Irene Rapp

In this paper, I argue that metonymy, metaphor and personification have to be described as reinterpretation operations that are used if the standard interpretation of a predicate-argument structure either violates semantic restrictions or is contextually implausible. These processes differ with respect to their focuss on three different concepts. For metonymy, the interpretation conflict is resolved by introducing a second argument, namely a definite individual standing in a real world relation to the original argument. Metaphoric reinterpretation adds a second predicate that has a broader meaning than the original predicate and thus avoids the conflict. Personification introduces a second world, more precisely a fictional text world, where the original conflict does not occur. The three processes have in common that, firstly, they are non-destructive, i.e. they do not change the given lexical items, but add a specific component to enable a suitable interpretation, and, secondly, they can apply freely whenever a semantic or contextual mismatch occurs, i.e. they need not to be licensed by specific lexical items. mehr

The aim of this paper is to establish a common ground model for multi-layered communication in drama. In particular, we will focus on the concept of irony. We will show that in drama ironic effects can be achieved by presenting lies, fallacies or misunderstandings. Whilst these phenomena are communication failures in the internal communication system, they lead to second-order implicatures in the outer communication system, i. e. the communication system between text and audience. In Rapp & Wolman (2022) an evidence-based common ground model was presented in order to describe communications failures in single-layered communication. To capture the interaction of an inner and an outer communication system we will combine their parts in a specific manner: whereas the discourse commitments are taken from the inner system, all other components (common ground, beliefs, facts) belong to the outer system. Importantly, the outer system also includes second-order implicatures arising from communication failures in the inner system. We will illustrate this model by examining crucial passages of the bourgeois tragedy Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich Schiller. mehr

In this paper we will argue that the analysis of lies, fallacies, and misunderstandings requires a complex model including a heterogeneous common ground based on reportative and situational evidence (cf. Farkas & Bruce 2010) and two additional layers, beliefs and objective facts. Lies can be defined by using the concept of reportative evidence, i. e. there is a contrast between an utterance and the utterer’s beliefs. Fallacies arise if a person is mistaken with regard to the situational evidence, i. e. there is a contrast between her beliefs and the objective facts. Misunderstandings, again, refer to reportative evidence, i. e. there is a contrast between the intended meaning of an utterance and the way it is understood by the hearer. Whereas the analysis of liesproves that the common ground is based on evidence and not on mutual belief, the analysis of fallacies and misunderstandings shows that both its situational and its reportative part have to split up into one part that is clearly fixed and another part that is open to interpretation and thus endangered by these communication failures. mehr