% Encoding: UTF-8 @Article{Amaral2007, author = {Patricia Amaral and Craige Roberts and E. Allyn Smith}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Review of \textit{The Logic of Conventional Implicatures} by Chris Potts}, year = {2007}, pages = {707-749}, volume = {30}, abstract = {We review Potts’ influential book on the semantics of conventional implicature (CI), offering an explication of his technical apparatus and drawing out the proposal’s implications, focusing on the class of CIs he calls supplements. While we applaud many facets of this work, we argue that careful considerations of the pragmatics of CIs will be required in order to yield an empirically and explanatorily adequate account.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-008-9025-2}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {Conventional Implicature, Semantics, Pragmatics, Supplements}, } @InProceedings{Davis1999, author = {Paul C Davis and Robert Kasper and Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACL '99 Workshop on the Relationship between Discourse, Dialogue Structure and Reference}, title = {An Integrated Approach to Reference and Presupposition Resolution}, year = {1999}, address = {College Park, MD}, abstract = {We describe an approach to resolving definite descriptions and pronominal anaphora as subcases of a general strategy for presupposition satisfaction. Generally, a presupposition is satisfied in a context if the context contains a specific type of information and is organized in such a way that this information can be retrieved by the interlocutors. The model of discourse context we develop assumes that discourse structure is organized around a stack of questions under discussion, which plays a crucial role in narrowing the search for referents and other presupposed information. The algorithms for maintaining the discourse structures and retrieving presupposed information are presented and illustrated by several example dialogues in which human users interact with an agent to make hotel reservations.}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory}, keywords = {Presupposition Satisfaction, Discourse Structure, Anaphora, Reference, Computational Linguistics, question under discussion}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/W99-0101.pdf}, } @Article{Roberts2012, author = {Craige Roberts}, journal = {Semantics \& Pragmatics}, title = {Information Structure in Discourse: Towards an Integrated Formal Theory of Pragmatics}, year = {2012}, pages = {1-69}, volume = {5}, abstract = {A framework for pragmatic analysis is proposed which treats discourse as a game, with context as a scoreboard organized around the questions under discussion by the interlocutors. The framework is intended to be coordinated with a dynamic compositional semantics. Accordingly, the context of utterance is modeled as a tuple of different types of information, and the questions therein— modeled, as is usual in formal semantics, as alternative sets of propositions — constrain the felicitous flow of discourse. A requirement of Relevance is satisfied by an utterance (whether an assertion, a question or a suggestion) iff it addresses the question under discussion. Finally, it is argued that the prosodic focus of an utterance canonically serves to reflect the question under discussion (at least in English), placing additional constraints on felicity in context.}, comment = {Originally published in (1996) Jae-Hak Yoon and Andreas Kathol (eds.) \texit{Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics} Volume 49. Published in the revised form in (1998) in Semantics and Pragmatics. This (2012) is a re-issue of the (1998) version and was followed with an afterword. A translation into Japanese was published in the Journal of the Institute of Language Research (2020) by Wataru Okubo and Hiroki Nomoto. Link here: http://www.tufs.ac.jp/common/fs/ilr/contents/ronshuu/25/jilr25_Translateion_Roberts2012-jpn.pdf}, doi = {10.3765/sp.5.6}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Discourse, pragmatics, context of utterance, question under discussion, relevance, focus, information structure}, } @Article{Roberts2012a, author = {Craige Roberts}, journal = {Semantics \& Pragmatics}, title = {Information Structure: Afterword}, year = {2012}, pages = {1-19}, volume = {5}, abstract = {This is the afterword to the 2012 republication of "Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics".}, doi = {10.3765/sp.5.7}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory}, keywords = {Discourse, pragmatics, context of utterance, question under discussion, relevance, focus, information structure}, } @InProceedings{Roberts1996a, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1996 AAAI Symposium on Implicature}, title = {Information Structure, Plans, and Implicature}, year = {1996}, address = {Stanford, CA}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Implicature}, keywords = {Discourse, pragmatics, context of utterance, question under discussion, relevance, focus, information structure}, priority = {prio1}, } @InCollection{Roberts1998, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {The Limits of Syntax}, publisher = {Academic Press}, title = {Focus, the Flow of Information, and Universal Grammar}, year = {1998}, editor = {Peter Culicover and Louise McNally}, pages = {109-160}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Focus, Psycholinguistics, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {focus, topic, syntax, information flow, psycholinguistics, Hungarian, English, universal, non-English, information structure, cross-linguistic, passive, prosody}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/focusflow.pdf}, } @InCollection{Roberts2004, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Handbook of Contemporary Pragmatic Theory}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Context in Dynamic Interpretation}, year = {2004}, editor = {Laurence Horn and Gregory Ward}, pages = {197-220}, abstract = {Here I argued for the generalized intentional structure of discourse presented in the Afterword to the 2012 version of Roberts 1996, and proposed that rhetorical relations might be thought of as particular types of strategy of inquiry.}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {pragmatics, information structure, context, timeless meaning, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, coherence, rhetoric}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/Context_in_Dynamic_Interpretation.pdf}, } {Roberts2006, author = {Craige Roberts}, title = {\textit{Only}, Presupposition and Implicature}, year = {2006}, abstract = {The meaning of the English adverb only has been the subject of intense debate; in particular, regarding the status of its prejacent. It has been argued that the latter is a presupposition, a conversational implicature, and an entailment. I argue that it is closer to a presupposition than to an entailment or a conversational implicature, but it may best be characterized as a non-speaker-oriented conventional implicature. The detailed consideration of the meaning of only sheds light on the relationship between these various types of meanings, contributing to the recent reconsideration in the literature of the nature of presuppositions and implicatures, both conversational and conventional.}, comment = {Submitted to \textit{Journal of Semantics}. %NO, it wasn't published, but has been cited: Was this published?}, %Shall I use "%" to comment out, or....? (I'm not used to BibTeX). All the entries below that don't directly bear on QUD (though they're relevant to the sub-topics of the original bib) have now been marked with "`omit"'. Please just put them in a separate, "`miscellaneous"' folder, in our dropbox. They'll come in handy in other ways. groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {only, presupposition, conversational implicature, entailment, conventional implicature, anaphora, domain restriction}, priority = {prio1}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/only.pdf}, } %Let's get rid of this. Enough unpublished stuff: @Unpublished{Roberts2010, author = {Craige Roberts}, title = {Retrievability and Incomplete Descriptions}, year = {2010}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory}, keywords = {anaphora, presupposition, retrievable, ellipsis, prosodic deaccentuation, prosody informational uniqueness, weak familiarity, pronouns, demonstratives}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/Retrievability.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Roberts2010a, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Formal Semantics and Pragmatics: Discourse, Context, and Models}, title = {\textit{only}: A Case Study in Projective Meaning}, year = {2010}, address = {Riga, Latvia}, editor = {Michael Glabzberg and BArbara H. Partee and Jurgis Skilters}, publisher = {The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication}, volume = {6}, abstract = {I offer an integrated theory of meaning of only in which the prejacent, while not prsupposed, is both entailed and backgrounded, hence tends to project (following a general proposal about projection due to Simons et al. 2020). Moreover, I argue, contra Beaver & Brady (2008), that only is not conventionally associated with focus, the focus effects arising instead pragmatically. But I do adopt aspects of their semantics for only, including the presupposition of a pre-order over the elements of its domain.}, doi = {10.4148/biyclc.v6i0.1581}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {presupposition, entailment, only, conversational implcature, prejacent, focus, domain restriction, context of utterance, projective meaning, pragmatics, almost, barely}, } @InCollection{Roberts2012c, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning}, publisher = {Mouton de Gruyter}, title = {Topics}, year = {2012}, editor = {Claudia Maienborn and Klaus von Heusinger and Paul Portner}, comment = {Reprinted in Portner, Maienborn, and von Heusinger (eds.) (2019) Semantics: Sentence and Information Structure, Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter, 381-412.}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Topic, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {topic, attention, information structure, question under discussion, pragmatics, discourse topic, prosodic focus, theme, universal, syntax, cross-linguistic, English, non-English}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/Roberts.Topics.pdf}, } %Omit: @InProceedings{Roberts2009, author = {Craige Roberts and Mandy Simons and David Beaver and Judith Tonhauser}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Presupposition}, title = {Presupposition, Conventional Implicature, and Beyond: A unified account of projection}, year = {2009}, address = {Bordeaux}, organization = {ESSLLI}, abstract = {We define a notion of projective meaning which encompasses both classical presuppositions and phenomena which are usually regarded as non-presuppositional but which also display projection behavior—Horn’s assertorically inert entailments, conventional implicatures (both Grice’s and Potts’) and some conversational implicatures. We argue that the central feature of all projective meanings is that they are not-at-issue, defined as a relation to the question under discussion. Other properties differentiate various sub-classes of projective meanings, one of them the class of presuppositions according to Stalnaker. This principled taxonomy predicts differences in behavior unexpected on other models among the various conventional triggers and conversational implicatures, while holding promise for a general, explanatory account of projection which applies to all the types of meanings considered.}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {projective meaning, presupposition, conventional implicature, entailment, questin under discussion, anaphora, at-issue}, url = {https://judith-tonhauser.github.io/files/roberts-etal2009.pdf}, } %Omit: @Unpublished{Roberts2012b, author = {Craige Roberts}, note = {In prep at time of 1st bib.}, title = {Ellipsis and Retrievability}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Can't find a link, is there a published version?}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, priority = {prio1}, } @InProceedings{Simons2010, author = {Mandy Simons and Judith Tonhauser and David Beaver and Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT)}, title = {What projects and why}, year = {2010}, address = {Ithaca, NY}, editor = {Nan Li and David Lutz}, pages = {309-327}, publisher = {CLC Publications}, volume = {20}, abstract = {Projection is widely used as a diagnostic for presupposition, but many expression types yield projection even though they do not have standard properties of presupposition, for example appositives, expressives, and honorifics (Potts 2005). While it is possible to analyze projection piecemeal, clearly a unitary explanation is to be preferred. Yet we show that standard explanations of projective behavior (common ground based theories, anaphoric theories, and multi-dimensional theories) do not extend to the full range of triggers. Instead, we propose an alternative explanation based on the following claim, which is intended to apply to all content which occurs in embedded contexts: Meanings project IFF they are not at-issue, where at-issueness is defined in terms of the Roberts’ (1996) discourse theory. Thus, and despite their apparent heterogeneity, projective meaning triggers emerge as a natural class on the basis of the not at-issue status of their projective inference.}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {at-issue, projection, presupposition, projective meaning, Paraguayan, Tupi-Guarani, non-English, cross-linguistic, question under discussion, relevance}, url = {https://judith-tonhauser.github.io/files/simons-etal-2010.pdf}, } @Article{Tonhauser2013, author = {Judith Tonhauser and David Beaver and Mandy Simons and Craige Roberts}, journal = {Language}, title = {Towards a Taxonomy of Projective Content}, year = {2013}, number = {1}, pages = {66-109}, volume = {89}, abstract = {Projective contents, which include presuppositional inferences and Potts’ (2005) conventional implicatures, are meanings which are projected when a construction is embedded, as standardly identified by the “Family of Sentences” diagnostic (e.g. Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet 1990). This paper establishes distinctions among projective contents on the basis of a series of diagnostics (including a variant of the Family of Sentences diagnostic) that can be used with linguistically untrained consultants. This methodological advance allows validity of generalizations to be examined cross-linguistically. We apply the diagnostics in two languages, focussing on Paraguayan Guaran\'{i} (Tup\'{i}-Guaran\'{i}), and comparing the results to those for English. Our study of Paraguayan Guaran\'{i} is the first systematic exploration of projective content in a language other than English. Based on the application of our diagnostics to a wide range of constructions, three meaningful subclasses of projective contents emerge. The resulting taxonomy of projective content has strong implications for contemporary theories of projection (e.g. Karttunen 1974; Heim 1983; van der Sandt 1992; Potts 2005; Schlenker 2009), which were developed for the projective properties of subclasses and fail to generalize to the full set of projective contents.}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {presuppostion, taxonomy, conventional implicature, projective content, non-English, Paraguayan, Tupi-Guarani, projective meaning, projection, cross-linguistic}, url = {https://ling.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/horn/Tonhauser_etal_2011.pdf}, } @Article{Asher2004, author = {Nicholas Asher}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {Discourse Topic}, year = {2004}, pages = {163-202}, volume = {30}, comment = {Asher is critical of the idea that there is a given Topic of discourse (intuitively serving the role of the QUD in Roberts 1996. See the replies by Kehler, Oberlander, Stede and Zeevat (listed here), and Ashers response Asher2004b. Asher’s work with Alex Lascarides (see Asher & Lascarides 2003 and other papers cited in section 6.1) represents one of the most detailed, extended investigations of pragmatic phenomena in the literature, based on a wedding of Rhetorical Structure Theory with Structured Discourse Representation Theory, and worked out in careful formal detail.}, doi = {10.1515/thli.2004.30.2-3.163}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {narration, rhetorical Structure Theory, Structured Discourse Representation Theory, discourse topic, topic, semantics, information structure, contrastive topic}, } @Article{Asher2004b, author = {Nicholas Asher}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {Troubles with Topics: Comments on Kehler, Oberlander, Stede and Zeevat}, year = {2004}, pages = {255-262}, volume = {30}, abstract = {I am very honored and very grateful to receive the peer commentaries by Andy Kehler, Jon Oberlander, Manfred Stede and Henk Zeevat. on my article, ‘Discourse Topic’. My comments on their replies divide neatly into two parts: Topic and Anti-Topic. Since most of my commentators are critical of discourse topics, the second section will be a lot longer than the first.}, doi = {10.1515/thli.2004.30.2-3.255}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {narration, rhetorical Structure Theory, Structured Discourse Representation Theory, discourse topic, topic, semantics, information structure, contrastive topic}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg1994, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Tilburg International Wokshop on Computational Semantics}, title = {An Update Semantics for Dialogue}, year = {1994}, abstract = {In this paper I provide a situation theoretic update semantics for dialogue motivated, in part, by concerns of ellipsis resolution in phrasal utterances, and based on the notion of a dialogue game (Hamblin 1970, Carlson 1983, Houghton and Isard 1986). I offer arguments that the rules for dialogue updating need to make reference to the existence of distinct versions of the conversational scoreboard (Stalnaker 1978, Lewis 1979), relativised to each dialogue participant. The leading idea is that taking a sufficiently structured view of the common ground enables us to characterize the potential for discussion at any given point in the conversation. In particular, I show how the potential for grounding moves (Clark and Schaefer 1989) and side sequences (Sacks and Schegloff 1973) can be explained from principles characterising assertion and querying.}, comment = {Ginzburg independently proposes that the question under discussion is an organizing factor in discourse. This idea is extended in the other papers listed just below, and especially in Ginzburg (2012), where he focuses on the ramifications for this approach in the treatment of non-sentential utterances.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {question under discussion, dialogue game, game, query, utterance grounding, semantics, pragmatics}, url = {https://sites.google.com/site/jonathanginzburgswebsite/publications/comp-sem94.pdf?attredirects=0}, } @Article{Ginzburg1995a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Resolving Questions, I}, year = {1995}, number = {5}, pages = {459-527}, volume = {18}, abstract = {The paper is in two parts. In Part I, a semantics for embedded and query uses of interrogatives is put forward, couched within a situation semantics framework. Unlike many previous analyses, questions are not reductively analysed in terms of their answers. This enables us to provide a notion of an answer that resolves a question which varies across contexts relative to parameters such as goals and inferential capabilities. In Part II of the paper, extensive motivation is provided for an ontology that distinguishes propositions, questions, and facts, while at the same time the semantics provided captures an important commonality between questions and propositions: facts prove propositions and resolve questions. This commonality is exploited to provide an explanation for why predicates such as 'know' carry presuppositions such as factivity and for a novel account of the behaviour of adverbially modified predicates with interrogative, declarative and fact-nominal arguments.}, doi = {10.1007/BF00985365}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {question under discussion, dialogue game, game, query, utterance grounding, semantics, pragmatics, philosophy}, } @Article{Ginzburg1995b, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Resolving Questions, II}, year = {1995}, number = {6}, pages = {567-609}, volume = {18}, abstract = {The paper is in two parts. In Part I, a semantics for embedded and query uses of interrogatives is put forward, couched within a situation semantics framework. Unlike many previous analyses, questions are not reductively analysed in terms of their answers. This enables us to provide a notion of an answer that resolves a question which varies across contexts relative to parameters such as goals and inferential capabilities. In Part II of the paper, extensive motivation is provided for an ontology that distinguishes propositions, questions, and facts, while at the same time the semantics provided captures an important commonality between questions and propositions: facts prove propositions and resolve questions. This commonality is exploited to provide an explanation for why predicates such as 'know' carry presuppositions such as factivity and for a novel account of the behaviour of adverbially modified predicates with interrogative, declarative and fact-nominal arguments.}, doi = {10.1007/BF00983299}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {question under discussion, dialogue game, game, query, utterance grounding, semantics, pragmatics, philosophy}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg1996, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Language, Logic, and Computation}, title = {Dynamics and the Semantics of Dialogue}, year = {1996}, address = {Stanford, CA: CSLI}, editor = {Jerry Seligman and Dag Westerstahl}, publisher = {University of Chicago Press}, volume = {1}, comment = {Can't access}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, priority = {prio3}, } @Book{Ginzburg2012, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {The Interactive Stance: Meaning for Conversation}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This book presents one of the first attempts at developing a precise, grammatically rooted, theory of conversation motivated by data from real conversations. The theory has descriptive reach from the micro-conversational -- e.g. self-repair at the word level -- to macro-level phenomena such as multi-party conversation and the characterization of distinct conversational genres. It draws on extensive corpus studies of the British National Corpus, on evidence from language acquisition, and on computer simulations of language evolution. The theory provides accounts of the opening, middle game, and closing stages of conversation. It also offers a new perspective on traditional semantic concerns such as quantification and anaphora. The Interactive Stance challenges orthodox views of grammar by arguing that, unless we wish to exclude from analysis a large body of frequently occurring words and constructions, the right way to construe grammar is as a system that characterizes types of talk in interaction.}, doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199697922.001.0001}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {dialogue, semantics, repair, ellipsis, context, conversational interaction, relevance, conversational genres}, } @InProceedings{Groenendijk2009, author = {Jeroen Groenendijk and Floris Roelofsen}, booktitle = {Meaning, Content, and Argument: Proceedings of the ILCLI International Workshop on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Rhetoric.}, title = {Inquisitive Semantics and Pragmatics}, year = {2009}, editor = {Jesus M Larrazabal and Larraitz Zubeldia}, abstract = {This paper starts with an informal introduction to inquisitive semantics. After that, we present a formal definition of the semantics, and introduce the basic semantic notions of inquisitiveness and informativeness, in terms of wich we define the semantic categories of questions, assertions, and hybrid sentences. The focus of this paper will be on the logical pragmatical notions that the semantics gives rise to. We introduce and motivate inquisitive versions of principles of cooperation, which direct a conversation towards enhancement of the common ground. We define a notion of compliance, which judges relatedness of one utterance to another, and a notion of homogeneity, which enables quantitative comparison of compliant moves. We end the paper with an illustration of the cooperative way in which implicatures are established, or cancelled, in inquisitive pragmatics.}, comment = {Groenendijk and his colleagues are exploring the logical structure of the relationships between questions and assertions in discourse, assuming that questions are central, much as in Roberts (1996). See also many related papers at: www.illc.uva.nl/inquisitive-semantics.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {inquisitiveness, informativeness, common ground, compliance}, url = {https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/348/1/PP-2009-18.text.pdf}, } @Article{Grosz1986, author = {Barbara Grosz and Candice Sidner}, journal = {Computational Linguistics}, title = {Attention, Intentions, and the Structure of Discourse}, year = {1986}, pages = {175-204}, volume = {12}, abstract = {In this paper we explore a new theory of discourse structure that stresses the role of purpose and processing in discourse. In this theory, discourse structure is composed of three separate but interrelated components: the structure of the sequence of utterances (called the linguistic structure), a structure of purposes (called the intentional structure), and the state of focus of attention (called the attentional state). The linguistic structure consists of segments of the discourse into which the utterances naturally aggregate. The intentional structure captures the discourse-relevant purposes, expressed in each of the linguistic segments as well as relationships among them. The attentional state is an abstraction of the focus of attention of the participants as the discourse unfolds. The attentional state, being dynamic, records the objects, properties, and relations that are salient at each point of the discourse. The distinction among these components is essential to provide an adequate explanation of such discourse phenomena as cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions. The theory of attention, intention, and aggregation of utterances is illustrated in the paper with a number of example discourses. Various properties of discourse are described, and explanations for the behavior of cue phrases, referring expressions, and interruptions are explored. This theory provides a framework for describing the processing of utterances in a discourse. Discourse processing requires recognizing how the utterances of the discourse aggregate into segments, recognizing the intentions expressed in the discourse and the relationships among intentions, and tracking the discourse through the operation of the mechanisms associated with attentional state. This processing description specifies in these recognition tasks the role of information from the discourse and from the participants' knowledge of the domain.}, comment = {Grosz and Sidner’s conception of the intentional structure of discourse was an important source for the intentional structure for the context of utterance proposed by Roberts 1996, 2004, 2011.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {attention, psycholinguistics, focus, rhetorical, discourse structure, purpose, topic}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/J86-3001.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Jasinkaja2007, author = {Ekaterina Jasinkaja}, school = {University of T\"{u}bingen}, title = {Pragmatics and Prosody of Implicit Discourse Relations}, year = {2007}, comment = {Jasinskaja proposes that we can derive rhetorical relations via mediation by the topical (QUD) structure of discourse. She investigates this idea in detail, considering a variety of cues to and defaults for this structure that determine the defaults in rhetorical relations, as well as constraining what the topical structure itself can felicitously be. The next paper presents an abbreviated version of this approach.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Implicature}, priority = {prio3}, url = {https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/46380/pdf/thesis_5.04.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}, } @InCollection{Jasinkaja2010, author = {Ekaterina Jasinkaja}, booktitle = {Constraints in Discourse 2}, publisher = {John Benjamins}, title = {Modelling Discourse Relations by Topics and Implicatures: The Elaboration Default}, year = {2010}, editor = {Peter K\"{u}hnlein and Anton Benz and Candace L. Sidner}, abstract = {This paper develops a theoretical approach that derives the semantic effects of discourse relations from the general pragmatic default priciples of exhaustivity—a kind of Gricean Quantity implicature—and topic continuity. In particular, these defaults lead to the inference of relations such as Elaboration, while other discourse relations, e.g. Narration and List are predicted to be ‘non-default’ and must be signalled, which contrasts with common assumptions in discourse theory. The present paper discusses some observations on the use of connectives and intonation in spontaneous speech which suggest that at least intonational signalling of such relations is obligatory.}, doi = {10.1075/pbns.194.04jas}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, Implicature}, keywords = {exhaustivity, topic, narration, discourse, intonation, rhetorical relations, rhetoric, quantity, implicature, conversational implicature}, } @Book{Kadmon2001, author = {Nirit Kadmon}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {Formal Pragmatics}, year = {2001}, address = {London}, abstract = {Formal Pragmatics addresses issues that are on the borderline of semantics and pragmatics of natural language, from the point of view of a model-theoretic semanticist. This up-to-date resource covers a substantial body of formal work on linguistic phenomena, and presents the way the semantics-pragmatics interface has come to be viewed today.}, comment = {Kadmon works through the basics of Heim’s File Change Semantics and Kamp’s Discourse Representation Theory, using them as the foundations of a general formal theory of pragmatics. She illustrates this approach with detailed discussions of scalar implicature, presupposition projection and the role of prosodic focus in interpretation.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Implicature}, keywords = {presupposition, semantics, pragmatics, context, focus, prosody, contrastive topic}, } @Article{Kehler2004, author = {Andrew Kehler}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {Discourse Topics, Sentence Topics, and Coherence}, year = {2004}, number = {2-3}, pages = {227-240}, volume = {30}, comment = {A response to Asher (2004). Kehler questions whether the notion of discourse topic is emergent from discourse coherence.}, doi = {10.1515/thli.2004.30.2-3.227}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {discourse topic, topic, semantics, parallel, contrast, narration, discourse coherence}, } @Article{Krifka2008, author = {Manfred Krifka}, journal = {Acta Linguistica Hungarica}, title = {Basic Notions of Information Structure}, year = {2008}, pages = {243-276}, volume = {55}, abstract = {This article takes stock of the basic notions of Information Structure (IS). It first provides a general characterization of IS—following Chafe (1976)—within a communicative model of Common Ground (CG), which distinguishes between CG content and CG management. IS is concerned with those features of language that affect the local CG. Second, this paper defines and discusses the notions of Focus (as indicating alternatives) and its various uses, Givenness (as indicating that a denotation is already present in the CG), and Topic (as specifying what a statement is about). It also proposes a new notion, Delimitation, which comprises contrastive topics and frame setters, and indicates that the current conversational move does not entirely satisfy the local communicative needs. It also points out that rhetorical structuring partly belongs to IS.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {information structure, focus, topic, givenness, contrast}, } @Article{Oberlander2004, author = {Jon Oberlander}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {On the Reduction of Discourse Topic}, year = {2004}, number = {2-3}, pages = {213-225}, volume = {30}, comment = {This paper explores the possibility of minimising the role of discourse topic. It is a response to Asher (2004).}, doi = {10.1515/thli.2004.30.2-3.213}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {narration, discourse topic, topic, contrastive topic, theme, parallel, contrast, plurals, anaphora}, } @Article{Rooij2003, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Questioning to Resolve Decision Problems}, year = {2003}, pages = {727-763}, volume = {26}, abstract = {Why do we ask questions? Because we want to have some information. But why this particular kind of information? Because only information of this particular kind is helpful to resolve the decision problem that the agent faces. In this paper I argue that questions are asked because their answers help to resolve the questioner’s decision problem, and that this assumption helps us to interpret interrogative sentences. Interrogative sentences are claimed to have a semantically underspecified meaning and this underspecification is resolved by means of the decision problem.}, comment = {van Rooij’s general approach to interpretation in discourse is based on Game Theory, and the assumption that interlocutors in discourse are engaged in a game. The overall body of work offers an extended exploration of the utility of game theory in the investigation of pragmatic issues. See references to the work of van Rooij and his colleagues in all of sections 2-9 below.}, doi = {10.1023/B:LING.0000004548.98658.8f}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {question, relevance, decision problem, context, domain, resolvedness, pragmatics, philosophy, decision theory, interrogative sentence}, } @Article{Rooij2003a, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {Asserting to Resolve Decision Problems}, year = {2003}, pages = {1161-1179}, volume = {35}, abstract = {Decision theory is used to define a notion of ‘relevance’ in terms of decision problems. Decision problems are also used to explain why attitude attributions are made. Assuming that belief attributions are made to explain unexpected actions, and that assertions have to be relevant, it is shown that potentially ambiguous, or underspecified, de re belief attributions can be disambiguated by context. The last part of the paper shows how decision problems can be used to derive conversational implicatures.}, doi = {10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00186-8}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {pragmatics, philosophy, decision problem, relevance, rationality, belief attribution, disambiguation, conversational implicature, decision theory}, } @Article{Rooij2003b, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Negative Polarity Items in Questions, Strength as Relevance}, year = {2003}, pages = {239-273}, volume = {20}, abstract = {The traditional approach towards (negative) polarity items is to answer the question in which contexts NPIs are licensed. The inspiring approaches of Kadmon & Landman (1990, 1993) (K&L) and Krifka (1990, 1992, 1995) go a major step further: they also seek to answer the question of why these contexts license NPIs. To explain the appropriate use of polarity items in questions, however, we need to answer an even more challenging question: why is a NPI used in a particular utterance in the first place? Kadmon & Landman and Krifka go some way to answer this question as well in terms of an entailment‐based notion of strength, but I seek to give the question a somewhat ‘deeper’ explanation. Strength will be though of as ‘relevance’ or ‘utility’, which only in special cases reduces to entailment. In questions, the information theoretical notion of ‘entropy’ will play a crucial role: NPIs are used in a question to increase the average informativity of its answers. To account for the rhetorical effect of the use of some NPIs in questions, I propose a domain widening analysis of so‐called ‘even NPIs’.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/20.3.239}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {polarity, interrogative sentences, pragmatics, any, rhetorical, information, entailment, entropy}, } @InCollection{Rooij2003c, author = {Robert van Rooij}, booktitle = {Pragmatics in Optimailty Theory}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, title = {Relevance and Bidirectional OT}, year = {2003}, editor = {Reinhard Blutner and Henk Zeevat}, pages = {173-210}, abstract = {According to optimality theoretic semantics (e.g., Hendriks and de Hoop, 2001), there exists a gap between the semantic representations of sentences and the thoughts actually communicated by utterances. How should this gap be filled? The obvious answer (Grice, 1957) seems to be that the hearer should recognize what the speaker thinks that the listener understands. Because this depends in turn, in a circular way, on what the listener thinks that the speaker has in mind, a game-theoretical framework seems natural to account for such situations. Intuitively, what goes on here is a game between a speaker and a hearer, where the former chooses a form to express the intended meaning, and the latter chooses a meaning corresponding to the form. Blutner’s Bidirectional Optimality Theory (OT), based on the assumption that both speaker and hearer optimize their conversational actions seems perfectly suitable to implement this. But how can a hearer recognize the speaker’s intentions? Gricean pragmatics (1975) suggests that she can do so by assuming that the speaker is cooperative and thus obeys the conversational maxims. Sperber and Wilson (1986) have suggested that these four conversational maxims can be reduced to the single principle of optimal relevance. In this chapter I will discuss how far this can be done. I will argue that conversation involves resolving one of the participants’ decision problems.}, doi = {10.1057/9780230501409_8}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {optimailty theory, scalar implicature, exhaustive interpretation, conversational maxim, exhaustivity operator, philosophy, semantics, game theory, pragmatics, cooperation, relevance, decision problem}, } @Article{Rooij2004, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Research on Language and Computation}, title = {Utility of Mention-Some Questions}, year = {2004}, pages = {401-416}, volume = {2}, abstract = {In this paper, I argue that the ‘ambiguity’ between mention-all and mention-some readings of questions can be resolved when we relate it to the decision problem of the questioner. By relating questions to decision problems, I (i) show how we can measure the utilities of both mention-all and mention-some readings of questions, and (ii) give a natural explanation under which circumstances the mention-some reading is preferred.}, doi = {10.1007/s11168-004-1975-0}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {decision theory, resolving underspecified questions}, } @Article{Stede2004, author = {Manfred Stede}, journal = {Theoretical LInguistics}, title = {Does Discourse Processing Need Discourse Topics}, year = {2004}, number = {2-3}, pages = {241-253}, volume = {30}, comment = {A response to Asher 2004. Through considerations about explicit topics, thematic continuity, and aboutness, Stede looks at 4 potential candidates for fleshing out the notion of discourse topic.