On the social practice of indirect reports

pp. 21-51

in: Alessandro Capone, The pragmatics of indirect reports, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

This chapter deals with the social practice of indirect reports and treats them as cases of language games. It proposes a number of principles like the following:Paraphrasis/Form PrincipleThe that-clause embedded in the verb 'say" is a paraphrasis of what Y said, and meets the following constraints: should Y hear what X said he (Y) had said, he would not take issue with it, as to content, but would approve of it as a fair paraphrasis of his original utterance. Furthermore, he would not object to vocalizing the assertion made out of the words following the complementizer "that" on account of its form/style.The upshot of the chapter is that opacity in indirect reports is the result of applying pragmatic principles.