scholarly journals Discourse update at the service of mirativity effects: the case of the Discursive Dative

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal ◽  
Nora Boneh
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Inclusion Relation ◽  
Classic Model ◽  
Speech Event ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
The Common ◽  
Discourse Management

The classic model of conversation based on the Common Ground (CG), introduced by Karttunen (1974), Lewis (1979) and Stalnaker (1978), was shown to be insufficient for accounting for various conversational phenomena (inter alia Portner 2004, 2007, Farkas & Bruce 2009, Murray 2014). This paper further strengthens this line by analyzing a type of non-truth conditional non-core dative termed the Discursive Dative (DD) as a discourse management device (Krifka 2008, Repp 2013). The DD signals that the asserted proposition p constitutes an exception to a normative generalization believed by the speaker to be shared by the speech event participants. In order to capture the notion of exception we propose to divide the CG into two sets of worlds, those consistent with previous assertions and their presuppositions (CGA) and those consistent with generalizations (CGG). The DD signals a non-inclusion relation between the asserted proposition and the CGG. This enables us to distinguish between different types of mirativity effects, by drawing a distinction between adding a proposition p that was not previously in the speaker’s expectation-set (inter alia DeLancey 1997, 2001, Rett 2009, Peterson 2013, Rett & Murray 2013) and the present case of the DD, where p can very well be in the speaker’s expectation-set, but objectively expected that ~p. 

The Semantics of Evidentials

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Propositional Content ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
The Common ◽  
Issue Content

This book gives a compositional, truth‐conditional, crosslinguistic semantics for evidentials set in a theory of the semantics for sentential mood. Central to this semantics is a proposal about a distinction between what propositional content is at‐issue, roughly primary or proffered, and what content is not‐at‐issue. Evidentials contribute not‐at‐issue content, more specifically what I will call a not‐at‐issue restriction. In addition, evidentials can affect the level of commitment a sentence makes to the main proposition, contributed by sentential mood. Building on recent work in the formal semantics of evidentials and related phenomena, the proposed semantics does not appeal to separate dimensions of illocutionary meaning. Instead, I argue that all sentences make three contributions: at‐issue content, not‐at‐issue content, and an illocutionary relation. At‐issue content is presented, made available for subsequent anaphora, but is not directly added to the common ground. Not‐at‐issue content directly updates the common ground. The illocutionary relation uses the at‐issue content to impose structure on the common ground, which, depending on the clause type (e.g., declarative, interrogative), can trigger further updates. Empirical support for this proposal comes from Cheyenne (Algonquian, primary data from the author’s fieldwork), English, and a wide variety of languages that have been discussed in the literature on evidentials.

Lying and Fiction

2018 ◽  
pp. 302-314
Author(s):  
Emar Maier
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
The Common ◽  
Maxim Of Quality

Lying and fiction both involve the deliberate production of statements that fail to obey Grice’s first Maxim of Quality (“do not say what you believe to be false”). The question thus arises if we can provide a uniform analysis for fiction and lies. This chapter discusses the similarities, but also some fundamental differences between lying and fiction. It argues that there is little hope for a satisfying account within a traditional truth-conditional semantic framework. Rather than immediately moving to a fully pragmatic analysis involving distinct speech acts of fiction-making and lying, the chapter first explores how far we get with the assumption that both are simply assertions, analyzed in a Stalnakerian framework, i.e., as proposals to update the common ground.

Multiple Sluicing, Scope, and Superiority: Consequences for Ellipsis Identity

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 781-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadas Kotek ◽  
Matthew Barros
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Scalar Implicatures ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
The Common ◽  
Semantic Identity ◽  
Context Of Utterance

This article defends a semantic identity account of ellipsis licensing. The argument comes from examples of multiple sluicing, especially from Russian. Concentrating on antecedents that contain two quantified statements, we uncover a surprising asymmetry: surface scope antecedents can license a multiple sluice, but inverse scope antecedents cannot. We explain this finding in terms of semantic accounts of ellipsis licensing, where ellipsis is licensed when the sluice corresponds to an (implicit) question under discussion. We show that QUDs cannot be computed from the truth-conditional content of the antecedents alone; instead, they must be computed only after (scalar) implicatures have been calculated and added to the common ground, along with the context of utterance. We further discuss the commitments required of syntactic/LF identity accounts of ellipsis licensing in order to accommodate multiple sluicing with quantified antecedents, and argue that such accounts are practically untenable.