}, doi = {10.1515/thli.2004.30.2-3.241}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {topic, information structure, discourse topic, aboutness, theme}, } @InCollection{Stone2004, author = {Matthew Stone}, booktitle = {Wold-Situated Language Use}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {Communicative intentions and conversational processes in human-human and humancomputer dialogue}, year = {2004}, editor = {John C Trueswell and Michael K Tanenhaus}, pages = {39-70}, abstract = {This chapter investigates the computational consequences of a broadly Gricean view of language use as intentional activity. In this view, dialogue rests on coordinated reasoning about communicative intentions. The speaker produces each utterance by formulating a suitable communicative intention. The hearer understands it by recognizing the communicative intention behind it. When this coordination is successful, interlocutors succeed in considering the same intentions— that is, the same representations of utterance meaning—as the dialogue proceeds. In this paper, I emphasize that these intentions can be formalized; we can provide abstract but systematic representations that spell out what a speaker is trying to do with an utterance. Such representations describe utterances simultaneously as the product of our knowledge of grammar and as actions chosen for a reason. In particular, they must characterize the speaker’s utterance in grammatical terms, provide the links to the context that the grammar requires, and so arrive at a contribution that the speaker aims to achieve. Because I have implemented this formalism, we can regard it as a possible analysis of conversational processes at the level of computational theory. Nevertheless, this analysis leaves open what the nature of the biological computation involved in inference to intentions is, and what regularities in language use support this computation.}, comment = {Stone is a computer scientist who works on artificial intelligence with a special focus on how agents collaborate in linguistic interpretation. He uses tools from planning theory to show how tasks and goals come to bear on interpretation. See his work with DeVault and Thomason on presupposition accommodation (section 8 and 9 of this bibliography) and the rich body of published work on interpretation on his website: http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~mdstone/publist-by-date.html.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {intention, psycholinguistics, grammar, computational linguistics, pragmatic, interpretation}, } @Article{Stone2004a, author = {Matthew Stone}, journal = {Cognitive Science}, title = {Intention, Interpretation and the Computational Structure of Language}, year = {2004}, number = {5}, pages = {781-809}, volume = {28}, abstract = {I show how a conversational process that takes simple, intuitively meaningful steps may be understood as a sophisticated computation that derives the richly detailed, complex representations implicit in our knowledge of language. To develop the account, I argue that natural language is structured in a way that lets us formalize grammatical knowledge precisely in terms of rich primitives of interpretation. Primitives of interpretation can be correctly viewed intentionally, as explanations of our choices of linguistic actions; the model therefore fits our intuitions about meaning in conversation. Nevertheless, interpretations for complex utterances can be built from these primitives by simple operations of grammatical derivation. In bridging analyses of meaning at semantic and symbol-processing levels, this account underscores the fundamental place for computation in the cognitive science of language use.}, doi = {10.1207/s15516709cog2805_7}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {dialogue, pragmatics, tree adjoining grammar}, } @Article{Zeevat2004, author = {Henk Zeevat}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {Asher on Discourse Topic}, year = {2004}, number = {2-3}, pages = {-211}, volume = {30}, comment = {A response to Asher (2004). Zeevat aims to address the question of what discourse topic could be, give an analysis of some cases of contrastive topics, and look at protagonists and anaphora.}, doi = {10.1515/thli.2004.30.2-3.203}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {anaphora, discourse topic, topic, coherence, contrastive topic}, } @Article{Kuppevelt1995, author = {Jan van Kuppevelt}, journal = {Journal of Linguistics}, title = {Discourse Structure, Topicality and Questioning}, year = {1995}, number = {1}, pages = {109-147}, volume = {31}, abstract = {In this paper we present an alternative approach to discourse structure according to which topicality is the general organizing principle in discourse. This approach accounts for the fact that the segmentation structure of discourse is in correspondence with the hierarchy of topics defined for the discourse units. Fundamental to the proposed analysis is the relation it assumes between the notion of topic and that of explicit and implicit questioning in discourse. This relation implies that (1) the topic associated with a discourse unit is provided by the explicit or implicit question it answers and (2) the relation between discourse units is determined by the relation between these topic-providing questions.}, doi = {10.1017/S002222670000058X}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {topic, discourse structure, explicit question, implicit question}, } @Article{Kuppevelt1996, author = {Jan van Kuppevelt}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Inferring from Topics: Implicatures as Topic-Dependent Inferences}, year = {1996}, number = {4}, pages = {393-443}, volume = {19}, doi = {10.1007/BF00630897}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {topic, conversational implicature, quantity, scalar implicature, pragmatics, inference, question, discourse structure, context, entailment}, } @PhdThesis{McCafferty1987, author = {Andrew McCafferty}, school = {University of Pittsburgh}, title = {Reasoning about Implicature}, year = {1987}, address = {Pittsburgh, PA}, groups = {Implicature}, priority = {prio1}, } @InCollection{Rooij2003d, author = {Robert van Rooij}, booktitle = {Current and New Directions in Discourse and Dialogue}, publisher = {Springer Netherlands}, title = {Conversational Implicatures and Communication Theory}, year = {2003}, address = {Dordrecht}, editor = {Jan C. J. van Kuppevelt and R. W. Smith}, pages = {283-303}, abstract = {According to standard pragmatics, we should account for conversational implicatures in terms of (1975) maxims of conversation. Neo-Griceans like (1981) and (1984) seek to reduce those maxims to the so-called Q and I-principles. In this paper I want to argue that (i) there are major problems for reducing Gricean pragmatics to these two principles, and (ii) that, in fact, we’d better account for implicatures in terms of the principles of (a) optimal relevance and (b) optimal coding. To formulate both, I will make use of (1948) mathematical theory of communication.}, doi = {10.1007/978-94-010-0019-2_13}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {pragmatics, communication theory, optimal code, conversational implicature, scalar implicature, actual interpretation}, } @Article{Rooij2010, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Conjunctive Interpretation of Disjunction}, year = {2010}, volume = {3}, abstract = {In this extended commentary I discuss the problem of how to account for “conjunctive” readings of some sentences with embedded disjunctions for globalist analyses of conversational implicatures. Following Franke (2010, 2009), I suggest that earlier proposals failed, because they did not take into account the interactive reasoning of what else the speaker could have said, and how else the hearer could have interpreted the (alternative) sentence(s). I show how Franke’s idea relates to more traditional pragmatic interpretation strategies.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.3.11}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {embedded implicatures, optimal interpretation, free choice permission, pragmatics, conversational implicature}, } @InProceedings{Simons2011, author = {Mandy Simons}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 21}, title = {Dynamic Pragmatics, or, why we shouldn't be afraid of embedded implicatures}, year = {2011}, editor = {Neil Ashton and Anca Chereches and David Lutz}, abstract = {This paper examines a particular case of embedded pragmatic effect, here dubbed local pragmatic enrichment. I argue that local enrichment is fairly easily accommodated within semantic theories which take content to be structured. Two standard approaches to dynamic semantics, DRT and Heimian CCS, are discussed as candidates. Focusing on cases of local enrichment of disjuncts in clausal disjunctions, I point out that in these cases, local enrichment is driven by global felicity requirements, demonstrating that the local/global distinction is not a simple dichotomy.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v21i0.2593}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {implicature, pragmatics, pragmatic intrusion, dynamic semantics, disjunction, scalar, meaning}, } @InCollection{Thomason1990, author = {Richmond Thomason}, booktitle = {Intentions in Communication}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {Accommodation, meaning, and implicature: Interdisciplinary foundations for pragmatics}, year = {1990}, address = {Cambridge, MA}, editor = {Phillip R. Cohen and Jerry Morgan and Martha E. Pollack}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {pragmatics, philosophy, semantic, context, plans, meaning, accomodation, intention}, } @PhdThesis{Welker1994, author = {Katherine Welker}, school = {The Ohio State University}, title = {Plans in the Common Ground: Toward a Generative Account of Implicature}, year = {1994}, abstract = {The focus of this dissertation is the development of a general framework which can serve as the basis for a formal pragmatic (as opposed to computational or processing) theory of one variety of pragmatic data: conversational implicature. From a larger perspective, this framework may also be seen as contributing toward a theory of conversational competence: a theory of the rules and mechanisms necessary to model what people know that allows them to use language in conversation. A fully developed theory of conversational competence will account for a variety of pragmatic data, such as conversational implicature, indirect speecch acts, accommodation of linguistic presuppositions, and processing/disambiguation. In this dissertation, I will primarily be concerned with its capacity to account for conversational implicature only, and will not attempt to show how the framework can be used to account for other kinds of data as well.}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {pragmatic, conversational implicature, implicature, knowledge, epistemic, epistemology, cooperative principle, maxims, common ground, plans, DRT, dynamic, dynamic semantics}, url = {https://linguistics.osu.edu/sites/linguistics.osu.edu/files/Welker_dissertation_1994.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Zondervan2008a, author = {Arjen Zondervan and Luisa Meroni and Andrea Gualmini}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 18}, title = {Experiments on the role of the question under discussion for ambiguity resolution and implicature computation in adults}, year = {2008}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v18i0.2486}, groups = {Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental pragmatics, question under discussion, context, scope ambiguity, scalar implicature, question answer requirement, adult speaker, children}, } @Article{Beck1999, author = {Sigrid Beck and Hotze Rullmann}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {A flexible approach to exhaustivity in questions}, year = {1999}, number = {3}, pages = {249-298}, volume = {7}, abstract = {A semantics for interrogatives is presented which is based on Karttunen's theory, but in a flexible manner incorporates both weak and strong exhaustivity. The paper starts out by considering degree questions, which often require an answer picking out the maximal degree from a certain set. However, in some cases, depending on the semantic properties of the question predicate, reference to the minimal degree is required, or neither specifying the maximum nor the minimum is sufficient. What is needed is an operation which defines the maximally informative answer on the basis of the Karttunen question denotation. Shifting attention to non-degree questions, two notions of answerhood are adopted from work by Heim. The first of these is weakly exhaustive and the second strongly exhaustive. The second notion of answerhood is proven to be equivalent to Groenendijk and Stokhof s interrogative semantics. On the basis of a wide range of empirical data showing that questions often are not interpreted exhaustively, it is argued that a fairly rich system of semantic objects associated with questions is needed to account for the various ways in which questions contribute to the semantics and pragmatics of the utterances in which they appear.}, doi = {10.1023/A:1008373224343}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {maximality, interrogative sentences, verbs, semantics, scalars, predicates, intensionality, nouns, exhaustivity, pragmatics}, } @Article{Klinedinst2011, author = {Nathan Klinedinst and Daniel Rothschild}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Exhaustivity in questions with non-factives}, year = {2011}, pages = {1-23}, volume = {4}, abstract = {This paper is concerned with the conditions under which a person can be said to have told someone or predicted (the answer to a question like) 'who sang'. It is standardly claimed that while (i) the true answer must be completely specified, it is not necessary that (ii) it be specified *as being* the complete answer. Here the non-factive verbs 'tell' and 'predict' are said to differ from the factive verb 'know', which typically does impose the *strong exhaustivity* requirement in (ii). We argue for an intermediate reading of 'tell' and 'predict' that requires more than (i) but less than (ii). To account for this reading we claim that the exhaustivity requirement (ii) imposed by 'know' is due to an operator than can apply non-locally. Applying the operator above a non-factive verb derives the intermediate reading, whereas doing so is vacuous in the case of factives. Thus, we derive the intermediate reading, and differences in the exhaustivity requirements imposed by factives and non-factives, without lexical stipulation.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.4.2}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {exhaustivity, questions, implicature, focus, type-shifting, semantics, pragmatics, prediction, tell, know}, } @Article{Rooij2004a, author = {Robert van Rooij and Katrin Schulz}, journal = {Journal of Logic, Language, and Information}, title = {Exhaustive interpretation of complex sentences}, year = {2004}, pages = {491-519}, volume = {13}, abstract = {In terms of Groenendijk and Stokhof’s (1984) formalization of exhaustive interpretation, many conversational implicatures can be accounted for. In this paper we justify and generalize this approach. Our justification proceeds by relating their account via Halpern and Moses’ (1984) non-monotonic theory of ‘only knowing’ to the Gricean maxims of Quality and the first sub-maxim of Quantity. The approach of Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984) is generalized such that it can also account for implicatures that are triggered in subclauses not entailed by the whole complex sentence.}, doi = {10.1007/s10849-004-2118-6}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {circumscription, conversational implicature, exhaustivity, non-monotonic reasoning, pragmatics, implicature, scalar implicature, maxims, semantics, predicates, inference, language translation, intuition, formalization, philosophy}, } @Article{Schulz2006, author = {Katrin Schulz and Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Pragmatic Meaning and Non-monotonic Reasoning: The Case of Exhaustive Interpretation}, year = {2006}, pages = {205-250}, volume = {29}, abstract = {In this paper an approach to the exhaustive interpretation of answers is developed. It builds on a proposal brought forward by Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984). We will use the close connection between their approach and McCarthy’s (1980, 1986) predicate circumscription and describe exhaustive interpretation as an instance of interpretation in minimal models, well-known from work on counterfactuals (see for instance Lewis (1973)). It is shown that by combining this approach with independent developments in semantics/pragmatics one can overcome certain limitations of Groenenedijk and Stokhof’s (1984) proposal. In the last part of the paper we will provide a Gricean motivation for exhaustive interpretation building on work of Schulz (to appear) and van Rooij and Schulz (2004).}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-005-3760-4}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {exhaustivity, predicate, reasoning, philosophy, pragmatics, interpretation, judgment, logic, counterfactuals}, } @InCollection{Zeevat2007, author = {Henk Zeevat}, booktitle = {Questions in Dynamic Semantics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {Exhaustivity, questions and plurals in update semantics}, year = {2007}, editor = {Maria Aloni and Alastair Butler and Paul Dekker and Ken Turner}, pages = {159-192}, abstract = {This chapter presents an exhaustification operator in update semantics and discusses a series of applications of this operator. The exhaustification operator takes an open formula and assigns values to the free variables such that the formula is true as a result and entails all versions of the formula that can be obtained from the formula by assigning other values to the free variables for which the formula is true. Update semantics is a general name for any theory of language that explains the semantic properties of its expressions in terms of the information change that they bring about on information states. Exhaustive updates are updates with a formula whose discourse markers in the update are exhaustified with respect to the formula. A logical representation of questions needs to have a question operator and a way for marking Wh-elements. Scalar implicatures is area in which exhaustification does provide a direct explanation.}, doi = {10.1163/9780080470993_009}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {exhaustivity, update semantics, semantics, information states, scalar implicatures, questions, common ground, dynamic semantics}, } @InCollection{Aloni2007, author = {Maria Aloni and David Beaver and Brady Clark and Robert van Rooij}, booktitle = {Questions in Dynamic Semantics}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {The Dynamics of Topic and Focus}, year = {2007}, editor = {Maria Aloni and Alastair Butler and Paul Dekker}, pages = {123-145}, abstract = {A dynamic view on meanings as context change potentials provides a substantial account of the dependence of focused answers on the context set up by their preceding questions. Questions pose conditions on the focal structure of their answers and can further restrict the domain of subsequent focusing operators like only. Standard analyses of focus define congruence in terms of identity between the question meaning and the focal alternatives of the answer. Most existing dynamic analyses of questions have been developed in the tradition of the partition theory of Groenendijk and Stokhof. This chapter presents update semantics of questions and focuses building on Gawron's dynamic model of domain restriction. It describes how dynamic analysis gives an interesting characterization of the notion of discourse congruence which covers contextual restrictions. Finally, the chapter explains how questions can restrict the domain of quantificational sentences used later in a discourse within dynamic semantics.}, doi = {10.1163/9780080470993_007}, groups = {Topic}, keywords = {dynamic semantics, context, focus, topic, update semantics, domain restriction, quantificational sentence}, } @PhdThesis{Fintel1996, author = {Kai von Fintel}, school = {UMass/Amherst}, title = {Restrictions on Quantifier Domains}, year = {1996}, abstract = {This dissertation investigates the ways in which natural language restricts the domains of quantifiers. Adverbs of quantification are analyzed as quantifying over situations (instead of being unselective quantifiers). The domain of quantifiers is pragmatically constrained: apparent processes of “semantic partition” are treated as pragmatic epiphenomena. The introductory Chapter 1 sketches some of the background of work on natural language quantification and begins the analysis of adverbial quantification over situations. Chapter 2 develops the central picture of “semantic partition” as a side-effect of pragmatic processes of anaphora resolution. I argue that the apparent effects of topic/focus articulation and presuppositional information on the interpretation of quantifiers are not the result of a direct and local mechanism of sentence grammar. Instead, I develop an analysis where the link is established via the anaphoric dependence of quantifier domains on the discourse context. Chapter 3 discusses the analysis of conditional clauses as quantifier restrictors, concentrating on the question whether conditional clauses restrict quantifiers directly (like common noun phrases restrict determiner-quantifiers) or indirectly (like topic/focus restrict quantifiers). A treatment is explored which has if-clauses constrain the value of the hidden domain variable of the restricted quantifier. Chapter 4, on unless clauses, and Chapter 5, on only if- and even if-clauses, present some issues in the compositional analysis of complex conditional clauses. These chapters significantly expand the data coverage of the theory of A-quantification. Building on previous work of mine on exceptives, I analyze unless-clauses as exceptive operators on A-quantifiers. The analysis of only if-clauses, treated as conditional clauses that combine if with the focus adverb only, unearthes some interesting new properties. Chapter 6, finally, examines the phenomenon of donkey anaphora in the light of the results of the previous chapters. I show that a solution to the proportion problem may become possible once we combine the situation-semantic approach to adverbial quantification with the pragmatic theory developed in Chapter 2 and further elaborated in the analysis of donkey anaphora in complex conditionals.}, groups = {Topic}, keywords = {domain, quantification, quantifiers, adverbs, domain restriction, partition, conditional, anaphora, topic, conditional clauses, only}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jA3N2IwN/fintel-1994-thesis.pdf}, } @InProceedings{McNally1998a, author = {Louise McNally}, booktitle = {The Tbilisi Symposium on language, logic and computation}, title = {On recent formal analyses of ‘topic’}, year = {1998}, editor = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Zurab Khasidashvili and Carl Vogel and Jean-Jacques L\'{e}vy and Enric Vallduv\'{i}}, pages = {147-160}, publisher = {CSLI Press}, comment = {McNally examines whether or not there's anything special about sentence topic. They argue that discourse topic is what call for a good formal characterization.}, groups = {Topic, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {sentence topic, semantics, discourse, pragmatics, topic, questions, cross-linguistic, Japanese, non-English}, url = {https://www.upf.edu/documents/2979964/0/tbilisi.pdf/a1cb0f6c-bfa7-45a1-bee5-fc5da4ddecf8}, } @InProceedings{McNally1998, author = {Lousie McNally}, booktitle = {The Limits of Syntax}, title = {Towards a Theory of the Linguistic Coding of Information Packaging Instructions}, year = {1998}, address = {NY}, editor = {Peter Culicover and Louise McNally}, pages = {161-183}, publisher = {Academic Press}, groups = {Topic, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {information packaging instructions, dynamic semantics, cross-linguistic, focus, rheme, add information, universal}, url = {https://www.upf.edu/documents/2979964/0/McNally_Info_Pack.pdf/eee85098-def6-4111-89ac-7aec44deca0f}, } @Article{Portner2002, author = {Paul Portner}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Topicality and (non-)specificity in Mandarin}, year = {2002}, number = {3}, pages = {275-287}, volume = {19}, abstract = {This paper presents arguments based on data from Mandarin Chinese for the idea that specific interpretations of indefinites arise when the domain of quantification for the indefinite is a topic. In particular, when the sentence has a topic (overt or covert) which represents a small fixed set or function from contextual parameters to sets, and an indefinite quantifies over this set, the indefinite will seem to get a fixed reference and have wide scope. The Chinese distributive marker dou is especially helpful in developing this hypothesis because it shows various complex interactions with indefinites, topics, and specificity; these interactions allow us to uncover evidence for crucial components of the analysis of specificity.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/19.3.275}, groups = {Topic}, keywords = {non-English, Mandarin, Chinese, indefinites, topics, specificity, syntax, indefinite noun phrase}, } @Article{Portner1998, author = {Paul Portner and Katsuhiko Yabushita}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {The semantics and pragmatics of topic phrases}, year = {1998}, pages = {117-157}, volume = {21}, doi = {10.1023/A:1005311504497}, groups = {Topic}, keywords = {Artificial Intelligence, Computational Linguistics, Topic Phrase, topic, semantics, pragmatics, Japanese, non-English, question under discussion, focus}, } @Article{Portner2001, author = {Paul Portner and Katsuhiko Yabushita}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Specific indefinites and the information structure theory of topics}, year = {2001}, pages = {271-297}, volume = {18}, abstract = {Concentrating on data from Japanese, this paper examines the relationship between topicality and the specificity of indefinites. We argue that in many instances specificity arises when the domain of quantification for an indefinite is both topical and extremely narrow. We also discuss instances where the domain of quantification varies with some other operator, analyzing these in terms of a topical domain function, that is a function given in the context which provides the indefinite with a domain of quantification relative to implicit arguments. Our view builds on two popular ideas about specific indefinites: that they are a kind of presuppositional indefinite and that they are referential elements analyzed via choice functions. We formalize our ideas in terms of the analysis of topicality put forth in Portner & Yabushita (1998).}, doi = {10.1093/jos/18.3.271}, groups = {Topic}, keywords = {Japanese, non-English, syntax, topic, specificity, information structure, domain of quantification, presupposition, choice functions}, } @InCollection{Rooij2017, author = {Robert van Rooij and Katrin Schulz}, booktitle = {Contrastiveness in Information Structure, Alternatives and Scalar Implicatures}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Topic, Focus, and Exhaustive Interpretation}, year = {2017}, editor = {Chungmin Lee and Ferenc Kiefer and Manfred Krifka}, pages = {63-82}, abstract = {In this paper, we propose that a sentence like John ate broccoli should pragmatically be interpreted as follows: (a) Focus should be interpreted exhaustively; John ate only broccoli; (b) Topic must be interpreted exhaustively: Only John ate (only) broccoli; and (c) The speaker takes it to be possible (or even knows, if he is competent) that at least one alternative of the form x ate y not entailed by the sentence is true. It will be shown that in terms of this analysis we can also account for all the scope-inversion data of Büring (Linguist Philos 20: 175–194, 1997), without giving rise to some of the problems of the latter analysis.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-10106-4_4}, groups = {Topic}, keywords = {topic, focus, exhaustive interpretation, dynamic semantics, questions, economic encoding, scalar implicatures}, } @Article{Beaver2003, author = {David Beaver and Brady Clark}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {\textit{Always} and \textit{Only}: Why not all focus sensitive operators are alike}, year = {2003}, pages = {323-362}, volume = {11}, abstract = {We discuss focus sensitivity in English, the phenomenon whereby interpretation of some expressions is affected by placement of intonational focus. We concentrate in particular on the interpretation of always and only, both of which are interpreted as universal quantifiers, and both of which are focus sensitive. Using both naturally occurring and constructed data we explore the interaction of these operators with negative polarity items, with presupposition, with prosodically reduced elements, and with syntactic extraction. On the basis of this data we show that while only lexically encodes a dependency on the placement of focus, always does not. Rather, the focus sensitivity of always results from its dependency on context, and from the fact that focus also reflects what is given in the context. We account for this split using an analysis couched in event semantics.}, doi = {10.1023/A:1025542629721}, groups = {Focus, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {negative polarity, universal quantifier, quantifiers, event semantic, polarity item, focus, presupposition, prosody, syntactic extraction, only, always}, } @Book{Beaver2008, author = {David Beaver and Brady Clark}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Sense and Sensitivity: How focus determines meaning}, year = {2008}, address = {Oxford}, abstract = {Sense and Sensitivity advances a novel research proposal in the nascent field of formal pragmatics, exploring in detail the semantics and pragmatics of focus in natural language discourse. The authors develop a new account of focus sensitivity, and show that what has hitherto been regarded as a uniform phenomenon in fact results from three different mechanisms. The book makes a major contribution to ongoing research in the area of focus sensitivity – a field exploring interactions between sound and meaning, specifically the dependency some words have on the effects of focus, such as "she only LIKES me" (i.e. nothing deeper) compared to "she only likes ME" (i.e. nobody else). Discusses the features of the QFC theory (Quasi association, Free association, and Conventional association), a new account of focus implying a tripartite typology of focus-sensitive expressions. Presents novel cross-linguistic data on focus and focus sensitivity that will be relevant across a range of linguistic sub-fields: semantics and pragmatics, syntax, and intonational phonology. Concludes with a case study of exclusives (like “only”), arguing that the entire existing literature has missed crucial generalizations, and for the first time explaining the focus sensitivity of these expressions in terms of their meaning and discourse function}, groups = {Focus, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {pragmatics, formal pragmatics, focus, focus sensitivity, QFC theory, cross-linguistic, non-English, syntax, intonational phonology, only, ellipsis, monotonicity, presupposition, exclusives}, } @Book{Buering1997, editor = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, publisher = {Routledge}, title = {The Meaning of Topic and Focus: The 59th Street Bridge accent}, year = {1997}, address = {London}, abstract = {This study provides an illuminating and ground-breaking account of the complex interaction of intonational phenomena, semantics and pragmatics. Based on examples from German and English, and centred on an analysis of the fall-rise intonation contour, a semantic interpretation for two different pitch accents - Focus and Topic - is developed. The cross-sentence, as well as the sentence internal semantic effects of these accents, follow from the given treatment. The account is based on Montogovian possible world semantics and Chomskian generative syntax.}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {non-English, German, topic, focus, pitch accent, cross-linguistic, semantics, pragmatics, universal, scope, intonation, grammar}, } @Article{Buering2003, author = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {On D-Trees, Beans, and B-Accents}, year = {2003}, number = {5}, pages = {511-545}, volume = {26}, abstract = {This paper presents a comprehensive pragmatic theory ofcontrastive topic and its relation to focus in English.In discussing various constructions involving contrastive topics,it argues that they make reference to complex, hierarchicalaspects of discourse structure. In this, it follows and spellsout a proposal sketched in Roberts (1996, p. 121ff),using the formal tools found in Büring (1994,1997b). It improves on existing accounts in the accuracy with which it predicts the non-occurrence of the accent patterns associated with focus and contrastive topic, and locates the analysis of contrastive topicswithin a broader picture of discourse and information structure.}, comment = {Buering (2003) offers an influential analysis of contrastive topics like example (6) in Roberts2012a in terms of the QUD framework. He uses tree-structured discourses instead of the QUD stack, but (as pointed out by an anonymous reviewer) it isn’t clear that the distinction makes a difference empirically. See also sections 2 and 3.}, doi = {10.1023/A:1025887707652}, groups = {Focus, Contrastive Topic and Strategies of Inquiry, Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {contrastive topic, discourse structure, focus, accent patterns, information structure, artificial intelligence, philosophy, computational linguistics}, } @InCollection{Buering2006, author = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, booktitle = {The Architecture of Focus}, publisher = {Mouton de Gruyter}, title = {Focus projection and default prominence}, year = {2006}, editor = {Val\'{e}ria Moln\'{a}r and Susanne Winkler}, abstract = {I argue that focus projection rules in English should be reduced to a simple prominence principle, combined with a theory of default prominence. Novel data are presented to show that commonly assumed restrictions on focus projection -- that it is possible only from heads and complements -- do not in fact hold. A more adequate theory is one that places less restrictions on focus projection, and ultimately allows us to completely eliminate F-markers from the theory of grammar.}, doi = {10.1515/9783110922011.321}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {focus, focus projection, syntax, structure tree, accent}, } @InCollection{Buering2007, author = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Interfaces}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Semantics, Intonation, and information structure}, year = {2007}, editor = {Gillian Ramchand and Charles Reiss}, abstract = {This article explores the influences of information structure (IS) on intonation. It proposes an account whereby a single syntactic representation, which contains formal features such as focus (F), and contrastive topic (CT), is seen by both the phonological and interpretational modules of the grammar. The two aspects of IS that have received the most attention in recent formal work on IS – focus background and topic comment – are given. For each, a sketch of their realization and, more extensively, their interpretation, is offered. The article then addresses the effect of IS on constituent order in various languages. It is shown that IS realization can be thought of as a set of mapping requirements, in addition to those of default prosody, between syntactic structure and prosodic structure, which make reference to the IS representations (e.g. F and CT marking) in the syntax.}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199247455.013.0015}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {semantics, pragmatics, focus, information structure, intonation, focus background, contrastive topic, topic, constiuent order, prosody, grammar}, } @InProceedings{Buering2008, author = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, booktitle = {Proceedings of BLS 34}, title = {What's New (and What's Given) in the theory of focus?}, year = {2008}, publisher = {Berkeley Linguistics Society and the Linguistic Society of America}, doi = {10.3765/bls.v34i1.3586}, groups = {Focus, Embedded Contrastive Focus}, keywords = {focus, semantics, focus semantic values, domain, salence, anaphora, contrast}, } @InCollection{Buering2009, author = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, booktitle = {Information Structure}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Towards a typology of focus realization}, year = {2009}, editor = {Malte Zimmermann and Carole F\'{e}ry}, pages = {177-205}, abstract = {Chapter 8 ‘Towards a Typology of Focus Realization’ by Daniel Büring presents a first attempt to formulate a cross‐linguistic theory of focus realization, that is, of how different languages express focusing. By far not all languages mark focused constituents via pitch accent placement, the way Germanic languages do. Rather, focusing is variously reflected in prosodic phrasing, constituent ordering, via special focus morphemes, and perhaps in some cases, not at all. The chapter explores the hypothesis that there is still something systematic to be said about focus realization, that is, that there is a common analytical apparatus that can capture the cross‐linguistic variation, based on the Prominence Theory of Focus Realization.}, doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570959.003.0008}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {focus, intonation, prosodic phrasing, cross-linguistic, prosody, ordering, pitch, accent}, } @Article{Fery2006, author = {Carole F\'{e}ry and Vieri Samek-Lodovici}, journal = {Language}, title = {Focus projection and prosodic prominence in nested foci}, year = {2006}, number = {1}, pages = {131-150}, volume = {82}, doi = {10.1353/lan.2006.0031}, groups = {Focus, Embedded Contrastive Focus}, keywords = {focus, pitch, accent, syntax, stress, prosodic constituents, prosody, prosodic economy, optimality, optimality theory}, } @InProceedings{Grubic2011, author = {Mira Grubic and Malte Zimmermann}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn & Bedeutung}, title = {Conventional and free association with focus in Ngamo (West Chadic)}, year = {2011}, address = {Saarbr\"{u}cken, Germany}, editor = {Ingo Reich and Eva Horch and Dennis Pauly}, pages = {291-305}, publisher = {Universaar – Saarland University Press}, volume = {15}, abstract = {The paper discusses association with focus in Ngamo (West Chadic, Afro-Asiatic). We present evidence from thisnon-Indoeuropean language in favour of Beaver& Clark (2008)’s claim that different kinds of focus-sensitive elements interact with the meaning of focus in different ways, namely conventional association with focus vs free association.We show that exclusive particles (only) in Ngamo, as in English, conventionally associate with focus. (Scalar-) Additive particles (also, even), by contrast, do not pattern like their English counterparts: Same as Q-adverbials, they are more free in their association behaviour, and can also associate with non-focused elements under certain conditions.}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {non-English, Ngamo, West Chad, Afro-Asiatic, focus, meaning, conventional, free association, particles, only, cross-linguistic}, url = {https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/382}, } @Unpublished{Kadmon2000, author = {Nirit Kadmon}, note = {Ms, Tel Aviv University, from a talk given at the Colloque de Syntaxe et S\'{e}mantique, Universit\'{e} de Paris V}, title = {Some theories of the interpretation of accent placement}, year = {2000}, abstract = {This paper is concerned with the way in which discourse congruence depends upon the location of pitch accents. For the sake of brevity, I will concentrate on the congruence of question-answer pairs, although every claim or proposal below either has been or can (I think) be applied to other sorts of pieces of discourse as well.}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {questions, pitch, accent, syntax, focus, Selkirk, Schwarzschild, givenness, recoverability}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/TI3Njg1M/Kadmon-ms-2009-interp-of-pitch-accent-placement.