Grice e Tullio

 To map an alphabetical register of rhetorical figures through the brilliant analytical lens of Paul Grice and Luigi Speranza, we must treat these terms not as mere dusty ornaments of style, but as systematic methods for flouting conversational maxims to generate conversational implicature.

When a speaker uses a rhetorical figure, they willfully depart from the literal baseline of grammatica. Because the listener presumes the speaker is still following the Cooperative Principle, the listener calculates the gap between literal sentence meaning and intentional speaker meaning (\(M_{NN}\)).

Here is the definitive alphabetical register using exclusively Latinate-Italianized forms.

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A

• Adgominazione (Agnominatio / Paronomasia)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Exploiting words that sound identical but differ in meaning.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It willfully flouts the Maxim of Manner (avoid ambiguity). It forces the hearer to process two competing conventional meanings simultaneously to derive a witty implicature.
• Allegoria (Allegoria)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: A sustained, extended metaphor across an entire utterance or text.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It flouts the Maxim of Quality (do not say what is literally false). The hearer realizes the surface narrative is a literal falsehood and decodes a secondary, hidden baseline of meaning.
• Allusione (Allusio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Referring covertly to a historical person, text, or event.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It tests the boundaries of Common Ground. The speaker assumes a shared cognitive background; if the listener possesses it, the implicature is instantly calculated without explicit statement.
• Anaphora (Anaphora)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Repeating the exact same word at the beginning of successive clauses.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It flouts the Maxim of Quantity by generating massive redundancy. The repetition communicates psychological urgency, importance, or emotional intensity.
• Antitesi (Antithesis)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Juxtaposing two sharply contrasting ideas in parallel grammatical structures.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It optimizes the Maxim of Manner by utilizing neat structural symmetry. The stark layout clarifies and sharpens the speaker's true intent by defining it against its exact opposite.
• Aposiopesi (Aposiopesis / Reticentia)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Stopping suddenly in the middle of a sentence, leaving it uncompleted.
  • Gricean Mechanism: A violent flouting of the Maxim of Quantity (under-informing). By withholding the grammatical completion, the speaker implies a threat, deep sorrow, or an emotion too intense to vocalize.

C

• Circolazione (Chiasmus / Commutatio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Reversing the grammatical order of words in two parallel phrases (an A-B-B-A structure).
  • Gricean Mechanism: It manipulates the Maxim of Manner. The elegant inversion forces the listener to pause, reconsider the structural relationship of the concepts, and calculate an added layer of witty symmetry.
• Concessione (Concessio / Epitrope)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Seemingly granting an opponent’s point or giving them permission to do wrong.
  • Gricean Mechanism: An ironic flouting of the Maxim of Quality. When a speaker says "Go ahead, ruin your life," they are stating something they do not actually desire. The listener easily infers the urgent warning.

D

• Disgiunzione (Asyndeton / Dissolutio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Deliberately omitting grammatical conjunctions (and, or, but) between clauses.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It alters the Maxim of Manner. By stripping away structural connectors, it accelerates the utterance, implying speed, chaos, or an overwhelming list of events.

I

• Inversione (Hyperbaton / Transgressio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Upending the normal, conventional grammatical word order of a sentence.
  • Gricean Mechanism: It directly targets the Maxim of Manner (be orderly). By delaying a crucial word, it builds psychological suspense and forces the listener to hold the entire clause in their working memory until the meaning drops.
• Ironia (Ironia / Illusio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Stating the exact opposite of what is actually meant.
  • Gricean Mechanism: The quintessential flouting of the Maxim of Quality. Because the literal statement is completely absurd given the context, the listener immediately flips the proposition to its polar opposite to retrieve the intended speaker meaning.

L

• Litote (Litotes / Diminutio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Denying the contrary of a statement to assert an understatement (e.g., "He is not unwise").
  • Gricean Mechanism: It violates the Maxim of Manner through convoluted framing. By avoiding a direct adjective, it generates a polite, cautious, or highly sarcastic implicature.

P

• Permutazione (Metonymia / Transnominatio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Substituting the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant (e.g., "The Crown" for the King).
  • Gricean Mechanism: It depends on structural semantic links. It flouts literal truth conditions, but works efficiently because the substituted term shares an unbreakable conceptual association in the conversational common ground.
• Preterizione (Praeteritio / Occultatio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Explicitly stating that you are not going to mention a topic, thereby bringing it directly to light.
  • Gricean Mechanism: A masterful, paradoxical manipulation of the Maxim of Quantity. The speaker technically provides zero official information on a topic while simultaneously loading the listener’s mind with all the scandalous details.

S

• Superlazione (Hyperbole / Exsuperatio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Massive, impossible exaggeration of the facts.
  • Gricean Mechanism: A blatant violation of the Maxim of Quality (truthfulness). The speaker does not intend to deceive; rather, the extreme scale of the exaggeration functions as an indexical marker of intense emotion or scale.

T

• Translatio (Metaphora / Translatio)
  • The Pragmatic Trick: Applying a word or phrase to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
  • Gricean Mechanism: The foundational engine of semantic shift. It breaks the literal grammatical contract of impositio. The listener detects the category mistake, rejects the literal falsehood, and calculates a brilliant analogical implicature.

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The Systematic Gricean Summary

           [ RHETORICAL FIGURE (Departure from Grammar) ]
                                 │
                     Flouts a Conversational Maxim
         (Quality, Quantity, Relation, or Manner)
                                 │
                     Audience Presumes Cooperation
                                 │
          Calculates the Implicature = SPEAKER MEANING (M_NN)

Would you like to select one specific figure from this register—perhaps Preterizione or Circolazione—so we can write out a full step-by-step Gricean logical calculation of how a Roman audience would decode it?