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Convention, Intention, and the Conversational Record

Lepore and Stone 2015 advocate a view which turns the Gricean picture of meaning on its head: they argue that the most basic type of meaning intention is one which presupposes the notion of conventional meaning. In this essay, I argue that evidence from language acquisition supports the Gricean view, according to which communicative intentions are analytically more basic than linguistic convention. I point out further, though, that Grice’s view recognizes the role of conventionality in meaning, a point neglected in Lepore and Stone’s critique. Lepore and Stone extend their convention-driven view by advocating a model on which the Conversational Record reflects only conventionally licensed conversational updates. I present evidence from conversation that shows that such a view of the record cannot account for certain types of standard conversational events.