Laurence Goldstein

(1947 - 2014)

Brevity in conversation is a window to the workings of the mind. It is both a multifaceted topic of deep philosophical importance and a phenomenon that serves as a testing ground for theories in linguistics, psycholinguistics and computer modeling. Speakers use elliptical constructions and exploit salient features of the conversational environment, a process of pragmatic enrichment, so as to pack a great deal into a few words. They also tailor their words to theirparticular conversational partners. In Brevity, distinguished linguists, philosophers and cognitive scientists shed new light on economy in discourse. The book will appeal to linguists, philosophers, and psychologists at advanced undergraduate level and above.

In a well-known story constructed by Saul Kripke , Pierre, a rational but monolingual Frenchman who has never visited England, acquires, on the evidence of many magazine pictures of London, the belief that London is beautiful. He is happy to declare ‘Londres est jolie’. Pierre eventually moves to England and settles in one of the seedier areas of London, travelling only to comparably shabby neighbourhoods. He learns English by immersion, though he does not realize that ‘London’ and ‘Londres’ are co-referential. Naturally enough, given his current circumstances, he acquires a belief that he is only too willing to express by uttering ‘It is not the case that London is beautiful’. So apparently he now holds contradictory beliefs. But rational people do not hold contradictory beliefs ….One popular response to Kripke's puzzle is that people …