Parenthetical 'say' as a window into sincerity and commitment

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of the parenthetical use of say in English: e.g., Can we meet in, say, an hour?. This expression can be used to perform a speech act without incurring its canonical “sincerity condition” (Searle, 1975): for example, using say in a declarative sentence with content ϕ can conversationally commit the speaker to ϕ without communicating that the speaker believes ϕ. Using say does not always void an utterance’s sincerity condition, however: sincerity conditions only disappear when the focal alternatives of the host sentence are inconsistent with each other. This suite of behavior allows us to draw a novel empirical linebetween an utterance’s dynamic effects and its usual implications about speaker attitudes. I derive this behavior from the metalinguistic, focus-sensitive, and imperative semantics of say.Specifically, I propose that say in an utterance u (i) conventionally implicates that the speaker could have uttered a sentence systematically similar to u (a focal alternative to u), but (ii) effectively prefers to utter u. The effective preference encoded in say requires speaker commitment, even when its implication about focal alternatives weakens belief. I motivate (i) by showing that say is conventionally focus sensitive (Beaver and Clark, 2008). I motivate (ii) by arguing that say is related to the suppositional imperative use of say (e.g., Say that the house was in New York.), which is analyzed using the theory of imperatives as commitments toeffective preferences (Condoravdi and Lauer, 2012).