Information Structure and the Landscape of (Non-)at-issue Meaning

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Horn
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Category Membership ◽  
Conventional Implicature ◽  
Variable Strength ◽  
Nature Of Information ◽  
Truth Conditional ◽  
The Common ◽  
Issue Content

This article examines cases that illustrate the relation of information structure to truth-conditional semantics, grammatical form, and assertoric force. Before discussing the interaction between information structure and (non-)at-issue meaning, it considers the nature of information and what constitutes information. It then looks at two aspects of the common ground, common ground (CG) content and CG management, as well as the criteria of category membership. The article also explores the varying degrees of at-issueness, the role of rhetorical opposition andbutclauses, as well as the variable strength of at-issue content. The landscape of non-at-issue meaning is presented, and the distinction between conventional implicature and assertorically inert entailments is highlighted using a range of distributional diagnostics. The article concludes by analysing the relation between structural focus and exhaustivity using the semantic and pragmatic approaches.

scholarly journals Logics of Common Ground

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 859-904 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Miller ◽  
Jens Pfau ◽  
Liz Sonenberg ◽  
Yoshihisa Kashima
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Modal Logics ◽  
Joint Activities ◽  
Formal Definitions ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Agent Collaboration ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
The Common ◽  
Definition Of

According to Clark's seminal work on common ground and grounding, participants collaborating in a joint activity rely on their shared information, known as common ground, to perform that activity successfully, and continually align and augment this information during their collaboration. Similarly, teams of human and artificial agents require common ground to successfully participate in joint activities. Indeed, without appropriate information being shared, using agent autonomy to reduce the workload on humans may actually increase workload as the humans seek to understand why the agents are behaving as they are. While many researchers have identified the importance of common ground in artificial intelligence, there is no precise definition of common ground on which to build the foundational aspects of multi-agent collaboration. In this paper, building on previously-defined modal logics of belief, we present logic definitions for four different types of common ground. We define modal logics for three existing notions of common ground and introduce a new notion of common ground, called salient common ground. Salient common ground captures the common ground of a group participating in an activity and is based on the common ground that arises from that activity as well as on the common ground they shared prior to the activity. We show that the four definitions share some properties, and our analysis suggests possible refinements of the existing informal and semi-formal definitions.

scholarly journals Uncommon ground

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Macagno ◽  
Alessandro Capone
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Complex Type ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Presupposition Triggers ◽  
Presumptive Reasoning ◽  
Complex Cases

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to show how microargumentation mechanisms of presumptive reasoning and reasoning from best explanation can be used to explain some cases of presupposition suspension. It will be shown how the relationship between presupposition triggers and pragmatic presuppositions can be analyzed in terms of presumptive and nonpresumptive polyphonic articulation of an utterance, resulting in different types of commitments for the interlocutors. This approach is grounded on the two interconnected notions of presumptions and commitments. In some complex cases of presupposition suspension, the speaker presumes the hearer’s acceptance of, and commitment to, propositions that do not belong to the common ground or that have been explicitly rejected as being commonly shared. This phenomenon triggers a complex type of reasoning that can be represented as kind of abduction, grounded on hierarchies of presumptions and aimed at providing an interpretation that solves this conflict of presumptions. Several cases of presupposition suspension will be shown to result from nonpresumptive polyphonic articulations, in which different voices responsible for distinct commitments are distinguished. By indirectly reporting an element of discourse, the speaker can refuse to take responsibility for the presupposed proposition, and correct the commitments that may result for him or her. This polyphonic treatment of utterances can explain how and why a presupposition is suspended, and can be used to identify the conflicting presumptions that can be further solved through reasoning from best explanation. This reasoning can result in a different reconstruction of the developed logical form or the illocutionary force of an utterance.

Can Groups Assert That P?

2019 ◽  
pp. 326-344
Author(s):  
Deborah Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Constitutive Rule ◽  
The Past ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Common ◽  
Declarative Statement ◽  
John Macfarlane

When a group or institution issues a declarative statement, what sort of speech act is this? Is it the assertion of a single individual (perhaps the group’s spokesperson or leader) or the assertion of all or most of the group members? Or is there a sense in which the group itself asserts that p? If assertion is a speech act, then who is the actor in the case of group assertion? These are the questions this chapter aims to address. Whether groups themselves can make assertions or whether a group of individuals can jointly assert that p depends, in part, on what sort of speech act assertion is. The literature on assertion has burgeoned over the past few years, and there is a great deal of debate regarding the nature of assertion. John MacFarlane has helpfully identified four theories of assertion. Following Sandy Goldberg, we can call these the attitudinal account, the constitutive rule account, the common-ground account, and the commitment account. I shall consider what group assertion might look like under each of these accounts and doing so will help us to examine some of the accounts of group assertion (often presented as theories of group testimony) on offer. I shall argue that, of the four accounts, the commitment account can best be extended to make sense of group assertion in all its various forms.

Further Investigation upon the Water Movements in the English Channel. Drift-Bottle Experiments in the Summers of 1927, 1928 and 1929, with Critical Notes on Drift-Bottle Experiments in General.

1930 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. N. Carruthers
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
North Sea ◽  
English Channel ◽  
The North ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Great Simplicity ◽  
Simple Surface

In July–August of three different years common surface-floating bottles were set adrift at International Station E2 (49° 27' N.—4° 42' W.). With them, various types of drag-fitted bottles were also put out. The journeys accomplished are discussed, and the striking differences as between year and year in the case of the common surface floaters, and as between the different types in the same year, are commented upon in the light of the prevailing winds. An inter-relationship of great simplicity is deduced between wind speed and the rate of travel of simple surface floating bottles up-Channel and across the North Sea from the results of experiments carried out in four different summers.

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