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Kadmon2010, author = {Nirit Kadmon and Aldo Sevi}, booktitle = {Formal Semantics and Pragmatics: Discourse, Context, and Models}, title = {Without `Focus'}, year = {2010}, publisher = {The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication}, volume = {6}, abstract = {It is widely accepted that a notion of 'focus', more or less as conceived of in Jackendoff (1972), must be incorporated into our theory of grammar, as a means of accounting for certain observed correlations between prosodic facts and semantic/pragmatic facts. In this paper, we put forth the somewhat radical idea that the time has come to give up this customary view, and eliminate 'focus' from our theory of grammar. We argue that such a move is both economical and fruitful. Research over the years has revealed that the correlations between prosody, 'focus', and the alleged semantic/pragmatic effects of focus are much less clear and systematic than we may have initially hoped. First we argue that this state of affairs detracts significantly from the utility of our notion of 'focus', to the point of calling into question the very motivation for including it in the grammar. Then we look at some of the central data, and show how they might be analyzed without recourse to a notion of 'focus'. We concentrate on (i) the effect of pitch accent placement on discourse congruence, and (ii) the choice of 'associate' for the so-called 'focus sensitive' adverb only. We argue that our focus-free approach to the data improves empirical coverage, and begins to reveal patterns that have previously been obscured by preconceptions about 'focus'.}, doi = {10.4148/biyclc.v6i0.1585}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {focus, grammar, prosody, semantic, pragmatic, pitch, accent, discourse congruence, associate, focus sensitivity}, } @InCollection{Krifka1992, author = {Manfred Krifka}, booktitle = {Informationsstruktur und Grammatik}, publisher = {Westdeutscher Verlag}, title = {A compositional semantics for multiple focus constructions}, year = {1992}, address = {Weisbaden, Germany}, editor = {Joachim Jacobs}, pages = {17-53}, abstract = {The subject of this article is the semantics of focus, i.e. the development of a framework in which we can formulate the influence of focus on the semantic and pragmatic interpretation. In section 1, I will discuss such a framework, structured meanings. In section 2, I will point out some of its shortcomings, as it is currently worked out; they have to do with cases involving multiple foci. In 3, I develop a general representation format in which we can cope with these problematic cases. Finally, in 4, I will discuss some extensions and possible problems, among others a combined semantic treatment of focus and topic.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-663-12176-3_2}, groups = {Focus, Embedded Contrastive Focus}, keywords = {focus, semantics, pragmatics, interpretation, structured meanings, multiple foci, topic}, } @InProceedings{Onea2010, author = {Edgar Onea and David Beaver}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) XIX, 2009}, title = {Hungarian focus is not exhausted}, year = {2010}, address = {Ithaca, NY}, editor = {Ed Cormany and Satoshi Ito and David Lutz}, publisher = {CLC Publications}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v19i0.2524}, groups = {Focus, Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {non-English, Hungarian, focus, exhaustive, only, informational focus, identificational focus, exhaustivity, prosody, prosodic focus, particles, experimental pragmatics}, } @PhdThesis{Rooth1985, author = {Mats E. Rooth}, school = {UMass/Amherst}, title = {Association with Focus}, year = {1985}, abstract = {Suppose John introduced Bill and Tom to Sue and performed no other introductions. Then (i) "John only introduced Bill to SUE" is true, while (ii) "John only introduced BILL to Sue" is false, where capitalization symbolizes a focus marked by a phonetic prominence. Two analyses of this phenomenon of association with focus are considered. The scope theory posits a logical form in which the focused phrase and a lambda abstract with a bound variable in the position of the focused phrases are arguments of "only." According to the domain selection theory I propose, (i) and (ii) have a function-argument structure mirroring the syntax. The translation of "only" has two arguments, the VP translation and the translation of the subject NP; (i) expresses a quantification over properties. Focus contributes to the meaning of (i) by delimiting the domain of quantification to properties of the form 'introduce Bill to y,' where y is an individual. This yields an assertion: if John has a property of the form 'introduce Bill to y', then it is the property introduce Bill to Sue.' This is similar in truth conditions to the assertion produced by the scope theory, namely 'if John introduced Bill to y, then y is Sue.' This idea is executed by including a recursive definition of the sets which will serve as domains of quantification in a Montague grammar. It is argued that the domain selection theory is superior in several ways. In particular, no bound variable in the position of the focused phrase is postulated; the relation between "only" or "even" and a focused phrase violates structural conditions on bound variables. Chomsky's crossover argument for assigning scope to focused phrases is answered. The proposal is extended to cases where "only" and "even" modify NP and various other categories by means of a crosscategorical semantics analogous to the crosscategorical semantics for conjunction proposed by Gazdar and others. Other constructions discussed are association of focus with adverbs of quantification (MARY always takes John to the movies, Mary always takes JOHN to the movies), clefts (it is JOHN's father who came, it is Johns FATHER who came), and conditionals}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {focus, phonetics, scope, binding, only, domain selection, quantification, assertion, even, adverbs, conditionals}, url = {https://ecommons.cornell.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1813/28568/Rooth-1985-PhD.pdf?sequence=2}, } @Article{Rooth1992, author = {Mats E. Rooth}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {A theory of Focus Interpretation}, year = {1992}, pages = {75-116}, volume = {1}, abstract = {According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various.}, doi = {10.1007/BF02342617}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {meaning, focus interpretation, pragmatic, semantics, uniform, intonation}, } @InCollection{Rooth1996, author = {Mats E. Rooth}, booktitle = {Handbook of Semantics}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Focus}, year = {1996}, address = {London}, editor = {Shalom Lappin}, groups = {Focus}, priority = {prio1}, } @InProceedings{Rooth1996a, author = {Mats E. Rooth}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT VI}, title = {On the interface principles for intonational focus}, year = {1996}, address = {Ithaca, NY}, editor = {Teresa Galloway and Justin Spence}, pages = {202-226}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v6i0.2767}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {anaphora, focus, grammar, congruence, adverbs, focus effects, comparatives, contrast, only, semantics, syntax, indirect-anaphora}, } @Article{Schwarzschild1999, author = {Roger Schwarzschild}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {GIVENness, AvoidF and other Constraints on the placement of accent}, year = {1999}, number = {2}, pages = {141-177}, volume = {7}, abstract = {This paper strives to characterize the relation between accent placement and discourse in terms of independent constraints operating at the interface between syntax and interpretation. The Givenness Constraint requires un-F-marked constituents to be given. Key here is our definition of givenness, which synthesizes insights from the literature on the semantics of focus with older views on information structure. AvoidF requires speakers to economize on F-marking. A third constraint requires a subset of F-markers to dominate accents. The characteristic prominence patterns of "novelty focus" and "contrastive focus" both arise from a combination of the Givenness Constraint and AvoidF. Patterns of prominence in questions as well as in answers to questions are explained in terms of the constraints, thanks in part to the way in which the Givenness relation is defined. Head/argument asymmetries noted in the literature on Focus Projection are placed in the phonology-syntax interface, independent of discourse conditions. Deaccenting follows when AvoidF is ranked higher than constraint(s) governing head/argument asymmetries.}, doi = {10.1023/A:1008370902407}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {information structure, characteristic prominence, independent constraint, discourse condition, contrastive focus, accent, syntax, interpretation, givenness, semantics, novelty focus, focus projection}, } @InCollection{Selkirk1996, author = {Elisabeth O. Selkirk}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Phonological Theory}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Sentence Prosody: Intonation, stress and phrasing}, year = {1996}, address = {London}, editor = {John Goldsmith}, groups = {Focus}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Steedman2000, author = {Mark Steedman}, journal = {Linguistic Inquiry}, title = {Information structure and the syntax-phonology interface}, year = {2000}, number = {4}, pages = {549-689}, volume = {31}, abstract = {The article proposes a theory of grammar relating syntax, discourse semantics, and intonational prosody. The full range of English intonational tunes distinguished by Beckman and Pierrehumbert (1986) and their semantic interpretation in terms of focus and information structure are discussed, including ‘‘discontinuous’’ themes and rhemes. The theory extends an earlier account based on Combinatory Categorial Grammar, which directly pairs phonological and logical forms without intermediary representational levels.}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {intonation, syntax, information structure, combinatory categorical grammar, topic, comment, theme, rheme, focus, phonological form, prosody}, url = {https://watermark.silverchair.com/002438900554505.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAqcwggKjBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKUMIICkAIBADCCAokGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMcvGab6fUsne9R9jyAgEQgIICWqnm1atrWOdVqT0FKRHQ8mp4cSIe_HiKAytDwY8JB-YX8k0-haiPs0bSS6rfbXIQWQOmMKEi_KxJbHmeBe3ynT62mH7E_VUxZG_InJS-hUY88oBSwVLo8V0iggC7mRKZ5BMMjPekOYBPU1gxkYkCKb5mwFRqLWhcpYcGJmV3sjmf15JMgD3PWkwf8Ta0cgp6PKYDXtElDIeRAh4Dv9UnLbVptlfbSVgayV4xVhGtbkFHNJcuMAmL0osdE3cXV2jhPbhC5b8uKGmBVsU0K6YB4jF8qd4p6MIPvTRqbvucorutgwu5lNyEQfv-uTOwnxIoLLMnmjt7yBb71xVyw-OxWpixEqkbMyS0rq2-Qv62XGOOQbOcP4gg3WKgCwwHUYj8AiU_cSsV7kbnDVCg2tC1sPPy6AwkOcOCtFZpMMu4hShiU7M8XnMrHwlzmhy2RL9kcRuZm3PYo0OdedAEQvGG1bHQMOvXe2nit1GBXjHSUhiX70U295979_nR8Zpu7aSU6Zb0KgiNNv6tmWl1ReeDes_8hViJAH_HPHLHj9PIYJSWs0HVRFCfe4eQVwWobO6UOKMNL18aFwn46VoZT1tlaz-albIHgwGUQZmggcwmRdPt7ALEbtR6jOLMWtSF2aVH6WtCfa_7wDQQNnTljieC_KVhwvjcV70RjbEgiiQVTjBPHNugqpRsFp4olj2XlM_JE-0IN6rNSiU_bLFXAe5Qr7HHu7XS5S_E3w4a7JmfTpGmvCd4yR-opuuEU9u8D1NrBE9c1ICk__FZuPfOh4jktGH0BVP6a9u1vY46}, } @Book{Steedman2001, author = {Mark Steedman}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {The Syntactic Process (Language, Speech, and Communication)}, year = {2001}, address = {Cambridge, MA}, abstract = {In this book Mark Steedman argues that the surface syntax of natural languages maps spoken and written forms directly to a compositional semantic representation that includes predicate-argument structure, quantification, and information structure without constructing any intervening structural representation. His purpose is to construct a principled theory of natural grammar that is directly compatible with both explanatory linguistic accounts of a number of problematic syntactic phenomena and a straightforward computational account of the way sentences are mapped onto representations of meaning. The radical nature of Steedman's proposal stems from his claim that much of the apparent complexity of syntax, prosody, and processing follows from the lexical specification of the grammar and from the involvement of a small number of universal rule-types for combining predicates and arguments. These syntactic operations are related to the combinators of Combinatory Logic, engendering a much freer definition of derivational constituency than is traditionally assumed. This property allows Combinatory Categorial Grammar to capture elegantly the structure and interpretation of coordination and intonation contour in English as well as some well-known interactions between word order, coordination, and relativization across a number of other languages. It also allows more direct compatibility with incremental semantic interpretation during parsing. The book covers topics in formal linguistics, intonational phonology, computational linguistics, and experimental psycholinguistics, presenting them as an integrated theory of the language faculty in a form accessible to readers from any of those fields.}, groups = {Focus, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, intonational phonology, intonation, formal linguistics, grammar, focus, prosody, processing, universal, logic}, } @PhdThesis{Szendroei2001, author = {Kriszta Szendr\"{o}i}, school = {University College London}, title = {Focus and the syntax-phonology interface}, year = {2001}, groups = {Focus}, priority = {prio1}, } @PhdThesis{Truckenbrodt1995, author = {Hubert Truckenbrodt}, school = {MIT}, title = {Phonological Phrases—Their relation to syntax, focus, and prominence}, year = {1995}, groups = {Focus, Embedded Contrastive Focus}, priority = {prio1}, } @InProceedings{Wagner2007, author = {Michael Wagner}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 16}, title = {Givenness and Locality}, year = {2007}, address = {Ithaca, NY}, editor = {Jonathan Howell and Masayuki Gibson}, publisher = {CLC Publications}, abstract = {Constituents that encode information that was made salient by prior context often remain unaccented. This paper presents evidence that in order for a constituent to be marked as given by deaccenting, it is not sufficient that it is given, it must be given relative to something else. In particular, I will argue that constituents have to be given relative to their sister. This first section outlines the problem that earlier approaches to givenness face: sometimes, but not always, it appears that the sister of a constituent is relevant in deciding whether it can be marked as given.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v16i0.2938}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {givenness, context, accent, constituents, alternatives, partitions, presupposition}, } @InProceedings{DeVault2006, author = {David DeVault and Matthew Stone}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (SemDial-10)}, title = {Scorekeeping in an uncertain language game}, year = {2006}, pages = {139-146}, abstract = {Received views of utterance context in pragmatic theory characterize the occurrent subjective states of interlocutors using notions like common knowledge or mutual belief. We argue that these views are not compatible with the uncertainty and robustness of context-dependence in human–human dialogue. We present an alternative characterization of utterance context as objective and normative. This view reconciles the need for uncertainty with received intuitions about coordination and meaning in context, and can directly inform computational approaches to dialogue.}, groups = {Disambiguation, Lexical Meaning, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {utterance context, pragmatics, belief, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, actions, philosophy, miscommunication, uncertainty, coordination}, url = {https://people.cs.rutgers.edu/~mdstone/pubs/devault-brandial06.pdf}, } @InProceedings{DeVault2007, author = {David DeVault and Matthew Stone}, booktitle = {DECALOG: The 2007 Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue}, title = {Managing ambiguities across utterances in dialogue}, year = {2007}, editor = {Ron Artstein and Laure Vieu}, groups = {Disambiguation, Lexical Meaning}, url = {https://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~mdstone/pubs/decalog07.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Horvitz2001, author = {Eric Horvitz and Tim Paek}, booktitle = {User Modeling Conference}, title = {Harnessing models of users’ goals to mediate clarification dialog in spoken language systems}, year = {2001}, pages = {3-13}, abstract = {Speaker-independent speech recognition systems are being used with increasing frequency for command and control applications. To date, users of such systems must contend with their fragility to subtle changes in language usage and environmental acoustics. We describe work on coupling speech recognition systems with temporal probabilistic user models that provide inferences about the intentions associated with utterances. The methods can be employed to enhance the robustness of speech recognition by endowing systems with an ability to reason about the costs and benefits of action in a setting and to make decisions about the best action to take given uncertainty about the meaning behind acoustic signals. The methods have been implemented in the form of a dialog clarification module that can be integrated with legacy spoken language systems. We describe representation and inference procedures and present details on the operation of an implemented spoken command and control development environment called DeepListener.}, doi = {10.1007/3-540-44566-8_1}, groups = {Disambiguation, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {dialogue systems, clarification dialogue, spoken command and control, speech recognition, intentions, applications, conversational systems, artificial intelligence}, } @Article{Davis2009, author = {Christopher Davis}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Decisions, dynamics, and the Japanese particle yo}, year = {2009}, number = {4}, pages = {329-366}, volume = {26}, abstract = {I provide an account of the Japanese sentence-final particle yo within a dynamic semantics framework. I argue that yo is used with one of two intonational morphemes, corresponding to sentence-final rising or falling tunes. These intonational morphemes modify a sentence's illocutionary force head, adding an addressee-directed update semantics to the utterance. The different intonational contours specify whether this update is monotonic or non-monotonic. The use of yo is then argued to contribute a pragmatic presupposition to the utterance saying that the post-update discourse context is one in which the addressee's contextual decision problem is resolved. This proposal is shown to account for a range of constraints on the felicitous use of yo, including its restriction to addressee-new and addressee-relevant information in assertions, as well as its behaviour in imperatives and interrogatives.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffp007}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {Japanese, non-English, yo, intonation, dynamic semantics, semantics, monotonic, imperatives, interrogatives, questions, pragmatic, presupposition, particle, lexical item}, } @PhdThesis{McCready2005, author = {Eric McCready}, school = {UTexas-Austin}, title = {The Dynamics of Particles}, year = {2005}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{McCready2006, author = {Eric McCready}, journal = {Sprache und Datenverarbeitung}, title = {Japanese yo: Its semantics and pragmatics}, year = {2006}, pages = {25-34}, volume = {30}, abstract = {This paper presents an analysis of the Japanese sentence-final particle yo in a dynamic modal semantics. The particle is argued to have an underspecified meaning dependent in part on discourse structure and causal relations.}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {particle, semantics, dynamic semantics, formal, yo, Japanese, non-English, discourse structure, notification, philosophy, epistemic modal, discourse relation}, } @Article{McCready2008, author = {Eric McCready}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {What Man Does}, year = {2008}, number = {6}, pages = {671-724}, volume = {31}, abstract = {This paper considers the meaning and use of the English particle man. It is shown that the particle does quite different things when it appears in sentence-initial and sentence-final position; the first use involves expression of an emotional attitude as well as, on a particular intonation, intensification; this use is analyzed using a semantics for degree predicates along with a separate dimension for the expressive aspect. Further restrictions on modification with the sentence-initial particle involving monotonicity and evidence are introduced and analyzed. The sentence-final use can be viewed as strengthening the action performed by the sentence. A formal semantics is given by making use of dynamic techniques and, in a sense, dynamically simulating the modification of certain speech acts. Some empirical and theoretical extensions of the analyses are proposed and some consequences discussed.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-009-9052-7}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {philosophy, monotonicity, evidence, particle, lexical item, predicates, intonation, degrees, intensification, definiteness, evidentiality, acquaintance, dynamic semantics, speech acts, modal subordination, expressive content, conventional implicature}, } @InProceedings{McCready2009, author = {Eric McCready}, booktitle = {Japanese/Korean Linguistics 16}, title = {Particles: Dynamics vs. Utility}, year = {2009}, editor = {Yukinori Takubo and Tomohide Kinuhata and Szymon Grzelak and Kayo Nagai}, publisher = {CSLI Publications}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Potts2007, author = {Chris Potts}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {The Expressive Dimension}, year = {2007}, pages = {165-198}, volume = {33}, abstract = {Expressives like damn and bastard have, when uttered, an immediate and powerful impact on the context. They are performative, often destructively so. They are revealing of the perspective from which the utterance is made, and they can have a dramatic impact on how current and future utterances are perceived. This, despite the fact that speakers are invariably hard-pressed to articulate what they mean. I develop a general theory of these volatile, indispensable meanings. The theory is built around a class of expressive indices. These determine the expressive setting of the context of interpretation. Expressives morphemes act on that context, actively changing its expressive setting. The theory is multidimensional in the sense that descriptives and expressives are fundamentally different but receive a unified logical treatment.}, doi = {10.1515/TL.2007.011}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {expressives, lexical particles, cross-linguistic, non-English, German, French, context, explicit, slur, semantics}, } @Article{Umbach2004, author = {Carla Umbach}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {On the Notion of Contrast in Information Structure and Discourse Structure}, year = {2004}, number = {2}, pages = {155-175}, volume = {21}, abstract = {The idea of contrast plays an important role in the analysis of information structure and discourse structure. There is, however, some confusion as to what is meant by the notion of contrast. First, focus in general is held to establish a kind of contrast. Moreover, there is the notion of contrastive focus and of contrastive topic. Finally, English but is assumed to establish a discourse relation of contrast. In this paper contrastive phenomena in information structure and discourse structure are investigated with respect to the question of what they have in common and how they interact. The resulting picture is surprisingly systematic. First, there is contrast in the sense of similarity plus dissimilarity, which is the source of the contrastiveness of focus in general and is also a prerequisite for any type of coordination. On top of this, we find two varieties of exclusion. The first one results in substituting one item for another one and is realized by contrastive focus and also by the correction use of but. The second one excludes items occuring in addition and is realized by exclusive adverbs such as only and also by the contrast use of but.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/21.2.155}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {semantics, pragmatics, contrast, information structure, discourse structure, contrastive focus, contrastive topic, focus, but, lexical item, particle, alternatives, only, parallelism}, } @Article{Umbach2005, author = {Carla Umbach}, journal = {Linguistics}, title = {Contrast and Information Structure: A focus-based analysis of but}, year = {2005}, number = {1}, pages = {207-232}, volume = {43}, abstract = {This article presents a novel analysis of the contrastive connector but based on the observation that (i) the contrast induced by but relates to the information structure of the conjuncts, and (ii) the use of but requires a denial with respect to an implicit question. It is shown that but combines additivity, as in and/also, and exclusion, as in only. This analysis provides a uniform basis to explain the apparently different uses of but, including semantic opposition, denial-of-expectation, and topic change. Moreover, it sheds new light on the concessive us of but.}, doi = {10.1515/ling.2005.43.1.207}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {lexical item, contrastive, contrast, but, only, and, also, semantics, semantic opposition, topic, information structure, questions, particle}, } @InCollection{Zeevat2005, author = {Henk Zeevat}, booktitle = {Approaches to Discourse Particles}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {A dynamic approach to discourse particles}, year = {2005}, address = {Amsterdam}, editor = {Kerstin Fischer}, pages = {133-148}, series = {Studies in Pragmatics}, volume = {1}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, priority = {prio1}, } @Misc{Zimmermann2011a, author = {Malte Zimmermann}, howpublished = {Talk Handout}, note = {Handout from a talk at MOSS 2, Institute of Russian Language at the Russian Academy of Science, Moscow}, title = {Contrastive discourse particles in German: Effects of information-structure and modality}, year = {2011}, comment = {No further publications}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, priority = {prio1}, } @InCollection{Zimmermann2011, author = {Malte Zimmermann}, booktitle = {Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning}, publisher = {Mouton de Gruyter}, title = {Discourse Particles}, year = {2011}, editor = {Klaus von Heusinger and Claudia Maienborn and Paul Portner}, abstract = {The article gives an overview of the distribution and interpretation of discourse particles. Semantically, these expressions contribute only to the expressive content of an utterance, and not to its core propositional content. The expressive nature of discourse particles accounts for their taking scope over question and imperative operators and over structured propositions, setting them apart from modal auxiliaries and adverbs. Discourse particles are distinguished from other discourse-structuring elements by their specifi c semantic function of conveying information concerning the epistemic states of discourse participants. A discussion of German discourse particles identifi es three semantic core functions: (i.) the proposition expressed is marked as part of the Common Ground (ja); (ii.) it is marked as not activated with one of the discourse participants (doch); (iii.) the commitment to the proposition expressed is weakened (wohl). Further topics discussed are the interaction of discourse-particles with sentence types, secondary pragmatic effects (politeness, surprise, indirect speech acts), and the feasibility of a surface-compositional analysis and its problems. The article concludes with a brief cross-linguistic survey that shows that discourse particles are in languages across the world.}, comment = {Check the page numbers in the physical copy!}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {particles, lexical item, semantics, pragmatics, non-English, German, common ground, speech act, cross-linguistic, epistemic states, philosophy, belief, conventional implicature}, priority = {prio1}, url = {https://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~zimmermann/papers/MZ2011-Particles-HSK.pdf}, } @Article{Abbott2000, author = {Barbara Abbott}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {Presuppositions as non-assertions}, year = {2000}, pages = {1419-1437}, volume = {32}, abstract = {It is commonly assumed that the assertion/presupposition distinction maps fairly directly onto the distinction between new and old information. This assumption is made doubtful by presupposing constructions that regularly convey new information: uniquely identifying descriptions, ‘informative presupposition’ it-clefts, reverse wh-clefts, announcements embedded under factives, nonrestrictive relatives. The presupposed content conveyed by these constructions can be regarded as part of the common ground only with an unconstrained principle of accommodation. But this reduces the claim that grammatical presuppositions are part of the common ground to vacuity. Presuppositions are a consequence of two factors. One is a tendency to limit assertion to one atomic proposition per rooted sentence. The other is the fact that almost any thought to be expressed will involve many atomic propositions. Depending on medium, genre and other contextual variables, new information will be presupposed if it is not necessary to assert it. The view is confirmed by evidence that written language, which would be expected to contain more new information per utterance than spoken language, contains a higher proportion of text in definite descriptions.}, doi = {10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00108-3}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {assertion, presupposition, description, pragmatics, definite description}, } @Article{Amaral2010, author = {Patricia Amaral}, journal = {Linguistics}, title = {Entailment, assertion, and textual coherence: the case of almost and barely}, year = {2010}, number = {3}, pages = {525-545}, volume = {48}, abstract = {This article contributes to the study of approximative adverbs almost and barely by providing psycholinguistic evidence for the asymmetry of theirmeaning components. The experiments reported are discussed against the background of a set of tests targeting the theoretical status of the meaningcomponents. The first experiment addresses the role played by each mean-ing component in textual coherence, whereas the second experiment addresses the interpretation in isolation of a sentence containing an approximative adverb. The results argue for a pragmatic di¤erence in the role ofthe meaning components, along the lines of Horn’s (2002) proposal, pertaining to the way in which the implications of approximative adverbs contribute to context update.}, doi = {10.1515/ling.2010.016}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {lexical item, meaning, textual coherence, experimental, almost, barely, adverbs, semantics, pragmatics, psycholinguistic}, } @Misc{Amaral2011, author = {Patricia Amaral and Chris Cummins and Napoleon Katsos}, howpublished = {Talk}, note = {Presented at ESSLLI 2011}, title = {Experimental Evidence on the Distinction Between Foregrounded and Backgrounded Meaning}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {experimental, polar, at-issue, presupposition, resolution, only, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://crcummins.com/Amaral_Cummins_Katsos_ESSLLI.pdf}, } @Article{Geurts2004, author = {Bart Geurts and Rob van der Sandt}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, title = {Interpreting Focus}, year = {2004}, pages = {1-44}, volume = {30}, abstract = {Although it is widely agreed, if often only tacitly, that there is a close connection between focus and presupposition, recent research has tended to shy away from the null hypothesis, which is that focus is systematically associated with presupposition along the following lines: The Background-Presupposition Rule (BPR) Whenever focusing gives rise to a background λx.ϕ(x), there is a presupposition to the effect that λx.ϕ(x) holds of some individual. This paper aims to show, first, that the evidence in favour of the BPR is in fact rather good, and attempts to clarify its role in the interpretation of focus particles like ‘only’ and ‘too’, arguing that unlike the former the latter is focus-sensitive in an idiosyncratic way, adding its own interpretative constraints to those of the BPR. The last part of the paper discusses various objections that have been raised against the BPR, taking a closer look at the peculiarities of ‘nobody’ and ‘somebody’, and comparing the interpretative effects of focusing with those of it-clefts.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {focus, background, presupposition, only, too, particles, lexical item}, url = {https://linguistics.ucla.edu/general/Conf/LaBretesche/papers/geurts.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Grubic2011a, author = {Mira Grubic}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2011 Workshop on Projective Meaning}, title = {On the projection behavior of freely associating mod- (= ‘only’) in Bole}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Harris2009, author = {Jesse A. Harris and Christopher Potts}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Perspective-shifting with appositives and expressives}, year = {2009}, number = {6}, pages = {523-552}, volume = {32}, abstract = {Much earlier work claims that appositives and expressives are invariably speaker-oriented. These claims have recently been challenged, most extensively by Amaral et al. (Linguist and Philos 30(6): 707–749, 2007). We are convinced by this new evidence. The questions we address are (i) how widespread are non-speaker-oriented readings of appositives and expressives, and (ii) what are the underlying linguistic factors that make such readings available? We present two experiments and novel corpus work that bear directly on this issue. We find that non-speaker-oriented readings, while rare in actual language use, are systematic. We also find that non-speaker-oriented readings occur even outside of attitude predications, which leads us to favor an account based in pragmatically-mediated perspective shifting over one that relies on semantic binding by attitude predicates.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-010-9070-5}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {philosophy, appositives, expressives, perspective, corpus pragmatics, experimental, experimental pragmatics, regression analysis, semantics, attitude, predicates, lexical item}, } @InProceedings{Jayez2009, author = {Jacques Jayez}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th Amsterdam Colloquium}, title = {Projective meaning and attachment}, year = {2009}, pages = {306-315}, abstract = {This paper examines the possibility of providing a unified account of the projection properties of presuppositions, conventional and conversational implicatures. I discuss the solution offered in (Roberts et al. 2009) and show that the central notion we need to cover the spectrum of observations is that of attachment.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-14287-1_33}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {conversational implicature, sentence pair, connection mode, discourse, discourse marker, linguistic code, presuppostion, conventional implicature, attachment}, } @InProceedings{Lassiter2009, author = {Daniel Lassiter}, booktitle = {ESSLLI 2009 Workshop on New Directions in the Theory of Presupposition}, title = {Symmetric presupposition satisfaction is mid-sentence presupposition correction}, year = {2009}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {presupposition satisfaction, presupposition, belief, context, symmetric, projection, context change, monotonic, intonation, information structure, prosody, symmetry, pragmatics, incremental, non-monotonic reasoning, reasoning, philosophy}, url = {https://web.stanford.edu/~danlass/Lassiter-symmetric-presuppositions.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Mayol2011, author = {Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Projective Meaning, ESSLLI 2011}, title = {Projective meaning and implicature cancellation}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, abstract = {It has been a matter of recent debate what is the relationship between different levels of meaning and what interactions between them are possible (Potts 2005, Roberts et al. 2008). This paper deals with these interactions as far as implicature cancellation is concerned. We aim to show that canceling amounts to addressing a new question under discussion, which predicts that only at-issue meaning, but not projective meaning (Simons et al., 2010) can be a meaning canceler, and which restricts cancellations to contexts where adding a new QUD is the right discourse move.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {question under discussion, levels of meaning, anaphora, implicature cancellation, implicature, at-issue, presupposition, contexts}, url = {http://elena-castroviejo-miro.cat/Papers/mayol-castroviejo-proceedings-final.pdf}, } @Book{Potts2005, author = {Christopher Potts}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {The Logic of Conventional Implicatures}, year = {2005}, abstract = {This book revives the study of conventional implicatures in natural language semantics. The label ‘conventional implicature’ dates back to H. Paul Grice’s early work on the foundations of linguistic semantics and pragmatics. Since its introduction, it has seen many diverse applications, but it has never enjoyed a stable place in linguistic theory. This book seeks to change that. Grice’s original discussion is used as a key into two presently understudied areas of natural language: supplements (appositives, parentheticals, utterance modifiers) and expressives (epithets, honorifics). The account of both depends on a multidimensional theory in which individual sentences can express more than one independent meaning. The theory is logically and intuitively compositional, and it minimally extends a familiar kind of intensional logic, thereby providing an adaptable tool for general semantic analysis. The result is a linguistic theory that is accessible not only to linguists of all stripes, but also to philosophers of language, logicians, and computer scientists who have linguistic applications in mind.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {conventional implicature, semantics, multidimensionality, pragmatics, at-issue, entailment, backgrounding, conversational implicature, implicature, intonation, menaing, presupposition, scope, binding, indirect, interpretation, meaning, types, lambda calculus, formal linguistics, adverbs, parentheticals, appositives, epithets, German, honorifics, Japanese, non-English, swear, slur, quantification, cross-linguistic, syntax, modifiers}, } @InCollection{2007, author = {Paul Portner}, booktitle = {On Information Structure, Meaning and Form}, publisher = {John Benjamins}, title = {Instructions for Interpretation as Separate Performatives}, year = {2007}, editor = {Kerstin Schwabe and Susanne Winkler}, pages = {407-426}, doi = {10.1075/la.100.22por}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, priority = {prio1}, } @InProceedings{Renans2011, author = {Agata Renans}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2011 Workshop on Projective Meaning}, title = {Projective meaning of only – evidence from Polish}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, abstract = {The status of the prejacent of only is still a topic of linguistic debates. The reported experiments and observations are supposed to provide new data and evidence. Section 2 discusses existing theories of the meaning of only. Section 3 reports on the experiments on the semantics of tylko, which is assumed to be a Polish counterpart of English only. The experiments show clearly that the prejacent of tylko projects out of negation (section 3.1) and counterfactual if-clauses (section 3.2.) However, tylko does not project so easily out of indicative if-clauses (section 3.3.) In section 4, I discuss some additional tests which are designed to detect presupposition and I implement them to sentences with tylko. It occurs that the results of some of them in particular the Hey, wait a minute-test (section 4.1) and Suspending the Prejacent (section 4.2) suggest that the prejacent of tylko behaves in a similar way to assertion. Moreover, I show that the semantics of only differs from the semantics of tylko.