scholarly journals Deconstructing Questions: Reanalyzing a heterogenous class of speech acts via commitment and engagement

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-82
Author(s):  
Johannes M. Heim ◽  
Martina E. Wiltschko
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Direct Link ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
The Common

Direct and indirect characterizations of the relation between clause type (syntactic form) and speech act (pragmatic function) are problematic because they map oversimplified forms onto decomposable functions. We propose an alternative account of questions by abandoning any (in)direct link to their clause type and by decomposing speech acts into two variables encoding propositional attitudes. One variable captures the speaker’s commitment to an utterance, another their expectation toward the addressee’s engagement. We couch this proposal in a syntactic framework that relies on two projections dedicated to managing common ground (GroundP) and managing turn-taking (ResponseP), respectively. Empirical evidence comes from the conversational properties of sentence-final intonation in English and sentence-peripheral particles that serve to manage the common ground.

Assertion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guiming Yang ◽  
Sanford C. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Great Length ◽  
Lottery Ticket ◽  
Constitutive Rule ◽  
Explicit Content ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

In the past two to three decades, most of the philosophical attention that has been paid to the speech act of assertion aims to characterize the nature of the act. A first question that is pursued concerns where the speech act of assertion fits within the domain of assertives (the category speech acts in which a proposition is presented-as-true). Simply put, assertions are those assertive speech acts in which the speaker advances a claim. But what is it to perform this sort of speech act? What is the nature of the act? Philosophers have proposed six main answers. These include the attitude view (which characterizes the nature of the act in terms of its role in expressing belief), the grammatical view (on which assertion is picked out by the vehicles used to make acts of this kind, namely, declarative sentences), the common ground view (where assertion is understood in terms of its essential effect on a conversation’s common ground), the commitment view (where assertion is characterized in terms of the kind of commitment that is engendered or reconfirmed by the performance of acts of this type), the constitutive rule view (according to which assertions are individuated by the distinctive rule that governs acts of this type) and the no-assertion view (which holds that there is no unique, interesting speech act type picked out by ‘assertion’). Of these six views, the one that has received the most attention (both critical and supportive) is the constitutive rule view. Such a view has been developed (and criticized) at great length. A leading version of the constitutive rule view is the view that the rule in question requires that one assert only what one knows. The main considerations offered in defense of this version of the view include its role in explaining various features of our assertoric practice, including the paradoxicality of assertions of sentences of the form ‘p, but I do not know that p’, its role in explaining why propositions expressed with, for example, ‘My lottery ticket lost’ are not properly assertable on merely probabilistic grounds (even when the odds of one’s winning are arbitrarily small) and its role in explaining why ‘How do you know?’ is a proper response to an assertion (even when the assertion’s explicit content has nothing to do with the speaker’s knowledge). However, many authors have responded to these arguments for the knowledge rule, finding them unconvincing. Interestingly, a great amount of attention has also been devoted to forging connections between the speech act of assertion and a variety of other topics of philosophical interest. These include topics in philosophy of language (pragmatics, semantics), epistemology (the epistemology of testimony, the epistemology of disagreement, the nature of epistemic authority, the division of epistemic labor), metaphysics (the nature of future contingents, modality), ethics (the ethics of assertion; what we owe to each other as information-sharing creatures) and social and political philosophy (various forms of epistemic injustice, silencing).

Assertion Norms

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-170
Author(s):  
Jody Azzouni
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
The Common ◽  
Cartoon Characters

Assertion is a phenomenological category—that is, assertions are experienced as such by speaker-hearers. Speech-act phenomenology is distinguished from semantic perception. We not only experience speech acts, we experience the words and sentences we utter as distinct objects with properties different from those of the speech acts. Using this distinction, evidence against agential-state assertion norms, such as a sincere-belief norm, a knowledge norm, or a warrant norm, etc., is given. Anonymous assertions or shapes resembling inscriptions produced by accident are experienced as assertions and as possessing meaning even when they are recognized to be products of sheer accidents and in reality without utterers. Spokespersons for companies, actors in advertisements for products, cartoon characters (that don’t exist), and flakes who can’t be trusted are all experienced nevertheless as asserting, and what they assert as assertions. The common-ground expectation view is supported. Compatibly with this, Moorean remarks are often naturally utterable.

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.

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.

REQUESTING SPEECH ACT OF UTTERANCES IN OCEAN’S ELEVEN BY STEVEN SODERBERGH: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 410
Author(s):  
Nurul Hasanah ◽  
Japen Sarage
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
The Real ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Actual Use

The term sentence and utterance are made different in terms that the former refers to syntactic structure, while the latter points out the actual function of such a structure in real communication. The same things apply to the terms request and requesting. The first term suggests the structural characteristics of sentence asking people to do something while the second term indicates the real sentence causing people to do something. The first deals with formal grammar while the second deals with pragmatics the actual use of language in communication.This article attempts to see requesting in its possible different syntactic forms as parts of speech acts in Ocean’sEleven by Steven Soderbergh. A pragmatic approach is applied since it uses context as a part of linguistic analysis involving the speaker, addressee, time, location, and genre in the conversation. A syntactic form of a sentence only cannot represent the real meaning of intention.The analysis of speech act of the conversation in the film brings us to an understanding that pragmatics encourage us to comprehend different kinds of setting to achieve requesting as a part of language use. Pragmatics as a branch of linguistics reveals mutual understanding between the speaker and the hearer.

scholarly journals Computing the meaning of the assertive speech act by a software agent

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Brian Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Software Agent ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
What Is Said ◽  
Situation Type ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

