Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk (Phil Hunt)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!peernews.demon.co.uk!storcomp.demon.co.uk!philip
Subject: Re: The logic of "and" and "but"
Distribution: world
References: <600434857wnr@shappski.demon.co.uk> <3il3p5$ov2@ss1.cam.nist.gov>
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Date: Sun, 26 Feb 1995 00:31:23 +0000
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In article <3il3p5$ov2@ss1.cam.nist.gov>
           koontz@cam.nist.gov "John E Koontz" writes:
> What "but" means is something like "and, unexpectedly" or "and, to the 
> contrary."  But logic doesn't deal with expectedness.  But, a lot of
> languages do, to the extent of lexicalizing or grammaticalizing some
> marker of it.

I would imagine that *every* language has a way of marking unexpectedness,
as it seems fundamental to how humans communicate. If anyone has a
counterexample, I would be very interested.

When someone hears what someone else says to them, they use their mental
model of the other person's beliefs and intentions, together with the
actual words said, to try to figure out a meaning. Consider the sentence:
"X can eat it but Y can't". The "but" here causes the listener to (mainly
subconsciously) think along these lines.

1. X can eat it
2. ordinarily, Y would be expected to be able to eat it
3. but Y can't eat it, so...
4. something unexpected is going on, therefore search to see if there
is anything unusual with respect to X, Y, and eating.

It's a bit like saying "Can you pass me the salt?"; you don't expect
just the reply "yes".

-- 
Phil Hunt...philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk
Majority rule for Britain!