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Experimental Approaches, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {only, Polish, non-English, cross-linguistic, experimental, prejacent, lexical item, presupposition, semantics}, url = {https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.646.290&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @Article{Rooij2007, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Strengthening conditional presuppositions}, year = {2007}, pages = {289-304}, volume = {24}, abstract = {In this paper it will be shown how conditional presuppositions can be strengthened to unconditional ones if we assume that the antecedent and consequent of a conditional presupposition are independent of one another. Our notion of independence is very weak, and based on Lewis' (1988) notion of orthogonality of questions. It will be argued that our way of strengthening these presuppositions does not give rise to some wrong predictions Geurts (1996) argued other proposed strengthening accounts do.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffm007}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {philosophy, questions, presuppositons, conditionals}, } @InProceedings{Rubinstein2011, author = {Aynat Rubinstein}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2011 Workshop on Projective Meaning}, title = {Projective signals of weak necessity modals}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, abstract = {This paper investigates the hypothesis that the semantics of weak necessity modals like should/ought to includes a conventional signal requiring departure from common ground assumptions in the evaluation of the modal claim. I investigate the properties of this signal, suggesting that it is a type of meaning that is projective, not at-issue, antibackgrounding in a sense, and grammatically determined. Thus, it is most similar to a type of presupposition that is nonetheless not intuitively pre-supposed. Comparing the proposed weakness signal to an evidential signal with similar projective properties that has been argued to accompany epistemic modals, I speculate that the two signals have independent sources.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {modal, should, ought, projective, at-issue, not at-issue, at issue, not at issue, at-issueness, background, presupposition, grammar, epistemic}, url = {https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.646.290&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @InProceedings{Smith2011, author = {E. Allyn Smith and Kathleen Hall}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2011 Workshop on Projective Meaning}, title = {Projection Diversity: Experimental Evidence}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, abstract = {This paper presents the results of an experiment that tests a number of assumptions and predictions about projection behavior. We find that meanings hypothesized to be projective do in fact project, including projective meanings other than presuppositions. We also find that projective meanings display a great deal of heterogeneity, with some projecting much more than others and very few showing entailment behavior that is as robust as the entailment of assertions in a basic context. The degree of projection found with various triggers in this study is not consistent with many of the past theories of projective meanings, as discussed in section 4. The first section presents the relevant theories and background information, the second section presents the experimental method, and the third section presents the results.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {experimental pragmatics, xperimental, projection, presuppositions, entailment, context}, url = {https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.646.290&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @Misc{Thomason2006, author = {Richmond H. Thomason and Matthew Stone and David DeVault}, howpublished = {Talk}, note = {Talk at the OSU Workshop on Presupposition Accommodation, the Ohio State Pragmatics Initiative, 2006}, title = {Enlightened update: A computational architecture for presupposition and other pragmatic phenomena}, year = {2006}, abstract = {We relate the theory of presupposition accommodation to a computational framework for reasoning in conversation. We understand presuppositions as private commitments the speaker makes in using an utterance but expects the listener to recognize based on mutual information. On this understanding, the conversation can move forward not just through the positive effects of interlocutors’ utterances but also from the retrospective insight interlocutors gain about one anothers’ mental states from observing what they do. Our title, ENLIGHTENED UPDATE, highlights such cases. Our approach fleshes out two key principles: that interpretation is a form of intention recognition; and that intentions are complex informational structures, which specify commitments to conditions and to outcomes as well as to actions. We present a formalization and implementation of these principles for a simple conversational agent, and draw on this case study to argue that pragmatic reasoning is holistic in character, continuous with common-sense reasoning about collaborative activities, and most effectively characterized by associating specific, reliable interpretive constraints directly with grammatical forms. In showing how to make such claims precise and to develop theories that respect them, we illustrate the general place of computation in the cognitive science of language.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {interpretation, intention, information structure, presupposition, accomodation, computational, pragmatics, commitment, action, reasoning}, url = {https://people.cs.rutgers.edu/~mdstone/pubs/osu06.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Xue2011, author = {Jingyang Xue and Edgar Onea}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ESSLLI 2011 Workshop on Projective Meaning}, title = {Correlation between presupposition projection and at-issueness: An empirical study}, year = {2011}, address = {Ljubljana, Slovenia}, abstract = {In this paper we first experimentally show that presuppositions triggered by different triggers come with different probabilities to project. We argue that this variation is related with the distinction between atissue and not-at-issue content (cf. Simons et al. 2010). We support this claim with a follow-up experiment showing that the not-at-issueness of a presupposition correlates with the projection probability observed in the first experiment.}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {projection, experimental pragmatics, experimental, at-issue, not at-issue, at-issueness, not at-issueness, at issue, not at issue, presupposition}, priority = {prio1}, url = {https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.646.290&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @Article{Zeevat1992, author = {Henk Zeevat}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Presupposition and accommodation in update semantics}, year = {1992}, pages = {379-341}, volume = {9}, abstract = {A reconstruction is presented of van der Sandt's theory of presupposition in the framework of update semantics and extended to belief sentences. The resulting view is confronted with earlier approaches to presupposition (especially Heim's) in update semantics, concentrating on the approach to accommodation. It is shown in some detail that the anaphoric view of presupposition can be maintained for only a subclass of presuppositional triggers and must be given up for another class. The paper shows that the treatment of presuppositional anaphora and presuppositional accommodation is compositional with respect to stacks of information states. The brief development of the approach in section 7 shows, however, that, contrary to what one would expect, an approach in terms of stacks of information states is a powerful method in the study of DRT and other dynamic systems.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/9.4.379}, groups = {Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {presupposition, update semantics, dynamic, dynamic semantics, belief, accomodation, anaphora, information structure, DRT, projection}, } @Article{Abbott2008, author = {Barbara Abbott}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Presuppositions and common ground}, year = {2008}, pages = {523-538}, volume = {31}, abstract = {This paper presents problems for Stalnaker's common ground theory of presupposition. Stalnaker (Linguist and Philos 25:701-721, 2002) proposes a 2-stage process of utterance interpretation: presupposed content is added to the common ground prior to acceptance/rejection of the utterance as a whole. But this revision makes presupposition difficult to distinguish from assertion. A more fundamental problem is that the common ground theory rests on a faulty theory of assertion—that the essence of assertion is to present the content of an utterance as new information. Many examples are presented of utterances which are felicitous but not informative in this way.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-008-9048-8}, groups = {Accomodation, Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {presupposition, assertion, common ground, philosophy, accomodation}, } @Article{Fintel2008, author = {Kai von Fintel}, journal = {Philosophy of Language}, title = {What is presupposition accommodation, again?}, year = {2008}, pages = {137-170}, volume = {22}, abstract = {Presupposition accomodation is the process by which the context is adjusted quietly and without fuss to accept the utterance of a sentence that imposes certain requirements on the context in which it is processed. In this paper, I explore some questions about accommodation that are still often asked. There are complaints that the putative process involves mysterious magic and that it is posited only to save a superfluous of wrong theory of presupposition. I argue that these complaints are mistaken: accommodation is not magic and is needed. The paper has two parts: 1. Sections 1-4 explain the common ground theory of presupposition and defend the need for and the propriety of accommodation. 2. Sections 5-7 address some further questions about accommodation and are somewhat more speculative.}, doi = {10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00144.x}, groups = {Accomodation, Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {philosophy, common ground, context, accomodation, pragmatics, assertion}, } @Article{Gauker2008, author = {Christopher Gauker}, journal = {Philosophy of Language}, title = {Against accommodation: Heim, van der Sandt, and the presupposition projection problem}, year = {2008}, pages = {171-205}, volume = {22}, doi = {10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00145.x}, groups = {Accomodation, Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {philosophy, accommodation, presupposition, projection, precondition, context, information state, pragmatics}, } @InCollection{Roberts2015, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {A Companion to David Lewis}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {Accommodation in a language game}, year = {2015}, editor = {Barry Loewer and Jonathan Schaffer}, pages = {345-366}, groups = {Accomodation, Projection, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {accommodation, presupposition, projection, context, language game, philosophy, scoreboard, common ground, acceptability, pragmatics, semantics}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/DZiMDNjY/Accommodation in a language game.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Faller2002, author = {Martina Faller}, school = {Stanford University}, title = {Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quechua}, year = {2002}, abstract = {This dissertation explores the semantics and pragmatics of evidentiality through a detailed study of three evidential markers in Cuzco Quechua (spoken in Cuzco, Peru), the Direct -mi, the Conjectural -ch´a and the Reportative -si. I adopt a narrow definition of evidentiality as the linguistic encoding of the speaker’s grounds for making a speech act, which in the case of assertions corresponds with his or her source of information. The meaning of each of the three Cuzco Quechua evidentials, as well as their absence, is described based on data collected by the author and from published sources. One of the central cross-linguistic questions in the study of evidentiality is how it is related to epistemic modality. I argue that the two concepts are distinct, but overlapping categories. I show that the evidential enclitics in Cuzco Quechua differ from typical epistemic modals in that they do not contribute to the main proposition expressed, can never occur in the scope of propositional operators such as negation, and can only occur in illocutionary force bearing environments. Furthermore, the Direct and the Reportative are not analyzable in terms of epistemic necessity or possibility. In contrast, the Conjectural also encodes epistemic possibility, and it is therefore considered to be in the evidentiality/epistemic modality overlap. It is argued that an evidential scale in terms of strength of evidence can be defined. Against previous proposals, I argue that this is only a partial ordering, since conjectural is not stronger than reportative evidence, or vice versa. For each ordered pair of evidentials the weaker one (e.g. Reportative) gives rise to the implicature that the stronger one (e.g. Direct) could not have been used in its stead. The Cuzco Quechua evidentials are analyzed as illocutionary modifiers which add v to or modify the sincerity conditions of the act they apply to. The resulting act is assertion of the proposition expressed p for the Direct, and assertion of p for the Conjectural. For sentences with the Reportative, I propose a new illocutionary act: “presentation” of p. This analysis accounts for the afore-mentioned as well as other properties of these evidentials}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {non-English, Quechua, evidential, modality, assertions, cross-linguistic, epistemic modality, epistemic modals, modals}, url = {https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/martina.t.faller/documents/Thesis-A4.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Lee2011, author = {Jungmee Lee}, school = {The Ohio State University}, title = {Evidentiality and its relationship to temporality and modality}, year = {2011}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection}, } @Article{Lee2013, author = {Jungmee Lee}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Temporal constraints on the meaning of evidentiality}, year = {2013}, pages = {1-41}, volume = {21}, abstract = {This paper explores how the meaning of evidentiality is temporally constrained, by investigating the meaning of Korean evidential sentences with –te. Unlike evidential sentences in languages that have previously been formally analyzed , e.g. Cuzco Quechua and Cheyenne, Korean evidential sentences with –te are compatible with both direct and indirect evidence types. In this paper, I analyze –te as an evidential that lexically encodes the meaning of a ‘sensory observation’. I account for the availability of both direct and indirect evidential readings in terms of the variable temporal relation between relevant eventualities. I show that this temporal relation is compositionally determined by the interaction between –te and tense, and that it in turn constrains possible (direct vs. indirect) evidence types. I also provide empirical evidence for the modal meaning contributions of –te sentences, and develop a formal analysis in terms of Kratzer’s modal theory. The paper concludes by discussing the empirical and theoretical improvements of the proposed analysis over earlier analyses by Chung, and the implications for crosslinguistic studies of evidentials.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-012-9088-z}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {evidentiality, tense, modality, Korean, non-English, epistemic modality, epistemic modals, cross-linguistic, epistemic, modals, semantics}, } @InProceedings{Matthewson2007, author = {Lisa Matthewson and Henry Davis and Hotze Rullmann}, booktitle = {The Linguistic Variation Yearbook 7}, title = {Evidentials as epistemic modals: Evidence from St’´at’imcets}, year = {2007}, address = {Amsterdam}, editor = {Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and Johan Rooryck}, pages = {201-254}, publisher = {John Benjamins}, abstract = {This paper argues that evidential clitics in St’át’imcets (a.k.a. Lillooet; Northern Interior Salish) introduce quantification over possible worlds and must be analyzed as epistemic modals. We thus add to the growing body of evidence suggesting that the functions of encoding information source and encoding epistemic modality are not necessarily distinct. However, St’át’imcets evidentials differ from English modal auxiliaries not only in that the former explicitly encode the source of the speaker’s evidence, but also in that they do not encode differences in quantificational force. We therefore argue that distinguishing quantificational strength is not an intrinsic property of modal elements. With respect to the syntax-semantics interface, we argue on the basis of data from St’át’imcets against attempts to establish a universally fixed position for evidentials in the functional hierarchy. We conclude that evidentiality is not a homogeneous category, either semantically or syntactically. On the semantic side, cross-linguistically and even within a single language, elements which encode information source may or may not fall into the category of epistemic modals (as already argued by Faller 2002, to appear). On the syntactic side, evidentials in most languages do not form grammaticalized systems and are not confined to a single position in the functional hierarchy. We suggest that evidentiality per se is a ‘parasitic’ category, since evidential meanings may be associated with any of the principal functional heads in the IP domain: mood, tense, or aspect.}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {non-English, cross-linguistic, epistemic, epistemic modals, epistemic modality, modality, modal, St'at`imcets, evidentials, quantification, semantics}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/DlhZTdkZ/Evidentials as epistemic modals.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Murray2010, author = {Sarah E. Murray}, school = {Rutgers University}, title = {Evidentiality and the Structure of Speech Acts}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Many languages grammatically mark evidentiality, i.e., the source of information. In assertions, evidentials indicate the source of information of the speaker while in questions they indicate the expected source of information of the addressee. This dissertation examines the semantics and pragmatics of evidentiality and illocutionary mood, set within formal theories of meaning and discourse. The empirical focus is the evidential system of Cheyenne (Algonquian: Montana), which is analyzed based on several years of fieldwork by the author. In Cheyenne, evidentials are part of the illocutionary mood paradigm. Based on this grammatical system and crosslinguistic data in the literature, I propose a new theory of evidentials. I argue that evidentials contribute not-at-issue content, which cannot be directly challenged or denied. This content is added directly to the common ground, without negotiation. In contrast, at-issue content, the main point of a sentence, is proposed to the common ground, up for negotiation. This analysis of evidentials implies a more articulated theory of assertion and other speech acts. In particular, I argue that all speech acts are structured into three components: presentation of the at-issue proposition, a non-negotiable update that individual, modal, and propositional discourse referents. The distinction between atissue and not-at-issue information comes out as an instance of grammatical centering in the modal domain. The presentation of the at-issue proposition is modeled as the introduction of a propositional discourse referent. This predicts that only the at-issue proposition can be referred to in subsequent discourse, and the non-challengeability of the evidential falls out as a special case of propositional anaphora. The proposed analysis can be extended to evidentials and related phenomena in other languages. While there are real crosslinguistic differences in the behavior of evidentials, there are also many commonalities. The proposed analysis captures the properties that all evidential systems share, but is fine-grained enough to account for variation. On this analysis, evidentials crosslinguistically form a natural semantic class. directly restricts the common ground, and a negotiable update that imposes structure on the common ground. I implement this proposal in an update semantics with}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {evidentials, semantics, pragmatics, Cheyenne, non-English, cross-linguistic, evidentiality, common ground, at-issue, at issue, not at-issue, not at issue, at-issueness, update semantics, dynamic semantics, anaphora, universal}, url = {https://ling.rutgers.edu/images/dissertations/Murray-Thesis_Rutgers-2010.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Peterson2010, author = {Tyler Roy G\"{o}sta Peterson}, school = {University of British Columbia}, title = {Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality in Gitksan at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface}, year = {2010}, abstract = {The aim of this dissertation is to provide an empirically driven, theoretically informed investigation of how speakers of Gitksan, a Tsimshianic language spoken in the northwest coast of Canada, express knowledge about the world around them. There are three main goals that motivate this investigation, summarized below: (i.) To provide the first detailed description of the evidential and modal system in Gitksan. (ii.) To provide a formal semantic and pragmatic account of this system that adequately explains the meanings of the modals and evidentials, as well as how they are used in discourse. (iii.) To identify and examine the specific properties the Gitksan evidential/modal system brings to bear on current theories of semantics and pragmatics, as well as the consequences this analysis has on the study of modality and evidentiality cross-linguistically. In addition to documenting the evidential and modal meanings in Gitksan, I test and work through a variety of theoretical tools from the literature designed to investigate evidentiality and modality in a language. This begins by determining what level of meaning the individual evidentials in Gitksan operate on. The current state of research into the connection between evidentiality and epistemic modality has identified two different types of evidentials defined by the level of meaning they operate on: propositional and illocutionary evidentials. These two types correspond to a distinction between modal evidentials and non-modal evidentials respectively. I show that Gitksan has both modal and non-evidentials. This leads to an analysis where the Gitksan modal evidentials are treated as a specialized type of epistemic modals, and the non-modal evidentials are sentential force specifiers. I also identify various features of the evidential system that bring specific issues to bear upon current theories of the semantics and pragmatics of modality. This has four outcomes: first, I present a novel analysis of variable modal force in modals with fixed quantification: variable modal force in Gitksan modal evidentials is determined by the ordering source. Secondly, I discuss Conjectural Questions: when a modal evidential is added to a question it reduces the interrogative force of the question. This follows from the modal semantics of evidentials. Thirdly, I introduce the notion of Pragmatic blocking: modal and non-modal evidentials interact in discourse contexts, and implicate a speaker’s attitude towards the evidence they have for a proposition. And fourthly, I develop the first formal analysis of mirativity and non-literal uses of evidentials, analyzing them both as cases of conversational implicature.}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Gitskan, non-English, cross-linguistic, evidentials, evidentiality, modals, epistemic modal, epistemic, semantics, pragmatics, non-modal evidentials, modality, quantification, conjectural, pragmatic, discourse context}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jAyZDdkM/Dissertation-filed.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Smirnova2011, author = {Anastasia Smirnova}, school = {The Ohio State University}, title = {Evidentiality and mood: Grammatical expressions of epistemic modality in Bulgarian}, year = {2011}, abstract = {This dissertation is a case study of two grammatical categories, evidentiality and mood. I argue that evidentiality and mood are grammatical expressions of epistemic modality and have an epistemic modal component as part of their meanings. While the empirical foundation for this work is data from Bulgarian, my analysis has a number of empirical and theoretical consequences for the previous work on evidentiality and mood in the formal semantics literature. Evidentiality is traditionally analyzed as a grammatical category that encodes information sources (Aikhenvald 2004). I show that the Bulgarian evidential has richer meaning: not only does it express information source, but also it has a temporal and a modal component. With respect to the information source, the Bulgarian evidential is compatible with a variety of evidential meanings, i.e. direct, inferential, and reportative, as long as the speaker has concrete perceivable evidence (as opposed to evidence based on a mental activity). With respect to epistemic commitment, the construction has different felicity conditions depending on the context: the speaker must be committed to the truth of the proposition in the scope of the evidential in a direct/inferential evidential context, but not in a reportative context. Finally, the distribution of the evidential is sensitive to the temporal relations specified in the context. In the previous literature, the Bulgarian evidential is analyzed as encoding indirect sources of information; no mention is made of its temporal meaning (Izvorski 1997, Sauerland and Schenner 2007). I propose a uniform semantic analysis of the Bulgarian evidential, which incorporates both a temporal and a modal component, and accounts for the full range of evidential meanings. The central aspect of the analysis is the assumption that the proposition in the scope of the evidential is evaluated with respect to different sets of worlds, depending on the discourse context: the belief worlds of the speaker in inferential/direct evidential contexts, and the belief worlds of the original reporter in reportative contexts. My analysis of mood explains the distribution of the subjunctive and the indicative in Bulgarian as being dependent on the epistemic commitment of the attitude holder (cf. Giannakidou 1998). Previous analyses attribute mood distribution to semantic properties of the selecting verb alone (cf. Farkas 1992, Villalta 2008). These analyses cannot be extended to Bulgarian, where the distribution of mood is sensitive not only to the semantics of matrix verbs, but also to context. This is particularly clear in cases when the same verb can select both the subjunctive and the indicative, and the choice of mood correlates with the attitude holder’s epistemic commitment. The indicative is selected iff the attitude holder is strongly committed to the truth/falsity of the proposition expressed by the complement clause. The subjunctive is selected iff the attitude holder has a weaker epistemic commitment. My formal analysis uses the tools from the analysis of modals (Kratzer 1979) and specifies how the meaning of the matrix propositional attitude verb interacts with the meaning of mood in the embedded clause. This is the first formal semantic analysis of mood in Bulgarian.}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Mood and Speech Acts, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Bulgarian, evidentiality, mood, epistemic, modality, modals, cross-linguistic, non-English, attitudes}, url = {http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306917645}, } @Article{Smirnova2012, author = {Anastasia Smirnova}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Evidentiality in Bulgarian: Epistemic modality and temporal relations}, year = {2012}, number = {4}, pages = {479-532}, volume = {30}, abstract = {This article presents a formal semantic analysis of the Bulgarian evidential. The analysis is motivated by a number of facts that have gone unnoticed in the literature on evidentiality in Bulgarian and which cannot be explained by previous analyses (Izvorski 1997; Sauerland & Schenner 2007; Koev 2011). First, I show that the same evidential construction in Bulgarian can express direct, reportative and inferential information sources. These data challenge the current analysis of the Bulgarian evidential as indirect (Izvorski 1997), and show that in some languages a single evidential morpheme can express both direct and indirect information sources (contra Willett 1988; Aikhenvald 2004). Second, I show that the Bulgarian evidential expresses temporal meaning: it functions as a relative tense. Finally, while I retain the insights of Izvorski’s modal analysis, I substantially change the modal component to account for reports of false information in reportative contexts (I analyze them as de dicto reports). Ultimately, I argue that the evidential construction in Bulgarian has a tripartite meaning: it encodes information source, temporality and epistemic modality. This article contributes to the understanding of the semantics of evidentials cross-linguistically (cf. Faller 2002; McCready & Ogata 2007; Matthewson et al. 2007) by showing how the interaction of the modal and the temporal component affects the distribution and meaning of evidentials in discourse.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffs017}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Bulgarian, non-English, cross-linguistic, information source, evidentiality, evidentials, temporality, epistemic modality, epistemic, modals, false information}, } %This article and a number of the following are about definites and anaphora. I don't know why I originally included them all in the QUD bibliography, but now think they shouldn't be in it, unless they bring the QUD to bear on these NPs' interpretation, which only one of Schoubye's does. However, I've copied the entries out for another bibliography. %omit: @Article{Cumming2008, author = {Samuel Cumming}, journal = {Philosophical Review}, title = {Variabilism}, year = {2008}, number = {4}, pages = {525-554}, volume = {117}, doi = {10.1215/00318108-2008-015}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {philosophy, binding, semantics, variables, reference, definites, anaphora, variable assignment, context, quantifiers, shifting, individuals, pronouns, proper names}, } %omit: @Book{Elbourne2005, author = {Paul D. Elbourne}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {Situations and Individuals}, year = {2005}, abstract = {In Situations and Individuals, Paul Elbourne argues that the natural language expressions that have been taken to refer to individuals—pronouns, proper names, and definite descriptions—have a common syntax and semantics, roughly that of definite descriptions as construed in the tradition of Frege. In the course of his argument, Elbourne shows that proper names have previously undetected donkey anaphoric readings.This is contrary to previous theorizing and, if true, would undermine what philosophers call the direct reference theory (which holds that the sole contribution of a proper name to the truth conditions of a sentence is an individual) as well as the related doctrine that proper names are rigid designators. Elbourne begins by addressing donkey anaphora, relating other concerns about pronouns to the solution of this notorious problem. His subsequent argumentation provides a unified semantics for the donkey anaphoric and bound and referential uses of pronouns and discusses the prospect of unifying the syntax and semantics of pronouns with the syntax and semantics of normal definite descriptions. Elbourne's aim is not only to advance his proposal of a unified syntax and semantics but also to urge linguists and philosophers dealing with pronoun interpretation to consider a wider range of theories than they do at present, and to test the competing claims of description-based theories and dynamic semantics against the data.}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {individuals, definites, semantics, syntax, definite descriptions, proper names, anaphora, rigid designators, philosophy}, } %Omit: @Article{Elbourne2008, author = {Paul D. Elbourne}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Demonstratives as individual concepts}, year = {2008}, number = {4}, pages = {409-466}, volume = {31}, abstract = {Using a version of situation semantics, this article argues that bare and complex demonstratives are interpreted as individual concepts}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-008-9043-0}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {demonstratives, individuals, pronouns, situation semantics, definites, anaphora, that, this, reference, determiners, demonstrative determiners, semantics, comparative linguistics, grammar}, } %Omit: @Book{, author = {John Hawthorne and David Manley}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {The Reference Book}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This book critically examines some widespread views about the semantic phenomenon of reference and the cognitive phenomenon of singular thought. It begins by denying that either is tied to a special relation of causal or epistemic acquaintance. It goes on to challenge the alleged semantic rift between definite and indefinite descriptions on the one hand, and names and demonstratives on the other—a division that has been motivated in part by appeals to considerations of acquaintance. Drawing on recent work in semantics, a more unified account of all four types of expression is explored, according to which none of them paradigmatically fits the profile of a referential term. The authors argue that all four involve existential quantification but admit of uses that exhibit many of the traits associated with reference—a phenomenon that is due to the presence of what we call a ‘singular restriction’ on the existentially quantified domain. The Afterword draws out some implications of the proposed semantic picture for the traditional categories of reference and singular thought.}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, semantics, definite descriptions, names, proper names, demonstratives, quantification, reference, restriction}, } %Omit: @Book{King2001, author = {Jeffrey C. King}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {Complex Demonstratives: A quantificational approach}, year = {2001}, abstract = {Since the late 1970s, the orthodox view of complex 'that' phrases (e.g., 'that woman eating a granola bar') has been that they are contextually sensitive devices of direct reference. In Complex Demonstratives, Jeffrey King challenges that orthodoxy, showing that quantificational accounts not only are as effective as direct reference accounts but also handle a wider range of data. After providing arguments against direct reference accounts of 'that' phrases and developing a quantificational theory of them, King looks at the interaction of 'that' phrases with modal operators, negation, and verbs of propositional attitude. He argues for evidence of scope interaction between 'that' phrases and other scoped elements. King also addresses semantic properties of 'that' and other determiners, and the possibility of extending the semantics of 'that' phrases to 'that' as a syntactically simple demonstrative. Finally, he argues against what he calls ambiguity approaches, theories that hold that the various uses of 'that' phrases cannot be treated by a single semantical theory.}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {that, modals, modality, quantification, definite, descriptors, demonstrative, direct reference, reference, anaphora, scope}, } %Omit: @InCollection{Roberts2002, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Information Sharing: Reference and Presupposition in Language Generation and Interpretation}, publisher = {CSLI Press}, title = {Demonstratives as definites}, year = {2002}, editor = {Kees van Deemter and Rodger Kibble}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {common ground, discourse referent, reference, presuppositions, existence presupposition, uniqueness, anaphora, pronouns, this, that, demonstratives, definites, definite descriptions}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/roberts.21/demonstratives.pdf}, } %Omit: @Article{Roberts2003, author = {Craige Roberts}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Uniqueness in definite noun phrases}, year = {2003}, pages = {287-350}, volume = {26}, doi = {10.1023/A:1024157132393}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {noun phrase, computational linguistics, definite noun phrase, definites, uniqueness, presupposition, philosophy, pronouns, definite description, conventional, conventional presupposition, discourse, discourse referent, context, entailment, denotation}, } %Omit: @InCollection{Roberts2005, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Descriptions and Beyond}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Pronouns as definites}, year = {2005}, editor = {Marga Reimer and Anne Bezuidenhout}, pages = {503-543}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Schoubye2009, author = {Anders J. Schoubye}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Descriptions, truth value intuitions, and questions}, year = {2009}, pages = {583-617}, volume = {32}, abstract = {Since the famous debate between Russell (Mind 14: 479–493, 1905, Mind 66: 385–389, 1957) and Strawson (Mind 59: 320–344, 1950; Introduction to logical theory, 1952; Theoria, 30: 96–118, 1964) linguistic intuitions about truth values have been considered notoriously unreliable as a guide to the semantics of definite descriptions. As a result, most existing semantic analyses of definites leave a large number of intuitions unexplained. In this paper, I explore the nature of the relationship between truth value intuitions and non-referring definites. Inspired by comments in Strawson (Introduction to logical theory, 1964), I argue that given certain systematic considerations, one can provide a structured explanation of conflicting intuitions. I show that the intuitions of falsity, which proponents of a Russellian analysis often appeal to, result from evaluating sentences in relation to specific questions in context. This is shown by developing a method for predicting when sentences containing non-referring definites elicit intuitions of falsity. My proposed analysis draws importantly on Roberts (in: Yoon & Kathol (eds.) OSU working papers in Linguistics: vol. 49: Papers in Semantics 1998; in: Horn & Ward (eds.) Handbook of pragmatics, 2004) and recent research in the semantics and pragmatics of focus.