mclean%NRL-CSS@sri-unix.UUCP (03/14/84)
From: John McLean <mclean@NRL-CSS>
I think that the first treatment of the fact that "and" in English is
not the purely logical "and" of predicate calculus appeared in Philosophy
literature. You might want to take a look at Strawson's PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC
for classical arguments that the "and" of natural language is distinct from the
logician's "and" and Grice's "William James' Lectures" for a very influential
rebuttal in which he argues that the use of "and" in English can be modeled
by logical conjunction if we take into account "conversational implicature",
a concept Grice develops in the lectures.
By the way, one of my favorite examples of nonlogical conjunction which you
do not mention is the statement made to someone about to eat a mushroom
growing in the ground "You will not eat that and live." This statement
is almost always correct from the truth-functional view of conjunction
even if the mushroom is harmless, since few people when issued the warning
will indulge their appetite.
Good luck,
John