A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse - The Intonation of Increments

82 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse

items in terms of synonyms, antonyms, and hyponyms. He argues that indi-
vidual lexical items form into lexical sets which realize their communicative
values through their opposition with other lexical items in the same set,
e.g. white is white because it is not red or indeed any other colour. Carter
(ibid. 33–42), Cruse (1986: 146), Lakoff (1987: 46–7) and Lyons (1977:
305–11)^35 argue that, within each lexical set, one lexical item is the core
lexical item. For example, Lakoff provides the following example:

(42) Superordinate Animal Furniture

Basic Level Dog Chair

Subordinate Retriever Rocker

Lakoff and Carter argue that in neutral communicative situations speakers
select the core lexical item. It is not clear, however, what a neutral com-
municative situation refers to. It may mean that in a preponderance (or
bare majority) of communicative situations speakers tend to choose core
lexical items.^36 For example (43) and (45) appear more unmarked than
(44) and (46).

(43) I take my dog for a walk every morning

(44) I take my Alsatian for a walk every morning

(45) Beware of the dog

(46) Beware of the Alsatian

Yet, in the context of an airport arrivals hall, a customs offi cer who utters
(47) rather than (48) to an incoming passenger with a small dog, seems less
neutral.

(47) All dogs arriving in the country must be quarantined

(48) All animals arriving in the country must be quarantined

Hirschberg (1991: 60–1) argues, along Gricean lines, that selection of
the superordinate animals signals that the speaker is either not in a position
to use the more informative core lexical item dogs or deems the extra
information irrelevant, and so Hirschberg might explain the selection of
the superordinate in (47) as signalling that the customs offi cer deemed the
extra information superfl uous: a dog is after all an animal. Alternatively,
and to my mind more plausibly, Levinson (2000: 31) reinterprets Grice’s
maxim of quantity as saying: ‘What isn’t said, isn’t’. Hence selection of
the core lexical item dogs in (47) implicates that dogs and dogs alone are