The pragmatics of lexical specificity

Mainstream linguists have now begun to take an interest in the way the formal resources of language are put to use by people in communicative situations. A powerful impulse for this awakening interest came from Grice's paper ‘The logic of conversation’; (1975). Grice's work has begun to he examined, criticized, and developed (see, for example, Wilson, 1975; Kempson, 5975), and prospects are now emerging of a much more satisfying and comprehensive picture of language at work in a communicative setting. The present paper is intended as a contribution to this developing field.