Argumentation and connectives: How do discourse connectives constrain argumentation and utterance interpretations?

Abstract

This chapter is about argumentation and connectives. It first gives a general definition of argumentation, as a relation between arguments and conclusions, such that arguments have as properties polarity, force, order, linguistic marking, and logical impairment. The function of an argument is to assign an argumentative orientation to an utterance and make acceptable conclusions that would be unacceptable without the presence of an argument. Second, the chapter gives a pragmatic description of close meanings connectives, implying causal, inferential, and temporal inferences (parce que, donc, et in French). Linguistic as well as experimental findings are given to support the thesis that causality is linguistically and cognitively a backward relation, and that parce que is a backward causal connective. Finally, causality and argumentation are conceptually and linguistically connected via the analysis of the argumentative use of parce que. In a nutshell, the main thesis of the chapter is that discourse connectives are devices that convey different levels of meaning, as semantic entailment, explicature, and implicature. For close connectives, their semantic differences do not rest on their conceptual content, but rather on the manner by which basic semantic and argumentative categories are conveyed in discourse, that is, their procedural meaning. French connectives, as parce que, donc, et (“because,” “therefore,” “and”), all include in their meaning a causal relation, the difference being the level at which this relation intervenes. The chapter aims at yielding a precise content to semantic and pragmatic meaning relations triggered by connectives, and, more specifically, the role of entailment, explicature, and implicature in discourse connectives meaning.