Optimality Theoretic Pragmatics and the Explicature/Implicature Distinction
Reinhard Blutner

Abstract:
Optimality Theoretic Pragmatics is a (partly) formalized theory that
conforms to a dynamic neo-Gricean approach. It assumes one phase of
the updating process that involves the application of the so-called Q-
and I-principles. Critics of the theory have maintained that such an
approach does not discriminate between processes where apparent
conversational implicatures enter into propositional content from
processes where conversational implicatures supplement the
propositional content without becoming part of it. Hence, it does not
account for the Relevance-Theoretic distinction between explicatures
and implicatures. In the present paper I discuss possibilities for
reconstructing the distinction in Optimality Theoretic
Pragmatics. After consideration of recent empirical observations of
implicatures in complex sentences the conclusion is drawn that the
distinction should not be stipulated by referring to separate
principles of the cognitive architecture (either by stipulating
different modes of interpretation or by assuming distinct phases of
processing). Instead, the distinction seems to be a consequence of a
global optimization mechanism. The results of global optimization
fossilize into a local projection mechanism that conforms to the
principles of incremental interpretation.