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-010-9069-y}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {definites, questions, prosody, prosodic focus, focus, topic, presupposition, semantics, pragmatics, philosophy, truth values, intuitions, non-referring, reference, definite description, description, truth value judgment, anaphora}, } %Omit: @PhdThesis{Schoubye2011, author = {Anders J. Schoubye}, school = {University of St Andrews}, title = {On Describing}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The overarching topic of this dissertation is the semantics and pragmatics of definite descriptions. It focuses on the question whether sentences such as ‘the king of France is bald’ literally assert the existence of a unique king (and therefore are false) or simply presuppose the existence of such a king (and thus fail to express propositions). One immediate obstacle to resolving this question is that immediate truth value judgments about such sentences (sentences with non-denoting descriptions) are particularly unstable; some elicit a clear intuition of falsity whereas others simply seem awkward or strange. Because of these variations, truth value judgments are generally considered unreliable. In the first chapter of the dissertation, an explanation of this phenomenon is developed. It is observed that when these types of sentences are considered in the context of a discourse, a systematic pattern in judgments emerges. This pattern, it is argued, should be explained in terms of certain pragmatic factors, e.g. whether a speaker’s utterance is interpreted as cooperative. A detailed and general explanation of the phenomenon is then presented which draws importantly on recent research in the semantics and pragmatics of questions and focus. It is shown that the behavior of these judgments can be systematically explained, that truth value judgments are not as unreliable as standardly assumed, and that the proposed explanation best supports the conclusion that definite descriptions presuppose rather than assert existence. In the second chapter, the following problem is investigated. If definite descriptions are assumed to literally assert existence, a sentence such as ‘Hans wants the ghost in his attic to be quiet’ is incorrectly predicted to be true only if Hans wants there to be a (unique) ghost in his attic. This prediction is often considered evidence against Russell’s quantificational analysis and evidence in favor of the referential analysis of Frege and Strawson. Against this claim, it is demonstrated that this problem is a general problem about the existence commitments of natural language determiners, i.e. not an argument in favor of a referential analysis. It is shown that in order to avoid these undesirable predictions, quite radical changes to the semantic framework are required. For example, it must be assumed that a sentence of the form ‘The F is G’ has the open sentence ‘x is G’ as its asserted content. A uniform quantificational and presuppositional analysis of definites and indefinites is outlined which by exploiting certain features of so-called dynamic semantics unproblematically assumes that the asserted contents indeed are open sentences. In view of the proposed quantificational/presuppositional analysis, the dissertation is concluded by a rejection of the argument put forward by Reimer (1998) and Devitt (2004) that definite descriptions are ambiguous between attributive (quantificational) and referential (indexical) uses. Reimer and Devitt’s argument is (in contrast to Donnellan, 1966) based primarily on the assumption that definite descriptions are conventionally used to communicate singular thoughts and that the conventional meaning of a definite description therefore must be fundamentally indexical/directly referential. I argue that this argument relies crucially on tacit assumptions about semantic processing for which no empirical evidence is provided. I also argue that the argument is too general; if sound, it would be an argument for an indexical treatment of most, if not all, other determiners. I then conclude by demonstrating that the view does not explain any new data and thus has no clear motivation. In short, this dissertation provides a detailed pragmatic explanation of a long-standing puzzle about truth value judgments and then outlines a novel dynamic semantic analysis of definites and indefinites. This analysis solves a significant problem about existence commitments — a problem that neither Russell’s nor the Frege/Strawson analysis are equipped to handle. This analysis is then defended against the claim that definite descriptions are ambiguous.}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {truth value judgments, truth value, definite descriptions, description, existence, presupposition, intuition, discourse context, focus, question, semantics, pragmatics, quantification, existential commitment, dynamics, dynamic semantics, indexical, conventional meaning, philosophy, anaphora}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10023/2468}, } %Note that "issues" are effectively questions for discussion: @InProceedings{Anderbois2010, author = {Scott Anderbois}, booktitle = {Semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) 20}, title = {Sluicing as anaphora to issues}, year = {2010}, address = {Ithaca, NY}, editor = {Nan Li and David Lutz}, publisher = {CLC Publications}, abstract = {Since Merchant 2001, it has been widely agreed that the licensing condition on Sluicing is at least partly semantic in nature. This paper argues that the relevant semantic condition is one of symmetric entailment over a semantics which includes not only truth-conditional information, but also issues in the sense of Groenendijk & Roelofsen 2009. One kind of evidence for the proposal comes from expressions like doubly-negated inde?nites and implicit passive agents which do not license Sluicing despite truth-conditional equivalence to overt inde?nites. In addition to these facts, the paper examines novel data which show that Sluicing is not licensed by even overt inde?nites inside of appositive relative clauses, arguing that these facts (and related facts regarding VP-Ellipsis) follow from the account together with an independently motivated semantics for appositives.}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {sluicing, alternatives, appositives, negation, passive, ellipsis, anaphora, entailment, licensing}, url = {https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/view/2574}, } @Article{Frazier2005, author = {Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton}, journal = {Syntax}, title = {The syntax-discourse divide: Processing ellipsis}, year = {2005}, number = {2}, pages = {121-174}, volume = {8}, abstract = {VP-ellipsis and sluicing are forms of ellipsis that can cross a sentence boundary. We present a series of comprehension studies on these forms of ellipsis to elucidate their processing and the relation of syntactic and discourse processing. One set of studies examines the hypothesis that the representation of elided material is syntactically structured. We present evidence supporting the hypothesis and tentatively attribute the effects to sharing of the structure of the antecedent constituent, with structure building or substitution of a variable for a constituent permitted if it is licensed by the syntactic principles of the language. Another set of studies tests the hypothesis that a new utterance is preferentially related to the main assertion of the preceding utterance, which is typically a constituent high in the syntactic tree. The results suggest that discourse processing differs from syntactic processing, where the most accessible material is recent material found low in the syntactic tree. A final set of studies examines the interplay of the syntactic processor, which may not violate “islands,” and the discourse processor, which may, in the processing of ellipsis sentences involving islands. A novel explanation is offered for the observation (Ross 1967) that sluicing out of relative-clause islands is grammatical except when sprouting is required.}, doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9612.2005.00077.x}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {ellipsis, sluicing, anaphora, experimental, syntax, discourse processing, psycholinguistics}, } @Article{Frazier2006, author = {Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Ellipsis and discourse coherence}, year = {2006}, number = {3}, pages = {315-346}, volume = {29}, abstract = {VP ellipsis generally requires a syntactically matching antecedent. However, many documented examples exist where the antecedent is not appropriate. Kehler (2000, Linguistics and philosophy 23(6), 533–575. 2002, Coherence, Reference and the Theory of Grammer, CSLI Publications. Stanford.) proposed an elegant theory which predicts a syntactic antecedent for an elided VP is required only for a certain discourse coherence relation (resemblance), not for cause-effect relations. Most of the data Kehler used to motivate his theory come from corpus studies and thus do not consist of true minimal pairs. We report five experiments testing predictions of the coherence theory, using standard minimal pair materials. The results raise questions about the empirical basis for coherence theory because a syntactically-matching antecedent is preferred for all coherence relations, not just resemblance relations. Further, strict identity readings, which should not be available when a syntactic antecedent is required, are influenced by parallelism per se, holding the discourse coherence relation constant. This draws into question the causal role of coherence relations in processing VP ellipsis.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-006-0002-3}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {coherence relations, rhetorical relations, ellipsis, corpus studies, experimental, anaphora, resemblance, parallelism, philosophy}, } @Article{Frazier2010, author = {Lyn Frazier and Charles Clifton}, journal = {Syntax}, title = {Imperfect Ellipsis: Antecedents beyond syntax?}, year = {2010}, number = {4}, pages = {279-297}, volume = {13}, abstract = {Ellipsis is subject to both syntactic conditions and discourse conditions. Here we explore the discourse condition that favors antecedents that are part of the main assertion of an utterance. We argue that the main assertion tendency is best captured in the processor, not the grammar. Two experiments test verb phrase ellipsis examples with antecedents in a conditional. One suggests that, because of the main assertion tendency, a reader considers full conditional antecedents and not just verb phrase antecedents. However, when the antecedent of the conditional expresses already given information and essentially becomes redundant, fewer full conditional antecedents are chosen for the verb phrase ellipsis, as if the consequent clause has become the assertion of the conditional sentence with the if-clause essentially cancelling out. The second experiment explores examples where a modal is added inside the if-clause, rendering the conditional counterfactual. As in other examples of flawed or imperfect ellipsis, the non-actuality entailment/implicature improves the acceptability of such examples.}, doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9612.2010.00142.x}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {ellipsis, anaphora, syntax, discourse, context, experimental, modals, modality, counterfactual, entailment, implicature}, } @Article{Gualmini2008, author = {Andrea Gualmini and Sarah Hulsey and Valentine Hacquard and Danny Fox}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {The Question-Answer Requirement for scope assignment}, year = {2008}, pages = {205-237}, volume = {16}, abstract = {This paper focuses on children’s interpretation of sentences containing negation and a quantifier (e.g., The detective didn’t find some guys). Recent studies suggest that, although children are capable of accessing inverse scope interpretations of such sentences, they resort to surface scope to a larger extent than adults. To account for children’s behavioral pattern, we propose a new factor at play in Truth Value Judgment tasks: the Question–Answer Requirement (QAR). According to the QAR, children (and adults) must interpret the target sentence that they evaluate as an answer to a question that is made salient by the discourse.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-008-9029-z}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {children, adults, experimental, principle of charity, interrogatives, questions, salience, ambiguity, domain restriction, quantification, scope, truth value judgments, question-answer, QAR, scope ambiguity, language acquistion}, } @InCollection{Coppock2013, author = {Elizabeth Coppock and David Beaver}, booktitle = {Alternatives in Semantics}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, title = {Mere-ology}, year = {2013}, address = {London}, editor = {Anamaria F\u{a}l\u{a}u\c{s}}, note = {Talk at the Workshop on Alternative Semantics, Lund, France}, pages = {150-173}, abstract = {At least 28 different lexical entries for the word only have been given in the literature.1 This one little word has attracted so much attention presumably because it serves to illuminate a number of issues pertaining to the interplay between semantics and pragmatics: how focus affects interpretation, types of meaning (presupposition, implicature, etc.), how scalar implicatures are computed, and, of particular interest for this volume, the nature, origin, and role of alternatives in semantics.}, doi = {10.1057/9781137317247_6}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {lexical items, only, semantics, pragmatics, focus, interpretation, meaning, presupposition, domain restriction, domain, anaphora, scalar, implicatures, scalar implicature, alternatives}, } @PhdThesis{Fintel1994, author = {Kai von Fintel}, school = {UMass/Amherst}, title = {Restrictions on quantifier domains}, year = {1994}, abstract = {This dissertation investigates the ways in which natural language restricts the domains of quantifiers. Adverbs of quantification are analyzed as quantifying over situations (instead of being unselective quantifiers). The domain of quantifiers is pragmatically constrained: apparent processes of “semantic partition” are treated as pragmatic epiphenomena. The introductory Chapter 1 sketches some of the background of work on natural language quantification and begins the analysis of adverbial quantification over situations. Chapter 2 develops the central picture of “semantic partition” as a side-effect of pragmatic processes of anaphora resolution. I argue that the apparent effects of topic/focus articulation and presuppositional information on the interpretation of quantifiers are not the result of a direct and local mechanism of sentence grammar. Instead, I develop an analysis where the link is established via the anaphoric dependence of quantifier domains on the discourse context. Chapter 3 discusses the analysis of conditional clauses as quantifier restrictors, concentrating on the question whether conditional clauses restrict quantifiers directly (like common noun phrases restrict determiner-quantifiers) or indirectly (like topic/focus restrict quantifiers). A treatment is explored which has if-clauses constrain the value of the hidden domain variable of the restricted quantifier. Chapter 4, on unlessclauses, and Chapter 5, on only if- and even if-clauses, present some issues in the compositional analysis of complex conditional clauses. These chapters significantly expand the data coverage of the theory of A-quantification. Building on previous work of mine on exceptives, I analyze unless-clauses as exceptive operators on A-quantifiers. The analysis of only if-clauses, treated as conditional clauses that combine if with the focus adverb only, unearthes some interesting new properties. Chapter 6, finally, examines the phenomenon of donkeyanaphora in the light of the results of the previous chapters. I show that a solution to the proportion problem may become possible once we combine the situation-semantic approach to adverbial quantification with the pragmatic theory developed in Chapter 2 and further elaborated in the analysis of donkey anaphora in complex conditionals.}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {topic, focus, adverbial quantification, pragmatics, presupposition, discourse topics, sentence topics, definites, conditionals, exceptives, asymmetry, symmetry, anaphora, domain, domain restriction, quantifiers, quantification, adverbs, partition}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jA3N2IwN/fintel-1994-thesis.pdf}, } @InCollection{Gawron1996, author = {Jean Marc Gawron}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Contemporary Semantics}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Quantification, quantificational domains, and dynamic logic}, year = {1996}, editor = {Shalom Lappin}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, priority = {prio1}, } %Omit: @Article{Ippolito2008, author = {Michela Ippolito}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {On the meaning of Only}, year = {2008}, pages = {45-91}, volume = {25}, abstract = {This paper investigates the semantics of the focus particle only and is primarily concerned with the relation between the exclusive proposition and the proposition expressed by the prejacent (the only-less sentence). We argue that, in a sentence of the form only A is B, only triggers the conditional presupposition that if something is B, A is B. We show that in a positive-only sentence, the prejacent is a conversational implicature and therefore it is cancellable. Instead, in a negative-only sentence the prejacent is shown to be entailed by any context that satisfies the conditional presupposition and to which the (negative) assertion is added. Hence, the prejacent of a negative-only sentence is not cancellable. The entailment analyses, the strong presupposition analyses and the weak presupposition analyses of only are discussed, together with the problems that each type of theories faces.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffm010}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {only, domain restiction, particle, conditional, presupposition, entailment, anaphora}, } %Omit: @InProceedings{Horn2002, author = {Laurence R. Horn}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Volume 38, Part Two: The Panels}, title = {Assertoric inertia and NPI licensing}, year = {2002}, editor = {Mary Andronis and Erin Debenport and Anne Pycha and Keiko Yoshimura}, publisher = {University of Chicago Press}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {particles, semantic, scalars, scalar particles, domain restriction, monotonicity, entailment, anaphora, assertion, licensing, cross-linguistic, Spanish}, url = {https://ling.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/horn/horn02_inertia.pdf}, } %Omit: @Article{Roberts1989, author = {Craige Roberts}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Modal Subordination and Pronominal Anaphora in Discourse}, year = {1989}, number = {6}, pages = {683-721}, volume = {12}, comment = {Reprinted in Javier Gutierrez-Rexach (ed.) \textit{Semantics: Critical concepts in linguistics}, Routledge, 2003.}, doi = {10.1007/BF00632602}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {modals, modality, pronouns, anaphora, discourse, philosophy, modal subordination, domain restriction, quantification, DRT, discourse representation theory, reference, discourse referents, syntactic noun phrases, epistemic modals, non-epistemic modals, epistemic, mood}, } %Omit: @InCollection{Roberts1995, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Quantification in Natural Languages}, publisher = {Springer Netherlands}, title = {Domain Selection in Dynamic Semantics}, year = {1995}, editor = {Emmon Bach, Eloise Jelinek and Angelika Kratzer and Barbara H. Partee}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, priority = {prio1}, } @InCollection{Roberts1996, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics}, publisher = {Ohio State University}, title = {Information Structure in Discourse: Towards an Integrated Formal Theory of Pragmatics}, year = {1996}, editor = {Jae Hak Yoon and Andreas Kathol}, volume = {49}, abstract = {A framework for pragmatic analysis is proposed which treats discourse as a game, with context as a scoreboard organized around the questions under discussion by the interlocutors. The framework is intended to be coordinated with a dynamic compositional semantics. Accordingly, the context of utterance is modeled as a tuple of different types of information, and the questions therein— modeled, as is usual in formal semantics, as alternative sets of propositions — constrain the felicitous flow of discourse. A requirement of Relevance is satisfied by an utterance (whether an assertion, a question or a suggestion) iff it addresses the question under discussion. Finally, it is argued that the prosodic focus of an utterance canonically serves to reflect the question under discussion (at least in English), placing additional constraints on felicity in context.}, comment = {The updated version is 2012 in Semantics and Pragmatics.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.5.6}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Discourse, pragmatics, context of utterance, question under discussion, relevance, focus, information structure}, } %Omit: @InCollection{Roberts1996b, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory}, publisher = {Basil Blackwell}, title = {Anaphora in intensional contexts}, year = {1996}, editor = {Shalom Lappin}, pages = {215-246}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, priority = {prio1}, } @InCollection{Rooij2007a, author = {Robert van Rooij and Katrin Schulz}, booktitle = {Questions in Dynamic Semantics}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Only: Meaning and Implicatures}, year = {2007}, editor = {Maria Aloni and Alastair Butler and Paul Dekker}, pages = {193-223}, abstract = {This chapter argues that there is a way to approach the meaning of 'only' that can deal with some of its well-known challenges but still is faithful to classical ideas. It starts discussion by introducing the traditional and predominant view on the meaning of 'only'. Intuitively, it seems to be quite clear what 'only' contributes to the meaning of a sentence. Countless proposals on how to capture this intuition have been brought forward since the nineteen-sixties. One of the most influential is a focus alternative approach. The chapter provides a minimal model analysis of the semantic part, based on Groenendijk & Stokhof's (1984) rule of exhaustive interpretation. It is shown that the resulting analysis makes some appealing predictions, especially if a notion of 'relevance· is taken into account. Finally, the authors argued that the pragmatic inference from 'Only' should be thought of as a conversational implicature.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9780080470993_010}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {only, anaphora, domain restriction, focus, focus alternative, alternatives, semantics, relevance, conversational implicature, implicature, pragmatics, dynamic semantics}, } @PhdThesis{Toosarvandani2010, author = {Maziar Doustdar Toosarvandani}, school = {University of California at Berkeley}, title = {Association with Foci}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Association with focus has, since Jackendoff’s (1972) dissertation, been the object of intense study. Most researchers, however, have concentrated on explaining the semantic variability of only and even, whose truth conditions vary with the position of focus. I take as my starting point another property of associating expressions. Both only and even restrict the distribution of focus, a property that, I argue, they share with a range of other lexical items. But, while only and even take a single argument and require there to be a focus somewhere inside that argument, expressions like adversative but and let alone take two arguments, thereby associating with two foci. Associating expressions, of both the one- and two-place varieties, have two things in common. First, they are crosscategorial in their syntax, taking arguments of a variety of different types. Second, they evoke multiple alternatives—different possible answer to a question. Together, these two independent properties of associating expressions interact with the question under discussion (Roberts 1996, 2004) to give rise to the restriction on the distribution of focus. My approach to association with focus departs from previous ones in important ways. Associating expressions neither make reference to focus in their lexical entry (Rooth 1985, 1992, 1996b) nor to the question under discussion (Beaver and Clark 2008), providing a more satisfying answer to the question of why only some expressions associate with focus.}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {focus, domain restriction, association, only, even, adversatives, lexical items, particles, syntax, questions, question under discussion, QUD, scalars, scalar additive}, url = {https://escholarship.org/uc/item/99g807bq}, } @Book{Asher2003, author = {Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, title = {Logics of Conversation}, year = {2003}, abstract = {People often mean more than they say. Grammar on its own is typically insufficient for determining the full meaning of an utterance; the assumption that the discourse is coherent or 'makes sense' has an important role to play in determining meaning as well. Logics of Conversation presents a dynamic semantic framework called Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, or SDRT, where this interaction between discourse coherence and discourse interpretation is explored in a logically precise manner. Combining ideas from dynamic semantics, commonsense reasoning and speech act theory, SDRT uses its analysis of rhetorical relations to capture intuitively compelling implicatures. It provides a computable method for constructing these logical forms and is one of the most formally precise and linguistically grounded accounts of discourse interpretation currently available. The book will be of interest to researchers and students in linguistics and in philosophy of language. Presents a logically precise theory of discourse interpretation Offers a new way of analysing speech acts Extends dynamic semantics with insights from common sense reasoning and AI}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry}, keywords = {computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, conversational implicature, SDRT, DRT, dynamic, dynamic semantics, interpretation, discourse coherence, coherence, rhetorical relations, rhetoric, computational, philosophy}, } @Article{Franke2012, author = {Michael Franke and Tikitu de Jager and Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Journal of Logic and Computation}, title = {Relevance in Cooperation and Conflict}, year = {2012}, number = {1}, pages = {23-54}, volume = {22}, abstract = {Linguistic pragmatics assumes that conversation is a by-and-large cooperative endeavour. Although clearly reasonable and helpful, this is an idealization and it pays to ask what happens to natural language interpretation if the presumption of cooperativity is dropped, be that entirely or only to some degree. Game theory suggests itself as a formal tool for modelling the different degrees in which speaker and hearer may or may not have common interests, and it is in this game-theoretic light that this article investigates in particular a notion of speaker-relevance and its impact on the question why we communicate cooperatively in most cases and what happens to pragmatic phenomena such as conversational implicatures if full cooperation cannot be assumed.}, doi = {10.1093/logcom/exp070}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {relevance, rhetoric, game theory, formal linguistics, pragmatics, conversational implicature, cooperation, rhetorical relations, coherence relations}, } @InProceedings{Jasinskaja2004, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Implicature and Conversational Meaning}, title = {Exhaustification and Semantic Relations in Discourse}, year = {2004}, editor = {B. Geurts and R. van der Sandt}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, Implicature}, keywords = {SDRT, DRT, exhaustification, conversational implicature, implicature, only, domain restriction, domain, interpretation, discourse semantics, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, rhetoric, coherence}, url = {http://www.sfb632.uni-potsdam.de/downloads/publications/A3_Jasinskaja_2004.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Jasinskaja2007, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {Nominal Restatement}, year = {2007}, editor = {Puig-Waldmüller, E.}, pages = {346-360}, volume = {11}, abstract = {This paper identifies, explores and provides a formal analysis to a phenomenon that I will call nominal restatement. Nominal restatement (NR) bears a certain similarity to nominal apposition (NA). However, whether an equality sign can be put between these notions depends largely on our assumptions about the range of facts pertaining to apposition, which is not a matter of perfect consensus. This paper shows that NR goes beyond the notion of NA developed by Potts (2005) and is not covered by his analysis. It also presents a purely pragmatic account of NR in terms of the discourse relation of restatement (Jasinskaja 2006b), which both explains the new observations concerning NR (e.g. quantification and scope behaviour) and provides a better explanation to some old observations about NA that are also valid for NR (e.g. case). Finally, I address the question whether the notion of NA can ultimately be done away with by subsuming it under the more general notion of NR and discuss some related problems.}, doi = {10.18148/sub/2007.v11i0.650}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, Implicature}, keywords = {nominal restatement, nominal apposition, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, rhetoric, coherence, apposition, pragmatics, semantics, domain, projection}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Jasinskaja2012, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Correction by adversative and additive markers}, year = {2012}, number = {15}, pages = {1899-1918}, volume = {122}, abstract = {Corrective uses of adversative markers like but, as in John isn’t going to Paris, but to Berlin, have proved rather difficult to capture in a unified theory of adversative markers, whereas corrective uses of additive markers, as in John is going to Berlin, and not to Paris, have been almost entirely ignored in theoretical semantics and pragmatics. These uses are taken under closer consideration in this paper, with special focus on the phenomenon I will refer to as (a)symmetric correction. I propose the following generalisation. Adversative markers are asymmetric in their corrective uses (e.g. the English but). That is, the first conjunct of but must be negated, while the second is positive. If the order of the negative and the positive conjunct is reversed, the corrective reading is not available for but, though it can be recovered if but is replaced by and or left out altogether. In contrast, additive markers are symmetric in this function. If a language standardly employs an additive marker to express correction (e.g. the Russian a), the order of the negative and the positive conjunct does not affect its corrective interpretation. The present paper develops a unified account of the semantics of but which accommodates its corrective uses and explains the above mentioned asymmetry. The proposed solution has non-trivial consequences for a general theory of additivity and adversativity, in particular, for the ongoing debate which function of but is the most basic, ‘denial of expectation’ or ‘formal contrast’.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.08.015}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, Implicature, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {correction, connective, adversative, additive, negation, exhaustivity, question, discourse, rhetorical relations, rhetoric, coherence relations, coherence, adversatives, additives, asymmetry, but, and, symmetric, symmetry, Russian, non-English, cross-linguistic, contrast}, } @Misc{Kehler2009, author = {Andrew Kehler}, howpublished = {Talk}, note = {Presented at U Michigan Workshop in Philosophy and Linguistics}, title = {Ellipsis and anaphora in a QUD model of discourse}, year = {2009}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {relevance relation, relevance, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, rhetoric, coherence, explanation, result, occasion, parallel, elaboration, intentions, plans, ellipsis, anaphora, discourse coherence}, url = {http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~rthomaso/lpw09/kehler.pdf}, } @Article{Rooij2004b, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Philosophia Scientiae}, title = {Cooperative versus argumentative communication}, year = {2004}, pages = {195-205}, volume = {2}, abstract = {Game theoretical analyses of communication (e.g. Lewis, Crawford & Sobel) demand cooperation between conversational partners for reliable information exchange to take place. Similarly, in pragmatics, the theory of language use, it is standard to assume that communication is a cooperative affair. Recently, this standard view has come under attack by Durcot and Merin, and it has been proposed that an argumentative view on natural language use is more appropriate. In this paper I discuss to what extent this attack is justified and whether the alternative view can provide a more adequate analysis of ‘pragmatic meaning’, i.e., implicatures. I will investigate the game-theoretical underpinning of the argumentative view, and contrast Merin’s analysis of scalar implicatures with one using the principle of exhaustive interpretation.}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry}, keywords = {game theory, rhetorical relations, relevance, coherence relations, coherence, cooperation, adversarial, scalar implicatures, conversational implicature, implicature, games, game-theoretic}, url = {https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.294.9174&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @Article{Cohen1979, author = {Philip R. Cohen and C. Raymong Perrault}, journal = {Cognitive Science}, title = {Elements of a plan-based theory of speech acts}, year = {1979}, number = {3}, pages = {177-212}, volume = {3}, abstract = {This paper explores the truism that people think about what they say. It proposes that, to satisfy their own goals, people often plan their speech acts to affect their listeners' beliefs, goals, and emotional states. Such language use can be modelled by viewing speech acts as operators in a planning system, thus allowing both physical and speech acts to be integrated into plans. Methodological issues of how speech acts should be defined in a plan-based theory are illustrated by defining operators for requesting and informing. Plans containing those operators are presented and comparisons are drawn with Searle's formulation. The operators are show to be inadequate since they cannot be composed to form questions (requests to inform) and multiparty requests (requests to request). By refining the operator definitions and by identifying some of the side effects of requesting, compositional adequacy is achieved. The solution leads to a metatheoretical principle for modelling speech acts as planning operators.}, doi = {10.1016/S0364-0213(79)80006-3}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {speech acts, plans, planning, pragmatics, philosophy of language, philosophy, competence, intentions}, } @InCollection{Perrault1990, author = {C. Raymond Perrault}, booktitle = {Intentions in Communication}, publisher = {MIT Press}, title = {An application of default logic to speech act theory}, year = {1990}, address = {Cambridge, MA}, editor = {Philip R. Cohen and Jerry Morgan and Martha E. Pollack}, abstract = {One of the central issues to be addressed in basing a theory of speech acts on independently motivated accounts of propositional attitudes (belief, knowledge, intentions, etc.) and action is the specification of the effects of communicative acts. The very fact that speech acts are conventional means that specifying the effects of the utterance of, say, a declarative sentence, or the performance of an assertion, requires taking into consideration many possible deviations from the conventional use of sentences — specifically uses that are insincere, not serious, or indirect. Previous approaches to the problem of specifying speech act consequences have paid insufficient attention to the dependence of the participants’ mental state after an utterance on their mental state preceding it. We present a limited solution to the problem of belief revision within Reiter’s nonmonotonic Default Logic and show how to formulate the consequences of many uses of declarative sentences. Default rules are used to embody a simple theory of belief adoption, action observation, and the relation between the form of a sentence and the attitudes it is used to convey.}, eprint = {https://www.sri.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/514.pdf}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {speech acts, philosophy, belief, knowledge, intention, belief revision, nonmonotonic, default logic, defaults, attitude, philosophy of language, revision}, } @InProceedings{Portner2005, author = {Paul Portner}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 14}, title = {The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types}, year = {2005}, address = {Ithaca, NY}, editor = {Kazuha Watanabe and Robert B. Young}, publisher = {CLC Publications}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {imperatives, speech acts, promissives, promise, clauses, force, syntax, meaning, semantics}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/mJlZGQ4N/PortnerSALT04.pdf}, } @Article{Portner2007, author = {Paul Portner}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Imperatives and Modals}, year = {2007}, number = {4}, pages = {351-383}, volume = {15}, abstract = {Imperatives may be interpreted with many sub-varieties of directive force, for example as orders, invitations, or pieces of advice. I argue that the range of meanings that imperatives may convey should be identified with the variety of interpretations that are possible for root modals, including deontic, bouletic, and teleological readings. This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between imperatives and root modals in discourse which asserts that, just as declaratives contribute to the common ground and thus provide information relevant to the interpretation of epistemic modals in subsequent discourse, imperatives contribute to another component of the discourse context, the addressee’s To-do List, which affects the interpretation of subsequent root modals. More specifically, the present account of imperatives can be integrated with Kratzer’s theory of modality by requiring that the To-do List be a subset of the ordering source used in the interpretation of root modals and by providing a mechanism by which particular types of ordering source may be selected. This analysis predicts that the interpretation of imperatives and modals in discourse is constrained in surprising ways; these predictions are borne out.}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {semantics, imperatives, speech acts, modals, modality, clauses, force, illocutionary force, declaratives, epistemic modals, epistemic, epistemology, philosophy}, url = {https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/linguistics/_files/pdf/4DW/Portner_4DW_2006.pdf}, } @InCollection{Portner2013, author = {Paul Portner}, booktitle = {Discourse and Grammar. From Sentence Types to Lexical Categories}, publisher = {Mouton de Gruyter}, title = {Permission and Choice}, year = {2013}, editor = {G\"{u}nther Grewendorf and Thomas Ede Zimmermann}, pages = {43-6}, doi = {10.1515/9781614511601.43}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {choice, permission, imperatives, speech acts, philosophy, modals, modality, dynamic semantics, dynamic}, } @InCollection{Rooij2009, author = {Robert van Rooij}, booktitle = {Formal Theories of information}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Comparing Questions and Answers. A bit of Language, a bit of Logic, and some bits of Information}, year = {2009}, editor = {Giovanni Sommaruga}, pages = {161-192}, abstract = {Notions like ‘entropy’ and ‘(expected) value of observations’ are widely used in science to determine which experiment to conduct to make a better informed choice between a set of scientific theories that are all consistent with the data. But these notions seem to be almost equally important for our use of language in daily life as they are for scientific inquiries.