of pruiw, praising sr_gxn(:tnte trmmot be 2m inwlt, at It-zest nut in mm‘ (’l|llt|l('. Let us now ask what are the rctgulut umtlititms tmtlcr whith l'C(’l}gH)t;Il wtttmstivc sums Uttllts. The sitttplttst Hist‘ H(’(‘ttl's in (I), Wltctt‘, no .*s[)t‘t‘l.“tl ptesuppmitimt is )L't[ttll(‘tl. ll mu: has two mttjuitml WIl(t‘|)C('N 01' the l‘tgrtn: (ll) (HI...[N,.I1]...[m-l)}...3X]£tll(l[,;:...(M-l)}...[M»2l]...,;u] where S, is identical to S, in meaning, except that wherever S, mtmtions a, S, mentions b, and Vl(‘l‘ \'Ct‘5zt, then a :1 ml I: get Slt’L‘b5C(l. For cmtvenience we will refer to S, and S._. as {(::,h) antl f(h,;t) lq(‘S])(ftll\’(*ly, where f stzttttls for 2! phrase-tn:u‘ller minus the elements a ;md 31. 'Thus the simple rule is that in sentences of the hmn: (5) f(a,h) and f('h,a) stress 11 zmtl 1).‘ Now consider the more complicated cases like (3) where It sentenctt with reciprocal contrastive stress can only he gramntatical relative to 21 certain presupposition. Take (3). Let ‘x called y It virgin’ be g(x,y) and ‘x ittsultetl y’ be E(x,y). (3) is of the form: (6) g(a,b) and f(b,a) where: u 2 john I) 2: Mary 1 Actually, the condition is more general than this. The rule applies nut only in conjutm tions, but whenever disjoint. clauseet of this form occur in a sentence. For exzunple: The fact that john insultetl Mary intlictttetl that she would soon imttlt him. Not: that the time zttlvtrrh soon must be cottsitleretl stetmtntirally external to its tzlstuse if one is to state the identity mt'tllit.iott unit‘mmly. / 0 5 68