Some aspects of the form and interpretation of global contrastive coherence relations

structure that is not independently motivated. Moreover, a performative analysis can account neither for (16), nor for the difference between (17)a and (17)b. Dascal and Katriel (1977) mention another incompleteness problem of the analysis, for which the performative analysis again will not do. Consider example (18). (18) (Context: A and В are discussing an economic problem and conclude that they must consult an expert in the field.) A: John is an economist B: John is not an economist, but a businessman. B's reply is not a semantic opposition. Since Lakoffs analysis lacks any other cate­ gories, it should be a denial of expectation. The presupposition involved must therefore be something like "one expects that someone who is not an economist is not a businessman". This, however, is certainly not intended by B. Her answer can be paraphrased by "John is not an economist. One expects that someone who isn't an economist is not the economic expert we need. But John is a businessman and therefore he is the economic expert we need. " The notion presupposition, in the sense in which Lakoff uses it, does not suffice to express this relation between the two conjuncts. In this study constructions like (18), in which one conjunct is an argument in favor of a certain conclusion, and the second conjunct is an argument against that conclusion are treated as a separate group of buf-coordinations. Henceforth they are called concessive oppositions, as opposed to semantic oppositions. Superfluousness. According to Lakoff there are two lemmata but in the lexicon, a symmetrical one and an asymmetrical one. Lang (1984, p. 80-84) argues strongly against the distinction between symmetrical and asymmetrical variants of conjunctions. He states that There are no 'symmetrical' and 'asymmetrical' connectors such that and, or, but, for each have two meanings. The interpretation of conjoined structures referred to by this distinction are to be explained by the interplay of the factual relations between the entities represented in the conjunct-meanings and the way these relations are couched in overt linguistic structures, but they are not features of the meanings of the connectors, (p. 84) Thus, to take an example of asymmetric on^-coordination, the fact that John took arsenic and fell ill is an asymmetrical coordination follows from our knowledge of the world that one of the consequences of taking arsenic is falling ill. To conclude, the distinction that Lakoff makes between semantic oppositions on the one hand and denials of expectation on the other is one that must be accounted for in every theory of contrastive coherence relations: In semantic oppositions the contrastive coherence relation is more or less overtly present, whereas in denials of expectation the contrastive coherence relation exists between the information in the second ' Levinson (1983), par. 5.4-5.5, enumerates the arguments against such analyses. To give only one example of these arguments: In a performative analysis a sentence of the type the world is flat is analyzed as having a deep structure I say to you that the world is flat. However, the two have different truth conditions: The former is false, whereas the latter may be true. This difference is incompatible with the performative analysis. 10 B's reply is ambiguous: It has a ftKfA-reading and a ÒMis-reading. In the latter case, B's reply is a rebuttal of A's contribution. In (18) the fcMfA-reading is intended.