11.7: Conclusion

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In this chapter we have looked at several types of expressions in various languages that seem to contribute “use-conditional” rather than truth-conditional meanings. The characteristic properties of such expressions are those identified by Potts in his work on conventional implicatures. They tend to be speakeroriented; independent of and secondary to the at-issue, truth-conditional content of the utterance; excluded from negation and questioning; and not assumed to be part of common ground.

We noted that speech act adverbials in English (e.g. frankly, confidentially) can function either as sentence adverbs with use-conditional meanings, or as manner adverbs with truth-conditional meanings. In future chapters we will see that similar ambiguities arise with certain conjunctions, notably because (Chapter 18) and if (Chapter 19). We will argue that, at least for because, such ambiguities need not be treated as polysemy (distinct senses), but can be seen as a kind of pragmatic ambiguity: a single sense that can function on two levels, modifying the sentence meaning or the utterance meaning. In the first case, it contributes truth-conditional meaning, while in the second case it contributes use-conditional meaning.