}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {decision problem, probability function, partial answer, conditional entropy, complete answer, entropy, expected value, information structure, speech acts, partition, questions, utilities, decision theory, declatatives, interrogatives, philosophy}, url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.800.5150&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Starr2010, author = {William B. Starr}, school = {Rutgers University}, title = {Conditionals, Meaning and Mood}, year = {2010}, abstract = {This work explores the hypothesis that natural language is a tool for changing a language user's state of mind and, more specically, the hypothesis that a sentence's meaning is constituted by its characteristic role in fullling this purpose. This view contrasts with the dominant approach to semantics due to Frege, Tarski and others' work on articial languages: language is rst and foremost a tool for representing the world. Adapted to natural language by Davidson, Lewis, Montague, et. al. this dominant approach has crystalized as truth-conditional semantics: to know the meaning of a sentence is to know the conditions under which that sentence is true. Chapter 1 details the animating ideas of my alternative approach and shows that the representational function of language can be understood in terms of the more general function of changing representational mental states. Chapters 2-4 argue that the additional resources of this more general conception of meaning allow us to explain certain phenomena involving conditionals (e.g. if Bob danced then Leland danced) and grammatical mood (e.g. declarative, interrogative, imperative mood) that truth-conditional semantics does not. In the analysis of these specic phenomena and the articulation of the general approach on oer, it emerges that this approach combines insights and benets from both use-theoretic and truth-theoretic work on meaning.}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {speech acts, philosophy, belief, knowledge, mental states, psycholinguistics, cognition, representation, conditional, grammar, mood, semantics, syntax}, url = {https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/30442/pdf/1/}, } @Unpublished{Starr2011, author = {William Starr}, title = {Conditionals and Questions}, year = {2011}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {planning, conditionals, speech acts, mood, interrogative, modals, probabity}, url = {http://williamstarr.net/research/conditionals_and_questions.pdf}, } @Article{Zanuttini2003, author = {Raffaella Zanuttini and Paul Portner}, journal = {Language}, title = {Exclamative clauses: At the syntax-semantics interface}, year = {2003}, number = {1}, pages = {39-81}, volume = {79}, doi = {10.1353/lan.2003.0105}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {speech acts, mood, syntax, semantics, force, cross-linguistic, non-English, Italian, Paduan, exclamative, exclamation, clauses, denotatioin, illocutionary force}, } @Article{Benz2007, author = {Anton Benz and Rober van Rooij}, journal = {Topoi}, title = {Optimal Assertions and what they implicate, A uniform game theoretic approach}, year = {2007}, pages = {63-78}, volume = {26}, abstract = {To determine what the speaker in a cooperative dialog meant with his assertion, on top of what he explicitly said, it is crucial that we assume that the assertion he gave was optimal. In determining optimal assertions we assume that dialogs are embedded in decision problems (van Rooij 2003) and use backwards induction for calculating them (Benz 2006). In this paper, we show that in terms of our framework we can account for several types of implicatures in a uniform way, suggesting that there is no need for an independent linguistic theory of generalized implicatures. In the final section, we show how we can embed our theory in the framework of signaling games, and how it relates with other game theoretic analyses of implicatures.}, doi = {10.1007/s11245-006-9007-3}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {implicature, conversational implicature, game theory, pragmatics, signaling games, optimization, optimality, decision theory, decision, decision problem, language game}, } @Book{Carlson1983, author = {Lauri Carlson}, publisher = {Springer Netherlands}, title = {Dialogue Games: An Approach to Discourse Analysis}, year = {1983}, abstract = {This essay constitutes yet another approach to the fields of inquiry variously known as discourse analysis, discourse grammar, text grammar, functional 1 syntax, or text linguistics. An attempt is made to develop a fairly abstract unified theoretical frame­ work for the description of discourse which actually helps explain concrete facts of the discourse grammar of a naturallanguage.2 This plan is reflected in the division of the study into two parts. In the first part, a semiformal framework for describing conversational discourse is developed in some detail. In the second part, this framework is applied to the functional syntax of English. The relation of the discourse grammar of Part II to the descriptive frame­ work of Part I can be instructively compared to the relation of Tarskian semantics to model theory. Tarski's semantics defmes a concept of truth of a sentence in a model, an independently identified construct. Analogously, my rules of discourse grammar defme a concept of appropriateness of a sentence to a given context. The task of the first Part of the essay is to characterize the relevant notion of context. Although my original statement of the problem was linguistic - how to describe the meaning, or function, of certain aspects of word order and intonation - Part I is largely an application of various methods and results of philosophical logic. The justification of the interdisciplinary approach is the simplicity and naturalness of the eventual answers to specific linguistic problems in Part II.}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {language game, intention, grammar, syntax, semantics, model theory, logic, intonation, context, philosophy}, } @Book{Hintikka1973, author = {Jaakko Hintikka}, publisher = {Clarendon Press}, title = {Logic, Language-Games, and Information}, year = {1973}, address = {Oxford}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {logic, philosophy, language games, game, information, intention}, } @Article{Hintikka1981, author = {Jaakko Hintikka}, journal = {Synthese}, title = {On the logic of an interrogative model of scientific inquiry}, year = {1981}, pages = {69-83}, volume = {47}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {logic, philosophy, interrogatives, quesiton, philosophy of science, epistemic, epsitemology, information, language games}, } @Article{Hintikka1979, author = {Jaakko Hintikka and Esa Saarinen}, journal = {Studia Logica}, title = {Information-seeking dialogues: Some of their logical properties}, year = {1979}, pages = {355-363}, volume = {32}, abstract = {The dialogical games introduced in Jaakko Hintikka, “Information-Seeking Dialogues: A Model,” (Erkenntnis, vol. 14, 1979) are studied here to answer the question as to what the “natural logic” or the logic of natural language is. In a natural language certain epistemic elements are not explicitly indicated, but they determine which inference rules are valid. By means of dialogical games, the question is answered: all classical first-order rules have to be modified in the same way in which some of them are modified in the transition to intuitionistic logic. (Furthermore, in some cases quantificational rules have to be modified further.) The rules that are left unmodified by intuitionists are applicable only to the output of certain game rules, but not to others. In. this sense, neither classical nor yet intuitionistic logic is the logic of natural language. We need a new type of nonclassical logic, justified by our information-seeking dialogues.}, doi = {10.1007/BF00370473}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {game, language games, epistemic, epistemology, logic, philosophy}, } @InCollection{Lewis1979, author = {David Lewis}, booktitle = {Semantics from a Different Point of View}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Scorekeeping in a language game}, year = {1979}, address = {Berlin}, editor = {Rainer B\"{a}uerle and Urs Egli and Arnim von Stechow}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {language games, game, philosophy, logic, presupposition, context, scoreboard, accommodation, definite description, vagueness, modality, performatives}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/30227173}, } @Article{Rooij2003e, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Journal of Logic, Language and Information}, title = {Quality and quantity of information exchange}, year = {2003}, pages = {423-451}, volume = {12}, abstract = {The paper deals with credible and relevantinformation flow in dialogs: How useful is it for areceiver to get some information, how useful is it fora sender to give this information, and how much credibleinformation can we expect to flow between sender andreceiver? What is the relation between semantics andpragmatics? These Gricean questions will be addressedfrom a decision and game-theoretical point of view.}, doi = {10.1023/A:1025054901745}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {logic, games, language games, game theory, semantics, pragmatics, information flow, intention, meaning, relevance, signaling games, decision, decision theory, philosophy}, } @InCollection{Rooij2021, author = {Robert van Rooij and Michael Franke}, booktitle = {Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}, title = {Game Theoretic and Optimality Theoretic Approaches to Implicatures and Optimality}, year = {2021}, editor = {Edward N. Zalta}, abstract = {Linguistic pragmatics studies the context-dependent use and interpretation of expressions. Perhaps the most important notion in pragmatics is Grice’s (1967) conversational implicature. It is based on the insight that by means of general principles of rational cooperative behavior we can communicate more with the use of a sentence than the conventional semantic meaning associated with it. Grice has argued, for instance, that the exclusive interpretation of ‘or’—according to which we infer from ‘John or Mary came’ that John and Mary didn’t come both—is not due to the semantic meaning of ‘or’ but should be accounted for by a theory of conversational implicature. In this particular example,—a typical example of a so-called Quantity implicature—the hearer’s implication is taken to follow from the fact that the speaker could have used a contrasting, and informatively stronger expression, but chose not to. Other implicatures may follow from what the hearer thinks that the speaker takes to be normal states of affairs, i.e., stereotypical interpretations. For both types of implicatures, the hearer’s (pragmatic) interpretation of an expression involves what he takes to be the speaker’s reason for using this expression. But obviously, this speaker’s reason must involve assumptions about the hearer’s reasoning as well. In this entry we will discuss formal accounts of conversational implicatures that explicitly take into account the interactive reasoning of speaker and hearer (e.g., what speaker and hearer believe about each other, the relevant aspects of the context of utterance etc.) and that aim to reductively explain conversational implicature as the result of goal-oriented, economically optimised language use. For this entry, just as in traditional analyses of implicatures, we will assume that sentences have a pre-existing semantic meaning and will mostly focus on generalised conversational implicatures.}, comment = {First published in 2006 by van Rooij. Substantive revisions in 2021.}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {language games, game theory, decision theory, optimality, optimal, optimization, context, interpretation, intention, conversational implicature, conventional, signaling games, quantity, philosophy}, url = {https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/implicature-optimality-games/}, } @Article{Rooij2012, author = {Robert van Rooij and Tikitu de Jager}, journal = {Journal of Logic, Language and Information}, title = {Explaining quantity implicatures}, year = {2012}, pages = {461-477}, volume = {21}, abstract = {We give derivations of two formal models of Gricean Quantity implicature and strong exhaustivity in bidirectional optimality theory and in a signalling games framework. We show that, under a unifying model based on signalling games, these interpretative strategies are game-theoretic equilibria when the speaker is known to be respectively minimally and maximally expert in the matter at hand. That is, in this framework the optimal strategy for communication depends on the degree of knowledge the speaker is known to have concerning the question she is answering. In addition, and most importantly, we give a game-theoretic characterisation of the interpretation rule Grice (formalising Quantity implicature), showing that under natural conditions this interpretation rule occurs in the unique equilibrium play of the signalling game.}, doi = {10.1007/s10849-012-9163-3}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {conversational implicature, implicature, pragmatics, game theory, game, language games, intention, philosophy, quantity, optimality, optimization, optimality theory}, } @Article{Rooij2008, author = {Robert van Rooij}, journal = {Journal of Economic Methodology}, title = {Game Theory and Quantity Implicatures}, year = {2008}, pages = {261-274}, volume = {15}, abstract = {In this paper we seek to account for scalar implicatures and Horn's division of pragmatic labor in game‐theoretical terms by making use mainly of refinements of the standard solution concept of signaling games. Scalar implicatures are accounted for in terms of Farrell's (1993) notion of a ‘neologism‐proof’ equilibrium together with Grice's maxim of Quality. Horn's division of pragmatic labor is accounted for in terms of Cho and Kreps’ (1987) notion of ‘equilibrium domination’ and their ‘Intuitive Criterion’.}, doi = {10.1080/13501780802321376}, groups = {The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {onversational implicature, implicature, pragmatics, game theory, game, language games, intention, philosophy, quantity, optimality, optimization, optimality theory}, } @Article{Gualmini2009, author = {Andrea Gualmini and Bernhard Schwarz}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Solving learnability problems in the acquisition of semantics}, year = {2009}, pages = {185-215}, volume = {26}, abstract = {This paper proposes solutions to two semantic learnability problems that have featured prominently in the literature on language acquisition. Both problems have often been deemed unsolvable for language learners as a matter of logic, and they have accordingly been taken to motivate principles making sure they will not actually arise in the course of language acquisition. One problem concerns the acquisition of ambiguous sentences whose readings are related by entailment. Crain et al.'s (1994) Semantic Subset Principle is intended to preempt the problem by preventing acquisition of the weaker reading before the stronger reading has been acquired. In contrast, we demonstrate that this very order of acquisition becomes feasible in principle if children can exploit non-truth-conditional evidence of various kinds or evidence from sentences containing downward entailing operators. The other learnability problem concerns the potential need for expunction of certain readings of ambiguous sentences from a child's grammar. It has often been assumed that, in the absence of negative evidence, such expunction is impossible, and Wexler and Manzini (1987) posit a Subset Principle to preempt the problematic learning scenario. We argue, however, that if the evidence available to the child includes dialogues, and if listeners are expected to interpret speakers' utterances charitably, then expunction of unavailable readings is possible in principle.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffp002}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {language acquisition, learning, children, learnability, principle of charity, entailment problem, expunction problem, evidence, semantics}, } @Article{Tian2010, author = {Ye Tian and Richard Breheny and Heather J. Ferguson}, journal = {Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology}, title = {Why we simulate negated information: A dynamic pragmatic account}, year = {2010}, pages = {2305-2312}, volume = {63}, abstract = {A well-established finding in the simulation literature is that participants simulate the positive argument of negation soon after reading a negative sentence, prior to simulating a scene consistent with the negated sentence (Kaup, Ludtke, & Zwaan, 2006; Kaup, Yaxley, Madden, Zwaan, & Ludtke, 2007). One interpretation of this finding is that negation requires two steps to process: first represent what is being negated then "reject" that in favour of a representation of a negation-consistent state of affairs (Kaup et al., 2007). In this paper we argue that this finding with negative sentences could be a by-product of the dynamic way that language is interpreted relative to a common ground and not the way that negation is represented. We present a study based on Kaup et al. (2007) that tests the competing accounts. Our results suggest that some negative sentences are not processed in two steps, but provide support for the alternative, dynamic account.}, doi = {10.1080/17470218.2010.525712}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {language acquisition, dynamic semantics, pragmatics, dynamic, negated information, negation, negated sentences, learning, learnability}, } @Article{Simons2017, author = {Mandy Simons and David Beaver and Craige Roberts and Judith Tonhauser}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {The Best Question: Explaining the Projection Behavior of Factives}, year = {2017}, number = {3}, pages = {187-206}, volume = {54}, abstract = {This article deals with projection in factive sentences. The article first challenges standard assumptions by presenting a series of detailed observations about the interpretations of factive sentences in context, showing that what implication projects, if any, is quite variable and that projection is tightly constrained by prosodic and contextual information about the alternatives under consideration. The article then proposes an account which accommodates the variability of the data and sensitivity to contextual alternatives. The account is formulated within a modified version of Roberts 1996/2012 question-based model of discourse.}, doi = {10.1080/0163853X.2016.1150660}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {prosodic focus, focus, projection, alternatives, interpretation, prosody, context}, } @Article{Beaver2017, author = {David Beaver and Craige Roberts and Mandy Simons and Judith Tonhauser}, journal = {Annual Review of Linguistics}, title = {Questions Under Discussion: Where information structure meets projective content}, year = {2017}, volume = {3}, abstract = {We discuss problems familiar from the literature on presupposition and information structure, and illustrate how a synthesis using the Question Under Discussion (QUD) framework yields fresh insight. In this framework, discourse is analyzed in terms of the strategy of inquiry pursued by the interlocutors, and individual utterances are interpreted relative to the question being addressed. This way of thinking offers a new perspective on diverse phenomena, including the projection of presuppositions, association with focus, contrastive topic marking, and variability of projection behavior. We review the principal issues and prior lines of research in each of these areas, and show how the issues may be recast in QUD terms}, doi = {10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011516-033952}, groups = {Projection, Topic}, keywords = {QUD, presupposition, information structure, projection, focus, factives, topic, contrastive topic}, } @InCollection{Roberts2018, author = {Craige Roberts}, booktitle = {New Work on Speech Acts}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Speech acts in discourse context}, year = {2018}, editor = {Daniel Fogal and Daniel Harris and Mart Moss}, pages = {317-359}, abstract = {There is evidence for the existence across all known languages of three basic clause types: declarative, interrogative, and imperative. Though this distinction in grammatical mood may be reflected in quite different ways (syntactic, morphological, lexical, etc.) in different languages, cross-linguistically we find a robust generalization: The choice of mood in a clausal utterance is reflected in a default correlation to one of the three basic types of move in a language game: making an assertion (declarative), posing a question (interrogative), or proposing to one’s addressee(s) the adoption of a goal (imperative). This is in striking contrast to the lack of regular correlation between the conventional content of constituents and speech act types in the tradition of Austin and Searle. This paper sketches an approach to speech acts in which mood does not semantically determine illocutionary force. In a clause, the conventional content of mood determines the semantic type of the clause, and, given the nature of discourse, that type most naturally lends itself to serving as a particular type of speech act, i.e. to serving as one of the three basic types of language game moves. The type of semantics for grammatical mood that I assume is illustrated here with the imperative. As in earlier work, I take discourse to be a certain type of language game, with felicity tightly constrained by the goals and intentions of the interlocutors and, in particular, by the question under discussion. This pragmatic framework, together with the proposed semantics of mood, permits us to explain the kinds of contextual factors that lead to the attested Searlean interpretations of particular speech acts, and is compatible with a simple account of performatives in which performativity is epiphenomenal on the semantics of the predicates in question when used with a 1st person subject.}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, The Language Game, Cross-Linguistic, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {speech acts, mood, cross-linguistic, clauses, language games, game}, } @InCollection{Asher2012, author = {Nicholas Asher}, booktitle = {Discourse and Grammar: From Sentence Types to Lexical Categories}, publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton}, title = {Implicatures in Discourse}, year = {2012}, address = {Berlin}, editor = {G\"{u}nther Grewendorf and Thomas Ede Zimmermann}, doi = {10.1515/9781614511601.11}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {scalar implicatures, implicature, SDRT, DRT, monotonicity, non-monotonic, quantity implicature, quantity, scalar}, } @InProceedings{Jasinskaja2011, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja and Elena Karagjosova}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Constraints in Discourse 4}, title = {Elaboration and Explanation}, year = {2011}, abstract = {In this paper we study two realisation patterns shared between elaboration and explanation relations: unmarked connection, i.e. juxtaposition of sentences without any explicit marker, and the German marker ‘n¨amlich’ (namely), which must have emerged as a marker of specification but has spread in the direction of explanation. We try to answer the question what is common to elaboration and explanation relations which licenses the use of same expressive patterns, and argue that elaboration and explanation are closely connected in the conceptual space of discourse relations.}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {rhetorical relations, coherence relations, coherence, German, cross-linguistic, non-English}, url = {https://dslc.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sites/dslc/katja_files/jasinskaja_karagjosova_ElEx.pdf}, } @InCollection{Zeevat2007a, author = {Henk Zeevat and Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, booktitle = {Language, Representation and Reasoning. Memorial volume to Isabel Gómez Txurruka}, publisher = {University of the Basque Country Press}, title = {'And' as an Additive Particle}, year = {2007}, editor = {Mixel Aurnage and Kepa Korta and Jes\'{u}s M Larrazabal}, pages = {315-340}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {and, additives, particles, lexical items, Russian, non-English, cross-linguistic, conjunction, grammar}, url = {https://idsl1.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sites/IDSLI/dozentenseiten/Jasinskaja/zeevat_jasinskaja_2007.pdf}, } @Article{Zeevat2008, author = {Henk Zeevat and Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, journal = {Revue de S\'{e}mantique et Pragmatique}, title = {Explaining Additive, Adversative and Contrast Marking in Russian and English}, year = {2008}, pages = {65-91}, volume = {24}, abstract = {The functional space covered by the conjunctions and and but in English is divided between three conjunctions in Russian: i ‘and,’ a ‘and, but’ and no ‘but.’ We analyse these markers as topic management devices, i.e. they impose different kinds of constraints on the discourse topics (questions under discussion) addressed by their conjuncts. This paper gives a detailed review of the observations from descriptive literature on the distribution of these markers in light of the proposed underlying classification of questions, and shows that our theoretical approach provides a uniform explanation to a large variety of their uses, as well as to the existing equivalences and nonequivalences between the Russian and the English counterparts.}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {conjunction, and, additives, particles, lexical items, Russian, non-English, cross-linguistic, discourse topic, topic, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, coherence, grammar}, url = {https://dslc.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sites/dslc/katja_files/jasinskaja_zeevat_2008.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Jasinskaja2009, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja and Henk Zeevat}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {Explaining Conjunction Systems: Russian, English, German}, year = {2009}, pages = {231-245}, volume = {13}, abstract = {The paper analyses the Russian conjunctions i, a and no, the English conjunctions and and but and the German conjunctions und, aber and sondern in terms of specialised additivity: special cases of the relation between sentences expressed by too and also. The first section gives an overview of the analysis, the second section tries to give an explicit characterisation of additivity and its specialisations. The third section uses an OT-like framework to explain the complementary distribution of the conjunctions and the blocking effects that result.}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {and, Russian, non-English, cross-linguistic, conjunctions, additives, OT, optimality, maximality, lexical items, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, coherence, grammar}, url = {https://dslc.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sites/dslc/katja_files/jasinskaja_zeevat_2009.pdf}, } @Article{Jasinskaja2010, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, journal = {Russian in Contrast}, title = {Corrective Contrast in Russian, in Contrast}, year = {2010}, number = {2}, pages = {433-466}, volume = {2}, abstract = {In many languages markers of contrast, such as the English 'but', are also used to express correction: John didn't go to Paris, but to Berlin. The present paper tries to explain this cross-linguistic pattern and represents correction as a special case of contrast. It focuses on the Russian contrastive conjunction 'a' and argues that its corrective uses in combination with negation 'ne ... a' / 'a ne', which are traditionally viewed as a fixed collocation, are in fact co-occurrences of a general contrastive 'a' with constituent negation.}, doi = {10.5617/osla.85}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {contrastives, additives, lexical items, conjunction, cross-linguistic, non-English, Russian, negation, grammar}, } @Unpublished{Jasinskaja2010, author = {Ekaterina Jasinskaja}, note = {Ms. Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo}, title = {The Global Aboutness Topic in German Narrative}, year = {2010}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Topic, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {German, non-English, cross-linguistic, plans, psycholinguistics, universal, DRT, OT, optimality, maximality, aboutness, topic, tense}, url = {https://dslc.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/sites/dslc/katja_files/jasinskaja_topic.pdf}, } @Article{Schoubye2013, author = {Anders J Schoubye}, journal = {No\^{u}s}, title = {Ghosts, Murderers, and the Semantics of Descriptions}, year = {2013}, number = {3}, pages = {496-533}, volume = {47}, abstract = {It is widely agreed that sentences containing a non-denoting description embedded in the scope of a propositional attitude verb have true de dicto interpretations, and Russell’s (1905) analysis of definite descriptions is often praised for its simple analysis of such cases, cf. e.g. Neale (1990). However, several people, incl. Elbourne (2005, 2010), Heim (1991), and Kripke (2005), have contested this by arguing that Russell’s analysis yields incorrect predictions in non-doxastic attitude contexts. Heim and Elbourne have subsequently argued that once certain facts about presupposition projection are fully appreciated, the Frege/Strawson analysis of definite descriptions has an explanatory advantage. In this paper, I argue that both Russell’s analysis and the Frege/Strawson analysis face a serious problem when it comes to the interaction of attitude verbs and deĕnite descriptions. I argue that the problem observed by Elbourne, Heim, and Kripke is much more general than standardly assumed and that a solution requires a revision of the semantics of deĕnite and indeĕnite descriptions. I outline the conditions that are required to solve the problem and present an analysis couched in dynamic semantics which can provide a solution. I conclude by discussing some further issues related to propositional attitude verbs that complicate a fully general solution to the problem.}, doi = {10.1111/j.1468-0068.2011.00836.x}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {philosophy, semantics, denotation, definite description, reference, attitude, presupposition, projection, anaphora, dynamic semantics}, } @Article{Ippolito2021, author = {Michela Ippolito}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {The Contribution of Gestures to the Semantics of Non-Canonical Questions}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The symbolic gesture MAT (mano a tulipano) used by native speakers of Italian characterizes non-canonical wh questions when used both as a co-speech and pro-speech gesture. MAT can be executed with either a fast tempo contour or a slow tempo contour. Tempo is semantically significant: descriptively, a fast tempo characterizes a biased but information-seeking non-canonical question; a slow tempo characterizes a rhetorical non-canonical question. I argue that the fast contour is the default tempo of MAT and that it brings about a biased interpretation. Slowing down the movement occurs when the feature [slow] is added: the semantic contribution of this feature is to add the presupposition that the question is resolved in the conversational context, resulting in the rhetorical interpretation of the question.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffab007}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {tempo, Italian, non-English, cross-linguistic, presupposition, rhetorical, gesture, pragmatics}, } @Article{Rullmann2021, author = {Hotze Rullmann and Marianne Huijsmans and Lisa Matthewson and Neda Todorovi\'{c}}, journal = {Linguistic Inquiry}, title = {Why Plain Futurates Are Different}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.1162/ling_a_00435}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {futurates, future, tense, experimental, pragmatics}, } @Article{Buchanan2021, author = {Ray Buchanan and Henry Ian Schiller}, journal = {Philosophy and Phenomenological Research}, title = {Pragmatic Particularism}, year = {2021}, abstract = {For the Intentionalist, utterance content is wholly determined by a speaker’s meaning-intentions; the sentence uttered serves merely to facilitate the audience’s recovering these intentions. We argue that Intentionalists ought to be Particularists, holding that the only “principles” of meaning recovery needed are those governing inferences to the best explanation; “principles” that are both defeasible and, in a sense to be elaborated, variable. We discuss some ways in which some theorists have erred in trying to tame the “wild west” of pragmatics and context-sensitivity – including recent work that makes essential appeal to the information structure of a discourse – and in so doing, offer a general recipe for defending the Particularist picture of utterance content and its recovery that we favor.}, comment = {This directly argues that the QUD framework, and overall theoretical approach, is ill-suited to an intentionalist thesis about sentence meaning. The authors embrace the `wild west' of pragmatics.}, doi = {10.1111/phpr.12801}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophy, intention, meaning, IBE, pragmatics, information structure, question under discussion, QUD, anti-QUD}, } @Article{Woods2021, author = {Rebecca Woods and Luis Vicente}, journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics}, title = {Metacommunicative-why fragments as probes into the grammar of the speech act layer}, year = {2021}, number = {1}, pages = {84}, volume = {6}, abstract = {The English lexical item why can be used metacommunicatively in response to a previous question act. In these cases, its meaning is similar to “Why are you (the original questioner) asking me (the original addressee) that question?” This is also true of why’s counterparts in a range of other languages. We demonstrate how metacommunicative, or meta, why’s use and meaning is similar to and different from the paraphrase above, proposing a modal-driven ontology for why, and explore how different constructions involving meta-why are derived. We argue that meta-why is derived by eliding a question act, a syntactic object larger than a proposition, and provide support for theoretical frameworks in which discourse management and interlocutor commitment acts are encoded in syntax.}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.1169}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {speech acts, syntax, why, metacommunication, ellipsis, question, context}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Borthen2021, author = {Kaja Borthen and Elena Karagjosova}, journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics}, title = {Pronominal right-dislocation in Norwegian}, year = {2021}, abstract = {The goal of the paper is to propose a holistic analysis of the discourse properties and the interpretational effects of pronominal right-dislocation in Norwegian. Previous research has suggested that this is a topic construction, and it has been shown that the right-dislocated pronoun may affect reference assignment, is sometimes used in cases of discourse breaks, is associated with contrastiveness, and may lead to interpretational effects such as “emphasis” and “mitigation”. Based on Norwegian authentic corpus material, Givón’s (1983a) notion of marked constructions, and Sperber and Wilson’s (1986/1995) relevance theory, we present a novel analysis that connects the various properties of the construction together. A central aspect of our analysis is the assumption that marked constructions increase the accessibility of contrastive interpretations, which in turn may trigger the derivation of certain types of implicatures. Since the analysis is mainly based on assumptions about human cognition, the study makes cross-linguistic predictions despite its focus on one language.}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.1025}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {contrast, marked construction, relevance, right-dislocation, topicality, non-English, Norwegian, cross-linguistic, topic, pronoun, reference, implicature, cognition, psycholinguistics}, } @InProceedings{Laparle2021, author = {Schuyler Laparle}, booktitle = {Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management. Human Body, Motion and Behavior, HCII 2021}, title = {Tracking Discourse Topics in Co-speech Gesture}, year = {2021}, abstract = {This paper argues for the integration of co-speech gesture into formal models of discourse structures. In particular, I use a variation of the Question Under Discussion (QUD) framework to show how features of co-speech gesture may be used to inform discourse analysis. To do this, I look at examples of three discourse relations: clarification, citation and attitude expression. All three of these involve a momentary digression from the main discourse topic, a phenomenon which I call ‘micro-excursion’. I show that these micro-excursions correspond to particular and recurrent changes in co-speech gesture sequences. I provide micro-analyses of three discourse fragments taken from interviews on late night television. For each fragment, I look at speech-gesture alignment and then use this alignment to inform an analysis of the discourse’s structure. In particular, I show the ways in which hand shape and orientation can be used to segment a discourse into different topics. By using features of co-speech gesture in this way, we are able to inform and justify a proposed discourse structure analyses in a principled and non-circular way. Furthermore, I show that this methodology can be straightforwardly integrated into existing models of discourse structure, despite them being designed for mono-modal discourses.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-77817-0_18}, keywords = {gesture, attitude, pragmatics, relevance, discourse relations}, } @Unpublished{Jiang2021, author = {Nanjiang Jiang and Marie-Catherine de Marneffe}, note = {to be published in TACL, pre-MIT Press publication version}, title = {He Thinks He Knows Better than the Doctors: BERT for Event Factuality Fails on Pragmatics}, year = {2021}, abstract = {We investigate how well BERT performs on predicting factuality in several existing English datasets, encompassing various linguistic constructions. Although BERT obtains a strong performance on most datasets, it does so by exploiting common surface patterns that correlate with certain factuality labels, and it fails on instances where pragmatic reasoning is necessary. Contrary to what the high performance suggests, we are still far from having a robust system for factuality prediction.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {corpus, experimental, pragmatics, embedded events, facts, factuality, events, BERT, computation}, url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.00807}, } @PhdThesis{Kaldi2021, author = {Tam\'{a}s K\'{a}ldi}, school = {Budapest University of Technology and Economics}, title = {Hungarian Pre-verbal Focus: Representation and Interpretation}, year = {2021}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Focus, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {Hungarian, non-English, cross-linguistic, focus, prosody, grammar, information structure, topic, representation, psycholinguistics, attention, alternatives, exhaustivity}, url = {https://repozitorium.omikk.bme.hu/handle/10890/15355?locale-attribute=en}, } @Article{Bary2021, author = {Corien Bary and Emar Maier}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {The landscape of speech reporting}, year = {2021}, number = {8}, volume = {14}, abstract = {Languages offer various ways to report what someone said. There is now a vast but heterogeneous literature on speech report constructions scattered throughout the semantics literature. We offer a bird’s eye view of the entire landscape of reporting and propose a classification along two dimensions: at-issue vs. not-at-issue, and eventive vs. non-eventive. This bird’s eye perspective leads to genuinely new insights, for instance on the nature of quotative evidentials and reportative moods, viz., that they are both eventive, and hence semantically more like some types of direct and indirect speech than reportative evidentials and modals are.