This paper examines the nature of the assertive speech act of Irish. We examine the syntactical constructional form of the assertive to identify its constructional signature. We consider the speech act as a construction whose meaning as an utterance depends on the framing situation and context, along with the common ground of the interlocutors. We identify how the assertive speech act is formalised to make it computer tractable for a software agent to compute its meaning, taking into account the contribution of situation, context and a dynamic common ground. Belief, desire and intention play a role in <em>what is meant</em> as against <em>what is said</em>. The nature of knowledge, and how it informs common ground, is explored along with the relationship between knowledge and language. Computing the meaning of a speech act in the situation requires us to consider the level of the interaction of all these dimensions. We argue that the contribution of lexicon and grammar, with the recognition of belief, desire and intentions in the situation type and associated illocutionary force, sociocultural conventions of the interlocutors along with their respective general and cultural knowledge, their common ground and other sources of contextual information are all important for representing meaning in communication. We show that the influence of the situation, context and common ground feeds into the utterance meaning derivation. The ‘<em>what is said’</em> is reflected in the event and its semantics, while the ‘<em>what is meant’</em> is derived at a higher level of abstraction within a situation.

Echoicity and contrast in Spanish conditionals

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-635
Author(s):  
Elena Castroviejo ◽  
Laia Mayol
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Simple Analysis ◽  
Contrastive Topic ◽  
Pragmatic Function ◽  
Pragmatic Reasoning ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Joint Occurrence

Abstract This paper is concerned with a conditional construction in Spanish, which we call echoic contrastive conditional, ecc for short. In eccs, the consequent is entailed, the antecedent echoes the content of a previous assertion, and both antecedent and consequent are marked with a Contrastive Topic. Our goal is to fit these properties in a formal explanation compatible with a simple analysis of conditionals. We claim that eccs are a subtype of biscuit conditional, in that antecedent and consequent are independent (i.e. do not express a hypothetical relation). Additionally, we assume that pragmatic reasoning has to explain why a conditional is used to express an adversative relation between the two clauses. First, a proposition that has already been proposed to increase the Common Ground is placed in the antecedent of a conditional in which there is no hypothetical relation between p and q. Thus, the addressee needs to reason as to the pragmatic function the speaker wants to achieve. Second, the Contrastive Topic marking signals that both conjuncts are answers to a multiple wh-question, proposed by the speaker as the current Question Under Discussion (QUD). Third, the answer provided by the second conjunct is a stronger argument for the speaker’s communicative goal than the one provided by the first conjunct. The joint occurrence of echoicity, lack of dependence and Contrastive Topic marking leads to an adversative rhetorical relation between the conjuncts.

scholarly journals Austin's mantle, or who's (not) afraid of John L. Austin? On 50 years of speech act theory, and how Rajan saves J.L. Austin from himself and others

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob L. MEY
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Common Opinion ◽  
The Common

ABSTRACT The article places the person of Professor Kanavillil Rajagopalan within the context of his many years of research and teaching at various universities in Brazil. It is argued that his efforts to advocate a new approach to linguistics, based on the notion of 'speech acts', was not always well received by the practicing linguists of his day and age. Moreover, while researching the foundations of speech act theory from its inceptions, it became clear to Rajan that the doxa of 'Searle merely codifying and cleaning up Austin's somewhat unruly legacy' does not hold. The common opinion represented by this view does injustice, both to Searle as an independent thinker and to Austin as an original philosopher in his own right, who not just speaks through a Searlean mouthpiece. In particular, people have not paid attention to an essential element of the Austinian oeuvre: his persistent distancing himself from all iron-clad and rigid theorizing; in addition, Austin's humor played always a big role in his presentations, both orally and in writing. Rajan thus creates a more nuanced picture, both of the theory itself and of its two great protagonists, Austin and Searle.

scholarly journals The question of form in the forming of questions: The meaning and use of clefted wh-interrogatives in Swedish

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-794
Author(s):  
JOHAN BRANDTLER
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Existential Presupposition ◽  
Effective Choice ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Cost

This paper addresses the meaning and use of clefted wh-interrogatives (I-clefts) in Swedish. It is shown that I-clefts always relate immediately to the topic under discussion and serve to clarify a matter in relation to this topic. They are never used in out-of-the-blue contexts. I argue that I-clefts have the same information structure as typically assumed for declarative clefts: the clefted clause expresses an existential presupposition and the cleft phrase is the identificational focus of the utterance. I further argue that the implication of existence commonly associated with canonical argument questions is weaker (a conversational implicature) than the existential presupposition associated with clefts. The results from an extensive corpus survey show that argument I-clefts (who, what) constitute no less than 98% of the total number of I-clefts in my material. This frequency is linked to the presuppositional status of the cleft construction: in contexts where the denoted event is presupposed as part of the common ground, the clefted variety is the more effective choice, due to its clear partitioning of focus and ground. The ‘cost’ of using a more complex syntactic structure (the cleft) is thus counterbalanced by the benefit of being able to pose a question adjusted to the contextual requirements. As non-argument questions are typically presuppositional irrespective of syntactic form, the gain of using a cleft is less obvious – hence their infrequency in the material.

scholarly journals Communication as commitment sharing: speech acts, implicatures, common ground

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Geurts
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Propositional Content ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Conversational Implicatures ◽  
Action Coordination ◽  
Main Tenet

Abstract The main tenet of this paper is that human communication is first and foremost a matter of negotiating commitments, rather than one of conveying intentions, beliefs, and other mental states. Every speech act causes the speaker to become committed to the hearer to act on a propositional content. Hence, commitments are relations between speakers, hearers, and propositions. Their purpose is to enable speakers and hearers to coordinate their actions: communication is coordinated action for action coordination. To illustrate the potential of the approach, commitment-based analyses are offered for a representative sample of speech act types, conversational implicatures, as well as for common ground.

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