expressing argumentation/discourse relations; emphasis marking: towards a less ambiguous language

[gusl]

I wish we had simple words to clarify the purpose of an utterance.

* "in response to what you said ..."
* "go to off an a tangent ..."
* "unrelatedly ...": there are no established claims yet, so no argumentation is likely to ensue.

* "this can't be right because ...": as a consequence, the interlocutor should try to defend their last claim, unless they no longer believe it due to this update.
* "in spite of what you said ...": as a consequence, the interlocutor should try to defend their (implicit) claim, unless they no longer believe it due to this update.
* "to complement what you said ..."

etc.

Of course we already have the above expressions, but they are too bulky and awkward, and as a result people don't use them enough. This causes misunderstandings.


I also wish people wrote focus markers (like italics) more often.

A - I don't know if you realize this, but CMU has many many people who use ML. You could probably find an undergrad to help you.

B - Actually, I really am thinking of just teaching myself OCaml --- John Doe was pretty persuasive about its virtues.

Situation/Interpretation #1: B does not realize that ML and OCaml are the same language.

Situation/Interpretation #2: B does realize that ML and OCaml are the same language, but is an autodidact (emphasis on "myself").

B's second sentence favors interpretation #1, since it's giving a reason for learning OCaml, which would be a superfluous utterance if B knew that this is exactly what A is suggesting (i.e. if the intended interpretation were #2, the second sentence would be a violation of the Maxim of Quantity and the Maxim of Relevance).

The "actually" is another piece of evidence in favor of interpretation #1, because "actually" signals disagreement. B clearly believes that "B should learn OCaml".
A's expressed belief is that "B should learn ML".
According to B's beliefs in situation #1, there is a disagreement between these two, so using "actually" makes sense.
According to B's beliefs in situation #2, there is no disagreement between these two, so "actually" would be out of place.

Comments

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

Uhh...technically [Standard] ML (which is what someone at CMU probably means if they just say "ML") is different from Ocaml. Do the Ocaml people ever call Ocaml "ML", in fact?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

oh, metonymy... why do you have to make my life so hard?

[simrob.livejournal.com]

Agreed: Situation #3 is that B interprets ML as Standard ML, and John Doe was persuasive about the virtues of OCaml as opposed to SML [ed. note: heretic!].

[chrisamaphone]

"go to off an a tangent ..."

this amuses me, mostly because i initially parsed it the way [i think] you meant it without even blinking, and then did a double take.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

... I parsed it the way he meant it both times I read it, and again when reading your comment, and then again going back to read it in the post... and then I was very confused about how you meant you parsed it, and _then_ I did a double take. XD

[qatar.livejournal.com]

But we DO have markers in English; we have word stress. Interpretation 1 and interpretation 2 would sound completely different; italics and suchlike only exist in writing in order to mimic the stresses we already give spoken words.

And there are simpler discourse markers, like "to complement what you said" can be "also" or "additionally." Obviously they have different shades of meaning... but spoken language is always less rigorous than written, which is fine, because it's accompanied by all kinds of intonation cues and nonverbal communication that solidify the message. Again, in some respects we only need markers like italics and discourse markers in writing because we don't get the paraverbal cues we'd get in person.

Ambiguity resolved

[(Anonymous)]

Interpretation #3 is correct. As it happens, I also Have Issues about doing things myself, rather than relying on others, so even if we had as many OCaml-writing undergraduates as we do pigeons, I might well want to teach myself...

-B

discourse

[(Anonymous)]

is discourse is important to us>?why;;;;;;;;;;;;;;