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.14.8}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Projection}, keywords = {reported speech, evidentiality, events, not-at-issue content, at-issue, at-issueness, at issue, eventive, event, speech event, quotation}, } @InProceedings{Overfelt2021, author = {Jason Overfelt}, booktitle = {Proceedings of WCCFL 39}, title = {Having space to sprout: Failed sprouting in sub-clausal ellipses}, year = {2021}, abstract = {This paper presents and accounts for an under-explored constraint against sprouting from sub-clausal ellipses. The account begins fromthe claimthat antecedents for ellipsis can in principle be recovered from the syntax or an implicit question meaning. Different kinds of ellipses, however, may be subject to limits on this flexibility for antecedent recovery. I argue that these limits can conspire to block the licensing of ellipsis, specifically in the case of sprouting from an elided predicate. Moreover, I propose that these are expected consequences of the model of focus-based semantic redundancy that is found in Rooth 1992a,b. The remainder of the paper explores the diagnostic utility of sprouting in determining the size of an elided constituent. Case studies from Stripping in English and Modal Complement Ellipsis in Catalan and French are presented.}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Catalan, French, non-English, cross-linguistic, ellipsis, anaphora, presupposition, focus, sprouting, redundancy, recovery, licensing}, url = {https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/006056/current.pdf?_s=7DbGNZWb22vuQVzl}, } @Article{Carter2021, author = {Sam Carter}, journal = {Mind}, title = {A Suppositional Theory of Conditionals}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Suppositional theories of conditionals take apparent similarities between supposition and conditionals as a starting point, appealing to features of the former to provide an account of the latter. This paper develops a novel form of suppositional theory, one which characterizes the relationship at the level of semantics rather than at the level of speech acts. In the course of doing so, it considers a range of novel data which shed additional light on how conditionals and supposition interact.}, doi = {10.1093/mind/fzaa071}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophy, conditionals, supposition, semantics, update semantics, indicative, subjunctive, mood}, } @Article{Fleisher2019, author = {Will Fleisher}, journal = {No\^{u}s}, title = {Endorsement and Assertion}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Scientists, philosophers, and other researchers commonly assert their theories. This is surprising, as there are good reasons for skepticism about theories in cutting-edge research. I propose a new account of assertion in research contexts that vindicates these assertions. This account appeals to a distinct propositional attitude called endorsement, which is the rational attitude of committed advocacy researchers have to their theories. The account also appeals to a theory of conversational pragmatics known as the Question Under Discussion model, or QUD. Hence, I call the theory the EQUD model. Motivating this account is a recognition that the speech act of assertion has two roles to play in research contexts. The first is the advocacy role, in which researchers assert a theory in order to advocate for it. The second is the evidential role, which is used to add to the common stock of information available to a field of inquiry. The EQUD model provides an account of warranted assertion for both these roles in research contexts. This success provides support for the theory of endorsement. It also provides support for information updating accounts of assertion.}, doi = {10.1111/nous.12315}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophy, assertion, propositional attitude, epistemic, epistemology, pragmatics, speech act, evidential, endorsement}, } @Unpublished{, author = {Jacopo Romoli and Paolo Santorio and Eva Wittenberg}, title = {Alternatives in counterfactuals: What is right and what is not}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Classical semantics for counterfactuals is based on a notion of comparative similarity and minimal change: If A, would C says that the most similar A-worlds are C-worlds. This semantics suffers from a well-known difficulty with disjunctive antecedents, which has generated a number of proposals combining the semantics of counterfactuals with alternatives (see e.g. Alonso-Ovalle 2009, Willer 2018, Santorio 2018, a.o.). In a recent study, Ciardelli, Zhang, and Champollion (2018b; henceforth, CZC) present new, related difficulties for the classical approach having to do with unpredicted differences between counterfactuals with De Morgan-equivalent antecedents, and related pattern of inferences. They propose a new semantics for counterfactuals, which builds on inquisitive semantics (see Ciardelli et al. 2018a) and gives up on comparative similarity and minimal change. We report a series of experiments extending their investigation. Our results replicate CZC's main effects, but they also indicate that those effects are linked to the presence of overt negation. We propose a novel account, based on three key assumptions: (i) the semantics for counterfactuals is standard; (ii) the meanings of disjunction and negation are associated with alternatives, which interact with the meaning of counterfactuals; (iii) the alternatives generated by negation are partially determined by the question under discussion (QUD).}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {counterfactuals, alternatives, domain restriction, experimental, experimental pragmatics, disjunction, negation}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351283192_Alternatives_in_counterfactuals_What_is_right_and_what_is_not}, } @Article{Schiller2021, author = {Henry Ian Schiller}, journal = {Philosophical Studies}, title = {Illocutionary Harm}, year = {2021}, pages = {1631-1646}, volume = {178}, abstract = {A number of philosophers have become interested in the ways that individuals are subject to harm as the performers of illocutionary acts. This paper offers an account of the underlying structure of such harms: I argue that speakers are the subjects of illocutionary harm when there is interference in the entitlement structure of their linguistic activities. This interference comes in two forms: denial and incapacitation. In cases of denial, a speaker is prevented from achieving the outcomes to which they are entitled by their speech (where such entitlements are based on their meeting certain conditions). In cases of incapacitation, a speaker’s standing to expect certain outcomes is itself undermined. I also discuss how individual speakers are subject to interference along two dimensions: as exercisers of certain non-linguistic capacities (such as knowledge and authority), and as producers of meaningful speech.}, doi = {10.1007/s11098-020-01504-0}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {speech acts, philosophy, entitlement, sociopragmatics}, } @Article{Bade2021, author = {Nadine Bade and Agata Renans}, journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics}, title = {A cross-linguistic view on the obligatory insertion of additive particles — Maximize Presupposition vs. Obligatory Implicatures}, year = {2021}, number = {1}, pages = {51}, volume = {6}, abstract = {Presupposition triggers, such as the additive particle too, the iterative particle again, and the definite determiner the, are obligatory if their presuppositions are satisfied in the context. This observation is accounted for in the literature by two theories: one based on Maximize Presupposition (e.g., Heim 1991; Percus 2006; Chemla 2008), the other based on Obligatory Implicatures (Bade 2016). In this paper, we report on two experiments in two typologically unrelated languages, Ga (Kwa) and German, which were designed to test the predictions of these two approaches for the insertion of additive particles. The results show that in both languages the insertion of additives is regulated by Obligatory Implicatures, posing challenges for Maximize Presupposition. Following Bade (2016), we assume a division of labor between the two theories in explaining obligatory presupposition effects.}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.727}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Projection and Presupposition, Experimental Approaches, Projection}, keywords = {presupposition, implicatures, additives, German, non-English, cross-linguistic, maximize presupposition, obligatory implicatures, experimental, Ga, experimental pragmatics, projection}, } @Article{Marty2021, author = {Paul Marty and Jacopo Romoli}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Presuppositions, implicatures, and contextual equivalence}, year = {2021}, pages = {229-280}, volume = {29}, abstract = {Maximize Presupposition! (MP), as originally proposed in Heim (Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung, pp. 487–535, 1991) and developed in subsequent works, offers an account of the otherwise mysterious unassertability of a variety of sentences. At the core of MP is the idea that speakers are urged to use a sentence ψ over a sentence ϕ if ψ contributes the same new information as ϕ, yet carries a stronger presupposition. While MP has been refined in many ways throughout the years, most (if not all) of its formulations have retained this characterisation of the MP-competition. Recently, however, the empirical adequacy of this characterisation has been questioned in light of certain newly discovered cases that are infelicitous, despite meeting MP-competition conditions. This has led some researchers to broaden the scope of MP, extending it to competition between sentences which are not contextually equivalent (Spector and Sudo in Linguistics and Philosophy 40(5):473–517, 2017) and whose presuppositions are not satisfied in the context (Anvari in Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 28, pp. 711–726, 2018; Manuscript, IJN-ENS, 2019). In this paper, we present a body of evidence showing that these formulations of MP are sometimes too liberal, sometimes too restrictive: they overgenerate infelicity for a variety of felicitous cases while leaving the infelicity of minimally different cases unaccounted for. We propose an alternative, implicature-based approach stemming from Magri (PhD dissertation, MIT, 2009), Meyer (PhD dissertation, MIT, 2013), and Marty (PhD dissertation, MIT, 2017), which reintroduces contextual equivalence and presupposition satisfaction in some form through the notion of relevance. This approach is shown to account for the classical and most of the novel cases. Yet some of the latter remain problematic for this approach as well. We end the paper with a systematic comparison of the different approaches to MP and MP-like phenomena, covering both the classical and the novel cases. All in all, the issue of how to properly restrict the competition for MP-like phenomena remains an important challenge for all accounts in the literature.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-021-09176-0}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {presupposition, projection, assertion, relevance}, } @InProceedings{Goodhue2021, author = {Daniel Goodhue}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America}, title = {A unified account of inquisitive and assertive rising declaratives}, year = {2021}, number = {1}, pages = {951}, volume = {6}, abstract = {Previous work on rising declaratives has argued that some have an inquisitive interpretation similar to polar questions, and that this meaning is intonationally distinguished by a steep final rise to a high boundary tone, while others have an assertive interpretation, similar to assertions of falling declaratives, that has a shallower final rise to a lower, high boundary tone. I demonstrate that this strict form-meaning correlation does not hold because there are inquisitive rising declaratives that have a shallow final rise. I argue for a unified theory of rising declaratives with enough interpretational flexibility to explain these crosscutting patterns.}, doi = {10.3765/plsa.v6i1.5042}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Focus}, keywords = {focus, prosody, declaratives, speech acts, pragmatics, semantics, intonation, biased questions, rising declaratives, tone}, } @Article{Keiser2021, author = {Jessica Keiser}, journal = {Synthese}, title = {The ``All Lives Matter'' response: QUD-shifting as epistemic injustice}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Drawing on recent work in formal pragmatic theory, this paper shows that the manipulation of discourse structure—in particular, by way of shifting the Question Under Discussion mid-discourse—can constitute an act of epistemic injustice. I argue that the “All Lives Matter” response to the “Black Lives Matter” slogan is one such case; this response shifts the Question Under Discussion governing the overarching discourse from Do Black lives matter? to Which lives matter? This manipulation of the discourse structure systematically obscures the intended meaning of “Black lives matter” and disincentivizes future utterances of it.}, doi = {10.1007/s11229-021-03171-y}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {pragmatics, discourse structure, speech acts, philosophy, entitlement, sociopragmatics}, } @Article{Clifton2012, author = {Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Cognitive Psychology}, title = {Discourse integration guided by the `Question under Discussion'}, year = {2012}, month = {sep}, number = {2}, pages = {352--379}, volume = {65}, abstract = {What makes a discourse coherent? One potential factor has been discussed in the linguistic literature in terms of a Question under Discussion (QUD). This approach claims that discourse proceeds by continually raising explicit or implicit questions, viewed as sets of alternatives, or competing descriptions of the world. If the interlocutor accepts the question, it becomes the QUD, a narrowed set of alternatives to be addressed (Roberts, in press). Three eye movement recording studies are reported that investigated the effect of a preceding explicit QUD (Experiment 1) or implicit QUD (Experiments 2 and 3) on the processing of following text. Experiment 1 revealed an effect of whether the question queried alternative propositions or alternative entities. Reading times in the answer were faster when the answer it provided was of the same semantic type as was queried. Experiment 2 tested QUDs implied by the alternative description of reality introduced by a non-actuality implicature trigger such as should X or want to X. The results, when combined with the results of Experiment 3 (which ruled out a possible alternative interpretation) showed disrupted reading of a following verb phrase that failed to resolve the implicit QUD (Did the discourse participant actually X?), compared to reading the same material in the absence of a clear QUD. The findings support an online role for QUDs in guiding readers’ structuring and interpretation of discourse.}, doi = {10.1016/j.cogpsych.2012.04.001}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clifton2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {coherence, psychology, rhetorical relations, alternatives, psycholinguistics, experimental}, publisher = {Elsevier {BV}}, } @TechReport{Anand2012, author = {Pranav Anand and Craig Martell}, institution = {Defense Technical Information Center}, title = {Annotating the Focus of Negation in terms of Questions Under Discussion}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Blanco & Moldovan (Blanco and Moldovan 2011) have empirically demonstrated that negated sentences often convey implicit positive inferences, or focus, and that these inferences are both human annotatable and machine learnable. Concentrating on their annotation process, this paper argues that the focus based implicit positivity should be separated from concepts of scalar implicature and negraising as well as the placement of stress. We show that a model making these distinctions clear and which incorporates the pragmatic notion of question under discussion yields \kappa rates above .80, but that it substantially deflates the rates of focus of negation in text.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Anand2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {semantics, negation, experimental, focus, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA590555.pdf}, } @Unpublished{McCready2012, author = {Eric McCready}, title = {Salience and Questions Under Discussion}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The idea of questions under discussion is highly useful. Still, it remains unclear exactly how speakers can go about determining what question is at issue. This paper proposes a way to recover the question under discussion, conceptualized as a decision problem, by first determining a set of salient questions by using tools from contextualist epistemology, and then selecting one question from that set via a notion of maximal utility change.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/McCready2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {alternatives, decision theory, epistemology, philosophy, maximality, optimality, maximal}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jY4YzViN/salienceQUD.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Coppock2011, author = {Elizabeth Coppock and David Beaver}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 21}, title = {Sole Sisters}, year = {2011}, abstract = {We propose a unified analysis of exclusives, taking into account NP- and VP-modifying 'only' and 'just' and the adjectival exclusives 'mere', 'sole', 'only', 'single', and 'exclusive'. We use paraphrases with 'at most' and 'at least' to argue that exclusives uniformly signify a presupposed lower bound and an ordinary content upper bound on the true alternative answers to the current question under discussion, thus extending Beaver and Clark (2008). According to our analysis, exclusives vary along two parameters: (i) the ontological type of their arguments; (ii) constraints on the question under discussion. Due to variation in the type parameter, exclusives exhibit different scopes, leading to different NPI licensing properties. To formalize our analysis, we introduce a dynamic semantics that treats questions under discussion as part of the context and allows for binding into these questions.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v21i0.2615}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Coppock2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {exclusives, only, alternatives, domain restriction, dynamic semantics, dynamics, negative polarity}, } @Article{Caponigro2011, author = {Ivano Caponigro and Kathryn Davidson}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Ask, and tell as well: Question{\textendash}Answer Clauses in American Sign Language}, year = {2011}, month = {may}, number = {4}, pages = {323--371}, volume = {19}, abstract = {A construction is found in American Sign Language that we call a Question–Answer Clause. It is made of two parts: the first part looks like an interrogative clause conveying a question, while the second part resembles a declarative clause answering that question. The very same signer has to sign both, the entire construction is interpreted as truth-conditionally equivalent to a declarative sentence, and it can be uttered only under certain discourse conditions. These and other properties of Question–Answer Clauses are discussed, and a detailed syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic account is provided. Question–Answer Clauses are argued to be copular clauses consisting of a silent copula of identity connecting an interrogative clause in the precopular position with a declarative clause in the postcopular position. Pragmatically, they instantiate a topic/comment structure, with the first part expressing a sub-question under discussion and the second part expressing the answer to that sub-question. Broader implications of the analysis are discussed for the Question Under Discussion theory of discourse structuring, for the analysis of pseudoclefts in spoken languages, and for recent proposals about the need for answerhood operators and exhaustivity operators in the grammar and the consequences for the syntax/semantics/pragmatics interface.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-011-9071-0}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Caponigro2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {American Sign Language, gestures, cross-linguistic, non-English, declaratives, topic, exhaustivity}, } @InCollection{Coppock2012, author = {Elizabeth Coppock and David Beaver}, booktitle = {Logic, Language and Meaning}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Exclusive Updates}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This paper develops a type of dynamic semantics in which contexts include not only information, but also questions, whose answers are ranked by strength. The questions can be local to the restrictor of a quantifier, and the quantifier can bind into them. The proposed framework satisfies several desiderata arising from quantificational expressions involving exclusives (e.g. only, just, mere and sole), allowing: (i) presupposed questions; (ii) presuppositional constraints on the strength ranking over the answers to the question under discussion; (iii) quantificational binding into such presupposed questions; and (iv) compositional derivation of logical forms for sentences.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_30}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Coppock2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {dynamic semantics, semantics, discourse referent, presuppositions, only, exclusives, quantifiers}, } @InProceedings{Thomas2011, author = {Guillaume Thomas}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {Another additive particle}, year = {2011}, abstract = {It is shown that another has an additive interpretation when it combines with Measure Phrases or Numeral Phrases. A number of discourse sensitive properties of additive another are studied, and it is argued that these are best accounted for by assuming that additive another is anaphoric to a Question Under Discussion, in a model of discourse inspired by Roberts 1996 and B\"{u}ring 2003.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v21i0.2589}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Thomas2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {Additivity, discourse markers, question under discussion, focus, contrastive topic, topic, anaphora}, } @InProceedings{Gutzmann2011, author = {Daniel Gutzmann and Elena Castroviejo Mir\'{o}}, booktitle = {Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics}, title = {The Dimensions of VERUM}, year = {2011}, editor = {Olivier Bonami and Patricia Cabredo Hofherr}, abstract = {In this paper we study the semantics of so-called verum focus from the point of view of a multi-dimensional semantic model. As coined by H\"{o}hle (1992), verum focus is non-contrastive focus on the verb or a complementizer located in C in German, and it is a way of realizing the corresponding operator VERUM. In the small amount of previous literature, VERUM has been treated as a pure semantic operator. In contrast, we show that those one-dimensional treatments make the wrong predictions about the truth-conditions of an utterance involving verum focus as well as about its discourse contribution. Equipped with a multidimensional semantic framework, we treat VERUM as an expressive function that operates in the use-conditional dimension. It takes as argument a proposition p and expresses the interpretational instruction to downdate the corresponding question ?p from the question under discussion. We show that this approach to VERUM can account for the distribution of verum focus, and its discourse contribution.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Gutzmann2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {focus, non-contrastive focus, German, non-English, cross-linguistic}, url = {http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss8/index_en.html}, } @InProceedings{Castroviejo2011, author = {Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol}, booktitle = {Pre-proceedings of Constraints in Discourse 2011}, title = {The connective doncs in dialogue and the QUD}, year = {2011}, abstract = {This paper addresses the use in dialogue of the Catalan dis- course connective doncs (and Spanish pues). We propose that doncs has two different uses (it introduces a reply or it participates in the rhetoric relations of consequence/solutionhood), but we also show that they share a core property, namely the acknowledgment of a previous assertion that does not resolve the current Question Under Discussion.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Castroviejo2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Discourse connective, Question Under Discussion, reply, consequence, solutionhood, non-English, Spanish, cross-linguistic, rhetorical relations, coherence relations}, url = {https://elena-castroviejo-miro.cat/Papers/proceedings-CID-Castroviejo-Mayol.pdf}, } @Article{Mayol2013, author = {Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {How to cancel an implicature}, year = {2013}, month = {may}, number = {1}, pages = {84--104}, volume = {50}, abstract = {Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicatures in general, and scalar implicatures in particular. Despite this fact, cancelability itself is a phenomenon rarely looked at. This paper presents an account of when the cancellation of a scalar implicature is an acceptable discourse move and provides experimental evidence to support our proposal. Our main claim is that the felicity of a scalar implicature cancellation depends on the discourse structure. More specifically, cancellation is acceptable only if it addresses a Question Under Discussion that differs from the previous one. As will be shown, this proposal has the additional benefit of permitting us to tease apart cancellations from self-repairs.}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2013.02.002}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Mayol2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {conversational implicatures, implicature, scalar implicatures, scalars, cancellation, projection, projective meaning, experimental pragmatics, experimental}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Umbach2012, author = {Carla Umbach}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Strategies of additivity: German additive noch compared to auch}, year = {2012}, month = {dec}, number = {15}, pages = {1843--1863}, volume = {122}, abstract = {The German particle noch (‘still’) has an additive reading which differs significantly in meaning and use from the standard German additive particle auch (‘also’/‘too’). In the paper, a semantic and pragmatic analysis will be presented focusing on three core characteristics distinguishing additive noch from auch: (i) alignment with discourse time, (ii) association with deaccented focus, and (iii) continuation of the question-under-discussion. The analysis will be based on the notion of focus alternatives and make use of a question-based discourse model.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.01.011}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Umbach2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Focus}, keywords = {additives, additivity, particles, focus, split focus, deaccented focus, enumeration, discourse management, cross-linguistic, non-English, German}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @InCollection{Benz2013, author = {Anton Benz and Fabienne Salfner}, booktitle = {TbiLLC 2011: Logic, Language, and Computation}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Discourse Structuring Questions and Scalar Implicatures}, year = {2013}, volume = {7758}, abstract = {In this paper we discuss the interdependence of scalar implicatures and discourse structuring questions. We show that even prototypical cases of scalar implicatures can depend on an explicitly or implicitly given Question under Discussion. Particularly, we argue against the idea that scalar implicatures are automatically generated by the logical form of an utterance. We distinguish between three types of discourse questions each having different effects on implicatures.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-36976-6_5}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Benz2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {discourse relation, scalar implicature, discourse context, bare plural, scalars, implicature}, } @InProceedings{Grubic2005, author = {Mira Grubic}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung}, title = {Kapa as an End-of-Scale Marker in Bole and Ngizim (West Chadic)}, year = {2005}, number = {1}, volume = {16}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Grubic2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Focus}, keywords = {West Chadic, Bole, Ngizim, non-English, cross-linguistic, lexical item, only, focus, until, as far as, scalar}, url = {https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/427}, } @Article{Biezma2012, author = {Mar\'{i}a Biezma and Kyle Rawlins}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Responding to alternative and polar questions}, year = {2012}, month = {oct}, number = {5}, pages = {361--406}, volume = {35}, abstract = {This paper gives an account of the differences between polar and alternative questions, as well as an account of the division of labor between compositional semantics and pragmatics in interpreting these types of questions. Alternative questions involve a strong exhaustivity presupposition for the mentioned alternatives. We derive this compositionally from the meaning of the final falling tone and its interaction with the pragmatics of questioning in discourse. Alternative questions are exhaustive in two ways: they exhaust the space of epistemic possibilities, as well as the space of discourse possibilities (the Question Under Discussion). In contrast, we propose that polar questions are the opposite: they present just one alternative that is necessarily non-exhaustive. The account explains a range of response patterns to alternative and polar questions, as well as differences and similarities between the two types of questions.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-012-9123-z}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Biezma2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {alternative questions, alternatives, polar questions, polarity, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, exhaustivity, tone, intonation}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Tonhauser2012, author = {Judith Tonhauser}, journal = {Proceedings of Semantics of Under-represented Languages of the Americas (SULA)}, title = {Diagnosing (not-) at-issue content}, year = {2012}, pages = {239--254}, volume = {6}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tonhauser2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Projection}, keywords = {at-issue, not at-issue, non-English, cross-linguistic, Paraguyan Guarani}, url = {https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/tonhauser.1/papers/tonhauser-SULA6.pdf}, } @Article{Grant2012, author = {Margaret Grant and Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Journal of Memory and Language}, title = {The role of Non-Actuality Implicatures in processing elided constituents}, year = {2012}, month = {jan}, number = {1}, pages = {326--343}, volume = {66}, abstract = {When an elided constituent and its antecedent do not match syntactically, the presence of a word implying the non-actuality of the state of affairs described in the antecedent seems to improve the example. (This information should be released but Gorbachev didn’t. vs. This information was released but Gorbachev didn’t.) We model this effect in terms of Non-Actuality Implicatures (NAIs) conveyed by non-epistemic modals like should and other words such as want to and be eager to that imply non-actuality. We report three studies. A rating and interpretation study showed that such implicatures are drawn and that they improve the acceptability of mismatch ellipsis examples. An interpretation study showed that adding a NAI trigger to ambiguous examples increases the likelihood of choosing an antecedent from the NAI clause. An eye movement study shows that a NAI trigger also speeds on-line reading of the ellipsis clause. By introducing alternatives (the desired state of affairs vs. the actual state of affairs), the NAI trigger introduces a potential Question Under Discussion (QUD). Processing an ellipsis clause is easier, the processor is more confident of its analysis, when the ellipsis clause comments on the QUD.}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2011.09.003}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Grant2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Implicature, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {ellipsis, syntax, semantics, implicatures, question under discussion, sentence acceptability, modals, experimental, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @PhdThesis{Lai2012, author = {Catherine Lai}, school = {University of Pennsylvania}, title = {Rises all the way up: The interpretation of prosody, discourse attitudes and dialogue structure}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This dissertation is about what prosody contributes to dialogue interpretation. The view of prosody developed in this account is based on detailed quantitative investigations of the prosodic forms and interpretations of cue word and declarative responses, specifically with respect to the distribution and interpretation of terminal pitch rises. Drawing on results from corpus, production and perception studies, I argue that the underlying contribution of terminal rises is to signal that the dialogue has not come to a viable stopping point with respect to the task at hand. This approach enables us to explain previously incongruent findings about the connection between rises and attitudes like uncertainty. From this perspective, the perception of such attitudes does not arise directly from prosodic form, but instead depends upon a range of contextual factors. The experimental results indicate that the most important of these is how an utterance relates to the current question under discussion, rather than sentence or dialogue act type. However, variation in prosodic form is also affected by higher level factors like dialect, task, and speaker role: rises become more frequent on non-questioning moves as the need to co-ordinate becomes greater. The experimental results allows us to make significant headway in clarifying the relationship between the prosodic, semantic and information structural properties of responses. This, in turn, sheds light on several outstanding questions about the contribution of the rise in fall-rise accents and its relationship to information structural categories like contrastive topic. Overall, we see that rises don't act on the proposition that carries them, nor do they mark out specific IS categories. Instead they reveal the state of the discourse from the speaker's perspective. From a methodological point of view, I show that to gain a robust understanding the contribution of prosody on a particular meaning dimension, we need to take into account the baseline induced by the discourse configuration itself. These studies show the utility of using functional data analysis techniques to give more direct view of prosodic variation in larger datasets without manual prosodic annotation.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {prosody, experimental, pitch, psycholinguistics, attitude, verum}, } @Article{Ito2012, author = {Masuyo Ito}, journal = {Linguistics}, title = {Japanese-speaking children's interpretation of sentences containing the focus particle datte even: Conventional implicatures, {QUD}, and processing limitations}, year = {2012}, month = {jan}, number = {1}, volume = {50}, abstract = {This paper investigates Japanese-speaking children’s (in)sensitivity to information strength when interpreting sentences containing the focus particle datte ‘even.’ It examines whether or not their sensitivity is affected by the Question Under Discussion (QUD) and the Felicity Judgment (FJ) task based on the Processing Limitation Hypothesis (PLH; cf. Chierchia et al. 2001, 2004). Because datte ‘even’ is not a scalar term, it does not give rise to scalar implicatures (SIs) by constituting a part of scales. ‘Even’ evokes conventional implicatures. However, an ‘even’ sentence in context — in addition to the conventional implicatures — evokes a special case of SI calculated from contextdependent scales, which is pragmatic inferences induced by ‘even’s conventional implicatures (i.e., the word’s semantic/pragmatic import). The relevant scale (generally) concerns the NP element focused by ‘even’ and a set of alternatives. Because sentences without ‘even’ do not evoke any SI, I assume that the relevant implicatures are conventional in nature. Three experiments were done to examine whether Japanese-speaking children are really (in)capable of calculating conventional implicatures derived from datte sentences. It was found that (i) Children are insensitive to pragmatic anomalies of single “infelicitous” sentences (Experiments 1 and 2). This inability to detect pragmatic infelicity is consistent with findings about their ability to compute SIs. On the other hand, the adults showed sensitivity to conventional implicatures in all three experiments, which may be taken as evidence that the computation of implicatures derived from datte sentences differs from that of SIs. (ii) Unlike the results reported for SI in Zondervan (2007, 2009), the wh-focus/QUD way of asking questions does not facilitate the children’s performance with datte sentences (Experiment 2). (iii) The FJ task improved children’s performance (Experiment 3), thus supporting the PLH, which was applied to SI computation (Chierchia et al. 2004; cf. Reinhart 1999, 2006), and to the computation of implicatures involved in datte sentences. (iv) Children are unable to compute implicatures based on context-specific pragmatic scales derived from datte sentences, when a single “underinformative” statement is given. This partly contradicts previous findings on SI based on context dependent pragmatic scales (Papafragou and Tantalou 2004). The results indicate that children’s insensitivity to the pragmatic infelicity of datte sentences stems from the processing load induced by building and maintaining alternative representations, as reported for SI computation.}, doi = {10.1515/ling-2012-0004}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ito2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Psycholinguistics, Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {implicature, conventional implicatures, sensitivity, focus, Japanese, non-English, cross-linguistic, scalar, experimental, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Walter de Gruyter}, } @Article{Clopper2013, author = {Cynthia G. Clopper and Judith Tonhauser}, journal = {International Journal of American Linguistics}, title = {The Prosody of Focus in Paraguayan Guaran\'{i}}, year = {2013}, month = {apr}, number = {2}, pages = {219--251}, volume = {79}, abstract = {In many languages, prosodic prominence indicates which expressions of an utterance are focused. This study explores the prosody of focus in Paraguayan Guaran\'{i} (Tup\'{i}-Guaran\'{i}) through two production and two perception experiments conducted with native speakers of Guaran\'{i} in Paraguay. The results of the production experiments suggest that prosodic prominence is realized by stressed syllable duration, f0 slope, and pitch accent type. While the perception experiments provide evidence that Paraguayan Guaran\'{i} listeners attend to these properties in prosodic prominence perception, they also show that listeners are not at ceiling in identifying the prosodically most prominent expression from the acoustic signal alone. These results are consistent with recent findings about prosodic prominence perception in other languages and provide empirical support from an American indigenous language for the hypothesis that non-acoustic factors, such as word frequency and information status, also play a role in prominence perception.