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On the pragmatics of contrast*†

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Eve V. Clark
Eve V. Clark*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
*
Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
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Abstract

In this paper, I review properties and consequences of the PRINCIPLE OF CONTRAST. This principle, which I have argued from the beginning has a pragmatic basis, captures facts about the inferences speakers and addressees make for both conventional and novel words. Along with a PRINCIPLE OF CONVENTIONALITY, it accounts for the pre-emption of novel words by well-established ones. And it holds just as much for morphology as it does for words and larger expressions. In short, Contrast has the major properties Gathercole (1989) proposed as characteristic of her alternative to Contrast.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 417 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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Footnotes

*

Preparation of this paper was supported in part by the Sloan Foundation. I would like to thank Dwight Bolinger, Willem J. Levelt, Brian MacWhinney and Dan I. Slobin for raising some of the issues I address here, and in particular Herbert H. Clark for discussion of and comments on an earlier draft.

†

This article concludes a discussion initiated in JCL by Clark (1988) and continued by Gathercole (1989). Ed.

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