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CASE-018: "You blow it all on sex and booze", said by a friend, a parent, a judge, a comedian

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Properties8
StatusActive
Standingfictional
Kindthought-experiment
Tagsphilosophy-of-language, linguistics
Linepragmatic-transport
SupportsARG-002 — Interpretive framings change a reader's state as non-commuting measurements do, so the frame participates in determining which meaning becomes actual, CLAIM-061 — Renderings that keep the proposition can perform a different communicative act, so preserving the proposition is not sufficient for preserving the communicative event, CLAIM-151 — Which communicative act an utterance performs is partly constituted by its relations to participant roles, norms and expected uptake, so a transformation that changes those relations can change the act and not only its realization, CLAIM-221 — The relational-constitution thesis's defeat condition describes a standard rival the record holds no counter for, intention-based accounts of illocution, which plausibly meet it for every act in the four-speakers case except the institutional one, CLAIM-224 — Under partial relational constitution, a translation always changes the participants, audience and norms that the relational-constitution thesis makes constituents of the act, so whether the act survives turns on a correspondence of relations the structure cannot supply from inside, CLAIM-229 — The footing, compensation and constitution theses ground on invented cases whose readings the assistant assigned, and the case filed for the proposition's non-necessity holds the words fixed, so it shows only insufficiency
Cited as “grounds” byARG-013 — The invented renderings of one sentence by four speakers show that a translation can reach pragmatic equivalence by compensation, ARG-021 — The manuscript's renderings, which keep the words and change the act, show that keeping the proposition is not necessary for keeping the act, ARG-024 — The invented renderings of one sentence by four speakers show that participant roles partly constitute the act
Cited as “illustrated by” byCLAIM-091 — A translation can reach pragmatic equivalence by compensating for changed social coordinates with changed linguistic ones, so lexical infidelity can be required for pragmatic fidelity, CLAIM-151 — Which communicative act an utterance performs is partly constituted by its relations to participant roles, norms and expected uptake, so a transformation that changes those relations can change the act and not only its realization

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The case

A12: “The same proposition spoken by a friend, a judge, a comedian, a teacher, or a stranger is not the same communicative event.” A18 §6: “imagine it spoken by a close friend at breakfast, a disapproving parent, a judge during sentencing, or a comedian on stage. The locutionary content may be essentially identical. But the utterance event is not.” Hence “Sentence meaning ≠ Utterance meaning ≠ Communicative effect”. A24 made it a transformation of context, (u, s, a, k, g) → (u, s′, a, k, g): keep the words, change the footing.

What it can show

The necessity half of CLAIM-061: the same words, and so the same proposition, do not fix the act. It is the premise of the compensation hypothesis (CLAIM-091) and of the quantum move (ARG-002). Invented, so it shows a possibility; whether readers’ judgements shift as described is what CASE-021 would test.

Note of 2026-10-10: two variants

A191 §1 varies it as “You’ve spent it all again.”, which “might be affectionate teasing between intimate friends, an accusatory remark from a partner, a reprimand from a parent, or a sardonic observation in a comedy”. A187 §3 uses the original sentence with four readings, and grounds the relational-constitution claim on it (CLAIM-151). A218 §1’s spending sentence, “A sentence expressing criticism of someone’s spending can function as affectionate teasing, commiseration, mockery, or normative reprimand”, is this case with its literary source removed.

Note of 2026-10-10: the replies

“What it can show” is corrected (CLAIM-229): the same words with different acts show that the proposition is not sufficient for the act, not that it is not necessary. The text above is unchanged.

Note of 2026-10-10: a documented case

The necessity half this case was filed for now has its own case, CASE-056: Phillips’s “hearty handshake all round” for Paul’s “holy kiss”, a published rendering that changes the proposition and that Nida judged to keep the greeting. It does not fill this case’s role as corrected above: this case remains words held fixed, a sufficiency case. CASE-056 gives the sufficiency half a documented companion from the same handbooks: a literal “kiss” read where kissing is amorous. That is the same proposition with a different act, which this case shows only by invention. Neither case has reader evidence.

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