Craig,

Thanks for your discussion of Bruce's examples.  I am puzzled by a couple of things
you write.

You begin by discussing the meaning of an utterance is based on context.  The discussion
is clear to me.

***********************

Craig: "How cold does it have to get" could mean many things, and 
the only way it can include the idea of shutting a window is to put it 
into an imaginary context. 

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However, in the very next sentence, the notion of meaning seems to be dropped.  Did you mean to write "meaning from form" instead of "context from form'?   

And, do you really mean to say "the formal structures we utter are context sensitive"?  Or did you mean to say "the meaning of the formal structures we utter are context sensitive"?  See the example that follows.

********************

Craig: A functional approach is not going to say  that we can infer context from a form, but the opposite--that we need context, and that the formal structures we utter are context sensitive. 
"How cold does it have to get" makes no sense out of context, so we 
infer a context for it.

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One interpretation of the following is that the examples with "how much" are patterns we have learned  to indicate sarcasm or rudeness.  I don't think that interpretation can be correct.

**************
Craig:  I would see it as what usage based construction 
grammar calls  a "schema", a form meaning pairing unpredicted by the 
general rules of a formal syntax and one that  has blanks to fill in.  
"How much snow has to pile up before you shovel it?" "How much does the 
garbage have to stink before you take it out?" "How many examples do I 
have to give before a concept comes through?"  The schema brings with it 
a kind of sarcasm or rudeness that is part of its meaning. Rudeness is 
part of the schema.

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If they construction How many/much X before Y is always rude or sarcastic, then the passage contradicts the statement about the importance of context and I assume you do not want to be contradictory.

It must be the case that we need context to determine whether this construction is rude or contradictory.  Again, if that is the case, then how does one recognize when "How many/much X, before Y" is a real question and when is it a rude or sarcastic statement.  

A formal theory of grammar says nothing about how an utterance is interpreted in a given context.  Do you know of a theory of grammar that does tell us how an utterance is interpreted in a given context?  

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

 

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