The meaning of a yawn

Abstract

I present empirical arguments that bodily gestures may communicate a propositional meaning with assertoric force and trigger implicatures based on violations of Relation. Crucial in the analyses are Paul Grice’s distinction between natural and non-natural meaning as well as Tim Wharton’s extended argument that bodily gestures instantiate a third type of meaning defined by the spontaneous production of a gesture and the explicit exhibition of it.