Pour l'analyse minimaliste de certaines expressions de quantite: Réponse à des objections d'Anscombre et Ducrot

Abstract

In a series of recent publications (from 1975 to 1983), J.C. Anscombre and O. Ducrot attempt to refute what they call the ‘minimalist’ thesis; according to this thesis, such expressions as to drink 3 pints of French être aussi grand que ‘to be as tall as’ have a unique, non-restrictive, literal meaning, sometimes paraphrased as to drink at least 3 pints, to be at least as tall as, while their restrictive meaning, sometimes paraphrased as to drink only 3 pints, to be just as tall as, is contextually derived through something like the Gricean maxim of quantity. Anscombre and Ducrot claim that the minimalist analysis makes it necessary to postulate an underlying au moins ‘at least’ in the non-restrictive meaning of expressions of quantity; they offer a number of counter-examples; and to overcome the many difficulties they have pointed out, they propose to substitute the minimalist approach with a theory according to which a non-derived, primitive argumentative force is built into the basic meaning of the discussed expressions. I try to show that their refutation of minimalism is founded on a misunderstanding of the Gricean approach, such as it is developed by Horn and Fauconnier, and that their counter-examples are not counter-examples to minimalism.