Zer esan ironiaz

Abstract

One o( the main debates in Pragmatics nowadays deals with the concept of what is said by an utterance (i.e., wl/ilt a speaker says by uttering a sentence). With regard to irony, the issue o( what is said is especially complicated: the problem is not to decide wlwt is exactly said hy an ironic utterance, but rather to clarify in ti/(' first place whether there is anything really said. Manyauthors llave proposed to replace wlwt is said hy a special concept in the analysis o( irony. But some costs are in volved: the speaker 's commitment, which is usually linked to what is said, loses its position in the pragmatic explanation o( uttemnce content; bcsides, the input for the implicaturcs nceds clarification, sinC(' the in(erence of implicatures is usually considered to start from wllat is said. I wi/l (¡CUS on thesc two problcms, showing tlwt some pragmatic assumptior/S should he rejected in arder to of(er a satisfactory answer.