}, doi = {10.1086/669629}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clopper2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Focus, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {non-English, cross-linguistic, Paraguayan Guarani, Tupi-Guarani, focus, prosody, prominence perception, experimental}, } @PhdThesis{Carter2011, author = {Eric Carter}, school = {The Ohio State University}, title = {Objectivity, Language, and Communication}, year = {2011}, abstract = {This dissertation is a study of objectivity, language, and communication. While most of us take for granted that scientific discourse is objective, when it comes to other discourses, our inclinations are different. For example, we take for granted that humor discourse is not objective. While these attitudes about objectivity are commonplace, they raise questions about the factors that influence objectivity. The primary thesis that I defend is that a discourse's status with respect to objectivity is influenced by how a speaker uses that discourse, especially what a speaker takes for granted about the information that everyone in a conversation shares. When we talk to one another, we take for granted that there is a question that everyone is discussing. However, when a speaker uses an objective discourse in a conversation, someone in a disagreement over the question under discussion must be inattentive, biased, confused, or otherwise cognitively at fault. We take other things for granted in a conversation too, especially about the attitudes that the conversation serves to coordinate. A speaker who uses an objective discourse takes for granted that the discussion serves only to coordinate either epistemic or doxastic attitudes. While conversational requirements are a mark of objective discourse, conversational latitude is a mark of non-objective discourse. Objectivity requires that a speaker take for granted that the discussion addresses a question that does not allow for cognitively faultless disagreement. Objectivity also requires that a speaker take for granted that the conversation only serves to influence either epistemic or doxastic attitudes. However, given that we are dealing with a discourse that is not objective, things are different. When a speaker uses a discourse that is not objective, a speaker might take for granted that there is a question is under discussion that gives rise to cognitively faultless disagreement. In addition, a speaker might take for granted that conversation serves to coordinate attitudes other than either knowledge or belief. For example, when a speaker uses a discourse that is not objective, a speaker might take for granted that conversation functions to coordinate desires, hopes, or even feelings.}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophy, realism, lanugage, communication, epistemology, epistemic}, url = {http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1308311590}, } @InCollection{Cummins2012, author = {Chris Cummins and Patric\'{i}a Amaral and Napoleon Katsos}, booktitle = {HUMANA.MENTE Journal of Philosophical Studies}, title = {Experimental Investigations of the Typology of Presupposition Triggers}, year = {2012}, number = {23}, volume = {5}, abstract = {The behaviour of presupposition triggers in human language has been extensively studied and given rise to many distinct theoretical proposals. One intuitively appealing way of characterising presupposition is to argue that it constitutes backgrounded meaning, which does not contribute to updating the conversational record, and consequently may not be challenged or refuted by discourse participants. However, there are a wide range of presupposition triggers, some of which can systematically be used to introduce new information. Is there, then, a clear psychological distinction between presupposition and assertion? Do certain expressions vacillate between presupposing and asserting information? And is information backgrounding a categorical or a gradient phenomenon? In this paper we argue for the value of experimental methods in addressing these questions, and present a pilot study demonstrating backgrounding effects of presupposition triggers, and suggesting their gradience in nature. We discuss the implications of these findings for theoretical categorisations of presupposition triggers.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Cummins2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Accomodation, Experimental Approaches, Projection}, keywords = {presuppositions, accommodation, experimental, experimental pragmatics, information structure, QUD, assertion}, } @Article{Versley2013, author = {Yannick Versley and Anna Gastel}, journal = {Dialogue {\&} Discourse}, title = {Linguistic Tests for Discourse Relations}, year = {2013}, month = {jul}, number = {2}, pages = {142--173}, volume = {4}, abstract = {Discourse structure and discourse relations are an important ingredient in systems for the analysis of text that go beyond the boundary of single clauses. Discourse relations often indicate important additional information about the connection between two clauses, such as causality, and are widely believed to have an influence on aspects of reference resolution. More so than for referential annotation, discourse relation annotation is rendered difficult by the absence of a general consensus on the underlying linguistic phenomena that should be targeted, as well as by a lack of strong predictions on the possible or permissible interactions between these phenomena. While it is sometimes claimed that the structuring of discourse is only weakly constrained and as a result capturing discourse structure and discourse relations will always result in poor reproducibility of the annotation task, we want to argue in this paper that an explicit notion of the relata of discourse relations allows to delimit annotation scope and to make use of theoretical accounts of the linguistic phenomena involved without giving up the goal of theory-neutrality that is essential in making sure that a given resource stays useful to a large community of users. In this article, we first present the general design choices that are to be made in the design of an annotation scheme for discourse structure and discourse relations. In a second part, we present the scheme used in our annotation of selected articles from the T\"{u}Ba-D/Z treebank of German (Telljohann et al., 2009). The scheme used in the annotation is theory-neutral, but informed by more detailed linguistic knowledge in the way of linguistic tests that can help disambiguate between several plausible relations.}, doi = {10.5087/dad.2013.207}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Versley2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {Discourse Structure, Discourse Relations, Agreement, Linguistic Tests, reference, anaphora}, } @Article{Onea2011, author = {Edgar Onea and Anna Volodina}, journal = {International Review of Pragmatics}, title = {Between Specification and Explanation: About a German Discourse Particle}, year = {2011}, pages = {3-32}, volume = {3}, abstract = {Th is paper provides a unified semantic and discourse pragmatic analysis of the German particle n\"{a}mlich , traditionally described as having a specificational and an explanative reading. Our claim is that n\"{a}mlich is a discourse marker which signals that the expression it is attached to is a short (elliptic) answer to a salient implicit question about the previous utterance. We show how both the explanative and the specifi cational reading can be derived from this more general semantic contribution. In addition we discuss some cross linguistic consequences of our analysis.}, doi = {10.1163/187731011X561036}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Onea2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {ellipsis, German, non-English, cross-linguistic, particles, discourse particles, discourse structure, context markers, questions, specification}, } @InProceedings{Castroviejo2012, author = {Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {Conclusion, Consequence, and solutionhood. The Semantics of Three Catalan Connectives}, year = {2012}, volume = {16}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Castroviejo2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {Catalan, non-English, cross-linguistic, doncs, rhetorical relations, coherence relations, coherence, contrastive topic, topic}, } @InProceedings{Tonhauser2012a, author = {Judith Tonhauser}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 22}, title = {Contrastive topics in Paraguayan and Guaran\'{i} discourse}, year = {2012}, abstract = {The empirical basis of current formal semantic/pragmatic analyses of utterances containing contrastive topics are languages in which the expression that denotes the contrastive topic is marked prosodically, morphologically or syntactically, such as English, German, Korean, Japanese or Hungarian (e.g. Jackendoff 1972; Szabolcsi 1981; Roberts 1998; Büring 1997, 2003; Lee 1999). Such analyses do not extend to Paraguayan Guaran\'{i}, a language in which neither prosody, nor word order, nor the contrastive topic clitic =katu identify the contrastive topic. This article develops a formal pragmatic analysis of contrastive topic utterances in Paraguayan Guaran\'{i} and explores cross-linguistic similarities and differences in contrastive topic utterances.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v22i0.2631}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tonhauser2012a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Contrastive Topic and Strategies of Inquiry, Topic, Cross-Linguistic, Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {Contrastive topic, Paraguayan Guarani, cross-linguistic, non-English, topic}, } @PhdThesis{Chow2012, author = {Ka Fat Chow}, school = {Hong Kong Polytechnic University}, title = {Inferential patterns of generalized quantifiers and their applications to scalar reasoning}, year = {2012}, abstract = {This thesis studies the inferential patterns of generalized quantifiers (GQs) and their applications to scalar reasoning. In Chapter 1, I introduce the basic notions of Generalized Quantifier Theory (GQT) and survey the major types of right-oriented GQs traditionally studied under GQT (including both monadic and iterated GQs). I also expand the scope of this theory to the analysis of left-oriented GQs (including left conservative GQs such as "only" and left-iterated GQs manifested as quantified statements with relative clauses). In Chapter 2, I introduce the major aspects of scalar reasoning to be studied in this thesis and summarize the major findings in the literature. After reviewing different notions of scales, I introduce other essential concepts and review the various theories and schools on the two main types of scalar reasoning, i.e. scalar entailments (SEs) and scalar implicatures (SIs). I then introduce four types of scalar lexical items studied under the Scalar Model Theory and Chinese grammar and discuss how their semantics / pragmatics are related to SEs and/or SIs. These include scalar operators (SOs), climax construction connectives (CCCs), subjective quantity operators (SQOs) and lexical items denoting extreme values. In the final part of this chapter, some outstanding problems in the studies on scalar reasoning are identified. In Chapter 3, I study four main types of quantifier inferences. They are monotonicity inferences, argument structure inferences, opposition inferences and (non-classical) syllogistic inferences. The major findings are summarized in tables and theorems. Special emphasis is put on devising general principles and methods that enable us to derive valid inferential patterns of iterated GQs from the inferential properties of their constituent monadic GQs. In Chapter 4, I apply the major findings worked out in the previous chapter to resolve the outstanding problems identified in Chapter 2. I first develop a basic formal framework that is based on the notions of generalized fractions and I-function. This basic framework can deal with the various aspects of scalar reasoning in a uniform way. I then enrich the basic framework by adding specific ingredients to deal with the phenomena of SEs and SIs. To deal with SEs, I add a relation connecting the I-function and SEs to the basic framework, so that the derivation of SEs is reduced to comparison between the I-function values of propositions. Moreover, by capitalizing on a parallelism between SEs and monotonicity inferences, I combine findings of the two types of inferences and discover new inferential patterns, such as Proportionality Calculus and scalar syllogisms. To deal with SIs, I add the ingredients of question under discussion (QUD) foci, answer exhaustification and opposition inferences to the basic framework, so that it can account for the various types of SIs and related phenomena introduced in Chapter 2 in a uniform way. I then use the framework to conduct a cross-linguistic study on the English and Chinese scalar lexical items introduced in Chapter 2. The I-function is used to formulate the conditions of use for these lexical items. The association of SEs and SIs with different types of scalar lexical items is also explored. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the significance of the major findings of this thesis and possible extensions of the study.}, groups = {Implicature, Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {quantification, scalar implicatures, implicatures, only, domain restriction, scalars}, } @Unpublished{Goodman2013, author = {Noah Goodman}, title = {Grounding Lexical Meaning in Core Cognition}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Words are potentially one of the clearest windows on human knowledge and conceptual structure. But what do words mean? In this project we aim to construct and explore a formal model of lexical semantics grounded, via pragmatic inference, in core conceptual structures. Flexible human cognition is derived in large part from our ability to imagine possible worlds. A rich set of concepts, intuitive theories, and other mental representations support imagining and reasoning about possible worlds—together we call these core cognition. Here we posit that the collection of core concepts also forms the set of primitive elements available for lexical semantics: word meanings are built from pieces of core cognition. We propose to study lexical semantics in the setting of an architecture for language understanding that integrates literal meaning with pragmatic inference. This architecture supports underspecified and uncertain lexical meaning, leading to subtle interactions between meaning, conceptual structure, and context. We will explore several cases of lexical semantics where these interactions are particularly important: indexicals, scalar adjectives, generics, and modals. We formalize both core cognition and the natural language architecture using the Church probabilistic programming language. In this project we aim to contribute to our understanding of the connection between words and mental representations; from this we expect to gain critical insights into many aspects of psychology, to construct vastly more useful thinking machines, and to interface natural and artificial intelligences more efficiently.}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {formal, cognition, representation, psycholinguistics, artificial intelligence}, url = {https://web.stanford.edu/~ngoodman/papers/LexSemSquibb.pdf}, } @Article{Verbuck2012, author = {Anna Verbuck}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {Developmental evidence against the theoretical distinction between Horn and pragmatic scales}, year = {2012}, number = {12}, pages = {1680-1700}, volume = {44}, abstract = {A theoretical distinction between Horn and pragmatic scales that are instrumental in generating scalar implicatures (SIs) is widely accepted in neo-Gricean pragmatics; at the same time, this distinction has been questioned in some neo-Gricean and post-Gricean accounts of SIs. In order to explore whether or not this distinction has a reflex on the way in which children acquire SIs, I tested 40 children (4;3-7;7) on computing SIs based on Horn and pragmatic scales. If this distinction is postulated, children are predicted to perform better on computing SIs based on Horn scales. In my experiment, children did significantly better on computing SIs based on pragmatic scales. Moreover, children performed worse on certain Horn scales than on the pragmatic scales, and better on other Horn scales than on the pragmatic scales. I provide theoretical reasons against distinguishing between Horn and pragmatic scales, and propose my own Context-based QUD account of SIs on which children's performance on computing SIs is a function of challenges presented by individual scales. I identify three major linguistic and cognitive acquisitional challenges presented by scales, and how these predict the timeline of SI acquisition.}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2012.07.007}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Verbuck2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {scalar implicatures, implicatures, experimental, scalars, children, psycholinguistics}, } @InProceedings{Winterstein2011, author = {Gr\'{e}goire Winterstein}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop of Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics (LENLS 8)}, title = {Ludics and Presupposition Projection}, year = {2011}, pages = {94-105}, abstract = {This work looks at the way a ludics-inspired approach to discourse deals with the discursive notions of projection and attachment of semantic content. An illustration of the case of presupposition is studied and discussed in the light of recent theories of presupposition projection. The case of the proviso problem and conditional sentences is also touched upon. It is then proposed to describe a specific use of but as an indicator of a meta-game, i.e. an invitation to revise a previous utterance which then grants access to previously inaccessible material such as presupposition.}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {games, presupposition, projection, at-issue, not at-issueness, conditionals}, url = {http://www.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~gwinterstein/docs/Pub/Winterstein-LENLS8.pdf}, } @Article{Faller2012, author = {Martina Faller}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Evidential scalar implicatures}, year = {2012}, month = {aug}, number = {4}, pages = {285--312}, volume = {35}, abstract = {This paper develops an analysis of a scalar implicature that is induced by the use of reportative evidentials such as the Cuzco Quechua enclitic = si and the German modal sollen. Reportatives, in addition to specifying the speaker’s source of information for a statement as a report by someone else, also usually convey that the speaker does not have direct evidence for the proposition expressed. While this type of implicature can be calculated using the same kind of Gricean reasoning that underlies other scalar implicatures, it requires two departures from standard assumptions. First, evidential scalar implicatures differ from the more familiar scalar implicatures in that they do not turn on the notion of informativeness but on the notion of evidential strength. Second, the implicature arises on the illocutionary level of meaning. It is argued that a version of Grice’s maxim of quantity in terms of illocutionary strength can account for this evidential scalar implicature as well as for the more typical scalar implicatures. The account developed also proposes some revisions to the taxonomy of speech acts and suggests that the sincerity conditions of assertive speech acts contain an evidential sincerity condition in addition to the belief condition standardly assumed.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-012-9119-8}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Faller2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, Quechua, German, non-English, at-issue, not at-issueness, implicature, scalars, scalar implicature, speech acts}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media {LLC}}, } @InProceedings{Kehler2012, author = {Andrew Kehler}, booktitle = {Semantics}, title = {Cohesion and Coherence}, year = {2012}, comment = {Reprinted in 2019 Semantics - Sentence and Information Structure. doi: 10.1515/9783110589863-013}, doi = {10.1515/9783110255072.1963}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {coherence relations, cohesion, rhetorical relations}, priority = {prio1}, } @Article{Karagjosova2011, author = {Elena Karagjosova}, journal = {International Review of Pragmatics}, title = {Discourse Particles, Discourse Relations and Information Structure: The Case of N\"{a}mlich}, year = {2011}, number = {1}, pages = {33-58}, volume = {3}, abstract = {The paper presents an analysis of the meaning and discourse effects of the German discourse particle nämlich that unifies its different readings and explains its distributional properties. I suggest that nämlich is most adequately analysed in terms of it indicating a specificational relation between its host and the preceding sentence, which in a question-based framework can be implemented as indicating an answer to a "specifying question", a discourse question requiring an answer that provides a more detailed description of some aspect of the preceding utterance. The analysis represents a refinement and extension of the question-based analysis of nämlich developed in Onea and Volodina (2009) where nämlich is analysed in terms of indicating that its host is a short answer to an implicit constituent question or a Why-discourse question. The approach I provide suggests solutions to several puzzles related to the distributional properties of nämlich.}, doi = {10.1163/187731011X561018}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Karagjosova2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {discourse questions, event coreference, causality, specification, discourse particles, German, non-English, cross-linguistic}, } @InProceedings{Downing2012, author = {Downing, Laura J}, booktitle = {Selected Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference on African Linguistics. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project}, title = {On the (non-) congruence of focus and prominence in Tumbuka}, year = {2012}, organization = {Citeseer}, pages = {122--133}, abstract = {It is widely assumed in the linguistic literature on focus that, cross-linguistically: “Focus needs to be maximally [prosodically] prominent” (Büring 2010: 178; see, too, Frota (2000), Gundel (1988), Jackendoff (1972), Roberts (1998), Rooth (1992, 1996), Reinhart (1995), Samek-Lodovici (2005), Selkirk (1995, 2004), Szendröi (2003), and Truckenbrodt (1995, 2005)). However, there is also a growing list of counterexamples to the Focus-Prominence correlation. I show in this paper that Tumbuka, a Bantu language (N20) spoken in Malawi, should be added to the list of problematic cases. After presenting a brief sketch of Tumbuka prosody in section 2, section 3 demonstrates noncongruence between focus and maximal prominence by discussing the prosody of the following focusrelated constructions: wh-questions and answers; alternative (choice) questions and answers; and the focus particle -so ‘also’. I conclude in section 4 with questions for future research and implications of Tumbuka for the typology of focus prosody.}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {prosody, focus, alternatives}, url = {http://www.lingref.com/cpp/acal/42/paper2764.pdf}, } @Article{Schaffer2012, author = {Jonathan Schaffer and Joshua Knobe}, journal = {No\^{u}s}, title = {Contrastive Knowledge Surveyed}, year = {2012}, number = {44}, pages = {675-708}, volume = {46}, comment = {Schaffer and Knobe are responding to experimental evidence that intuitions about knowledge ascriptions are not reliable. They use a QUD framework to create experiments which test whether performance errors are due to unreliable intuitions or due to pragmatic interpretations.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Schaffer2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {intuitions, context, relevance, Gricean maxims, philosophy, epistemology, knowledge}, url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/41682692}, } @PhdThesis{Davis2011, author = {Christopher Davis}, school = {UMass Amherst}, title = {Constraining Interpretation: Sentence Final Particles in Japanese}, year = {2011}, abstract = {This dissertation is concerned with how pragmatic particles interact with sentential force and with general pragmatic constraints to derive optimal dynamic interpretations. The primary empirical focus of the dissertation is the Japanese sentence final particle yo and its intonational associates. These right-peripheral elements are argued to interact semantically with sentential force in specifying the set of contextual transitions compatible with an utterance. In this way, they semantically constrain the pragmatic interpretation of the utterances in which they occur. These conventional constraints on interpretation are wedded with general pragmatic constraints which provide a further filter on the road to optimal interpretation.}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {Japanese, non-English, cross-linguistic, particles, dynamics, intonation, optimality}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/constraining-interpretation-sentence-final/docview/883077085/se-2?accountid=9783}, } @PhdThesis{Romoli2012, author = {Jacopo Romoli}, school = {Harvard University}, title = {Soft but Strong. Neg-raising, Soft triggers, and Exhaustification}, year = {2012}, abstract = {In this thesis, I focus on scalar implicatures, presuppositions and their connections. In chapter 2, I propose a scalar implicature-based account of neg-raising inferences, standardly analyzed as a presuppositional phenomenon (Gajewski 2005, 2007). I show that an approach based on scalar implicatures can straightforwardly account for the differences and similarities between neg-raising predicates and presuppositional triggers. In chapters 3 and 4, I extend this account to "soft" presuppositions, a class of presuppositions that are easily suspendable (Abusch 2002, 2010). I show how such account can explain the differences and similarities between this class of presuppositions and other presuppositions on one hand, and scalar implicatures on the other. Furthermore, I discuss various consequences that it has with respect to the behavior of soft presuppositions in quantificational sentences, their interactions with scalar implicatures, and their effects on the licensing of negative polarity items. In chapter 5, I show that by looking at the interaction between presuppositions and scalar implicatures we can solve a notorious problem which arises with conditional sentences like (1) (Soames 1982, Karttunen and Peters 1979). The main issue with (1) is that it is intuitively not presuppositional and this is not predicted by any major theory of presupposition projection. (1) I'll go, if you go too. Finally, I explore in more detail the question of which alternatives should we consider in the computation of scalar implicatures (chapter 6). Traditionally, the answer has been to consider the subset of logically stronger alternatives than the assertion. Recently, however, arguments have been put forward in the literature for including also logically independent alternatives. I support this move by presenting some novel arguments in its favor and I show that while allowing new alternatives makes the right predictions in various cases, it also causes an under- and an over-generation problem. I propose a solution to each problem, based on a novel recursive algorithm for checking which alternatives are to be considered in the computation of scalar implicatures and the role of focus (Rooth 1992, Fox and Katzir 2011).}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Implicature, Projection}, keywords = {polarity, negative polarity, presuppositions, scalar, scalar implicature}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/soft-strong-neg-raising-triggers-exhaustification/docview/1175223796/se-2?accountid=9783}, } @InProceedings{Djalali2011, author = {Alex Djalali and David Clausen and Sven Lauer and Karl Schultz and Christopher Potts}, booktitle = {Building Representations of Common Ground with Intelligent Agents: Papers from the 2011 AAAI Fall Symposium (FS-11-02)}, title = {Modeling Expert and Effects and Common and Ground Using and Questions Under and Discussion}, year = {2011}, abstract = {We present a graph-theoretic model of discourse based on the Questions Under Discussion (QUD) framework. Questions and assertions are treated as edges connecting discourse states in a rooted graph, modeling the introduction and resolution of various QUDs as paths through this graph. The amount of common ground presupposed by interlocutors at any given point in a discourse corresponds to graphical depth. We introduce a new task-oriented dialogue corpus and show that experts, presuming a richer common ground, initiate discourse at a deeper level than novices. The QUD-graph model thus enables us to quantify the experthood of a speaker relative to a fixed domain and to characterize the ways in which rich common ground facilitates more efficient communication.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Djalali2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, The Language Game, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {pragmatics, QUD, semantics, corpus, linguistics, corpra, questions, common ground, question under discussion, graph theory, presupposition, experimental, expert, philosophy}, url = {https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/FSS/FSS11/paper/view/4186/4502}, } @Article{Hartmann2012, author = {Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann}, journal = {Natural Language {\&} Linguistic Theory}, title = {Focus marking in Bura: semantic uniformity matches syntactic heterogeneity}, year = {2012}, month = {jun}, number = {4}, pages = {1061--1108}, volume = {30}, abstract = {The present article introduces a theory of (morpho-)syntactic focus marking on nominal categories in Bura, a Central Chadic SVO language spoken in the northeast of Nigeria. Our central claim is that the particle an plays a crucial role in the marking of subject and non-subject focus. We put forward a uniform analysis of an as a focus copula that selects for syntactic predicates of type and a focused constituent of type . This uniform semantic representation is transparently mapped onto different syntactic structures: In a clause with a focused subject, the focus copula appears between the subject in SpecTP and the predicative VP. On the other hand, syntactically focused non-subjects are fronted and appear in a bi-clausal cleft structure that contains the focus copula and a relative cleft-remnant. The non-uniform analysis of focus marking is further supported by the structure of predicative constructions, in which the focus copula separates the focused subject and the adjectival or nominal predicate. It is also shown that alternative unified analyses fail to account for the full range of Bura data. The latter part of the article provides an analysis of the Bura cleft construction. Based on syntactic and semantic evidence, we come to the conclusion that the clefted constituent is base-generated in its initial surface position, and that an empty operator moves within the relative clause. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the potential conceptual reasons behind the observed subject/non-subject asymmetry in Bura.}, doi = {10.1007/s11049-012-9174-4}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Hartmann2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Focus}, keywords = {Bura, non-English, cross-linguistic, focus, subject}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Abrusan2011, author = {M{\'{a}}rta Abrus{\'{a}}n}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Predicting the presuppositions of soft triggers}, year = {2011}, month = {nov}, number = {6}, pages = {491--535}, volume = {34}, abstract = {The central idea behind this paper is that presuppositions of soft triggers arise from the way our attention structures the informational content of a sentence. Some aspects of the information conveyed are such that we pay attention to them by default, even in the absence of contextual information. On the other hand, contextual cues or conversational goals can divert attention to types of information that we would not pay attention to by default. Either way, whatever we do not pay attention to, be it by default, or in context, is what ends up presupposed by soft triggers. This paper attempts to predict what information in the sentence is likely to end up being the main point (i.e. what we pay attention to) and what information is independent from this, and therefore likely presupposed. It is proposed that this can be calculated by making reference to event times. The notion of aboutness used to calculate independence is based on that of Demolombe and Fariñas del Cerro (In: Holdobler S (ed) Intellectics and computational logic: papers in honor of Wolfgang Bibel, 2000).}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-012-9108-y}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Abrusan2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing, Projection}, keywords = {presuppositon, projection, attention, event, at-issue}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{McCready2012a, author = {Elin McCready}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Emotive equilibria}, year = {2012}, month = {may}, number = {3}, pages = {243--283}, volume = {35}, abstract = {Natural language contains many expressions with underspecified emotive content. This paper proposes a way to resolve such underspecification. Nonmonotonic inference over a knowledge base is used to derive an expected interpretation for emotive expressions in a particular context. This ‘normal’ meaning is then taken to influence the hearer’s expectations about probable interpretations, and, because of these probable interpretations, the decisions of the speaker about when use of underspecified emotive terms is appropriate.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-012-9118-9}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/McCready2012a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {emotive content, expressive, emotivity, expressive content, normality, signaling games, games, at-issue, projection}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Book{Liu2012, author = {Mingya Liu}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Multidimensional Semantics of Evaluative Adverbs}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Multidimensional Semantics of Evaluative Adverbs provides a multidimensional analysis for the lexical semantics of evaluative adverbs: nonfactive evaluative adverbs trigger a conventional implicature, whereas factive evaluative adverbs not only trigger a conventional implicature but also a conventional presupposition. This analysis proves to be more advantageous than existing analysis in terms of empirical coverage and explanatory power. With the case of evaluative adverbs, the book demonstrates how secondary meanings (e.g. conventional presuppositions, conventional implicatures) interact with primary meanings (i.e. main assertion, or at-issue content). For the first time, a three-dimensional formal language of conventional implicatures and conventional presuppositions is implemented and applied to derive the right truth conditions of sentences with evaluative adverbs and predict their projection behaviors. With a cross-linguistic perspective (focusing on German, English and Mandarin Chinese) and using corpus- and psycholinguistic methods, the book also offers new perspectives on the syntax/semantics/pragmatics of adverbials.}, groups = {Implicature, Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {adverbs, implicature, presupposition, at-issue, projection}, } @Article{Destruel2012, author = {Destruel, Emilie}, journal = {Empirical issues in syntax and semantics}, title = {The French c’est-cleft: An empirical study on its meaning and use}, year = {2012}, pages = {95--112}, volume = {9}, groups = {Projection, Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, at-issue, projection, French, non-English, cross-linguistic, exhaustive, prosody, pragmatics, exhaustivity}, url = {https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/31030427/eiss9-destruel_V3.pdf?1364215828=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=The_meaning_and_use_of_the_French_cest_c.pdf&Expires=1628204795&Signature=IMABLBpyn8A4gc0X-Oqz1pgsJzNRLkfJy5eDwvMWBVDJzfXLYvK1dVKRRj59u~kvfvCQXnnTt8GTK59wFXvcMp8W09pecCSaASODyjn2RC21vURZkcAFY-5N6HhjcOVnLbfSbMQRRi-6HlOG68LWXHkPhtsj44StVObKx0bJEYEfn0VOy4WjuY0qQqoSLVuM3bJa8S4lJjN8FtfnwxAFEgoP7tXAiBG25TL4-KJ21eG1FKJWBmNNMpwa5NYD8S~nndy3rAObxWPmEN~TU9m5ya8-FZ8OEs2dydXRmtBD30WfV1Dm408d3yvfOIJF-77wftDwJaLyJoqYoJG3hCLuaw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA}, } @Article{Coppock2012a, author = {Coppock, Elisabeth and Beaver, David}, journal = {Empirical issues in syntax and semantics}, title = {Exclusivity, uniqueness and definiteness}, year = {2012}, pages = {59--66}, volume = {9}, abstract = {This paper deals with two puzzles concerning the interaction between definiteness and exclusives. The exclusives in question are sole and only, and the puzzles are as follow}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {exclusives, sole, only}, url = {http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss9/eiss9_coppock-and-beaver.pdf}, } @InProceedings{liu2011, author = {Liu, Mingya}, booktitle = {Proceedings of ESSLLI 2011: Workshop on Projective Content}, title = {How evaluative adverbs project and why}, year = {2011}, organization = {Citeseer}, pages = {82}, abstract = {Simons et al. (2011) define a new category of ‘projective meanings’, which include not just conventional presupposition (CPs) but also certain conventional implicatures (CIs). In this paper, I discuss whether evaluative adverbs (eADVs), a subclass of Potts’ (2005) CIs, project. Liu (in preparation) addresses the necessity of distinguishing two different eADVs: factive eADVs have a lexical semantics and trigger a CI as predicted in Potts (2005), but their CI content presupposes the at-issue content, i.e. there is an interdimensional dependence, which poses a problem for a four-valued CI logic; nonfactive eADVs have a conditional semantics and trigger a CI, which differs from that predicted in Potts (2005) but is independent of the at-issue content. I argue that this distinction predicts correctly their projection behaviors: due to the interdimensional dependence, factive eADVs are not embeddable in entailmentcancelling contexts, whereas nonfactive eADVs can appear for instance in a conditional and project out of it due to the interdimensional independence. I compare this case with the case of supplements that sometimes fail to project (Schlenker 2010a, 2010b): the former imposes a semantic constraint and the latter a semantic/pragmatic constraint on what projects.}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {adverbs, evaluative, implicatures, presuppostions, projection, undefinedness, interdimensional relations, embeddability}, } @InProceedings{DeKuthy2011, author = {De Kuthy, Kordula and Detmar Meurers}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar}, title = {Integrating GIVENness into a structured meaning approach in HPSG}, year = {2011}, address = {Stanford}, publisher = {CSLI Publications}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/DeKuthy2011.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Projection}, keywords = {focus, givenness, projection}, url = {https://depts.washington.edu/hpsg2011/pp/DeKuthy-Meurers.pdf}, } @InCollection{DeKuthy2012, author = {De Kuthy, Kordula and Detmar Meurers}, booktitle = {Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory}, publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton}, title = {Focus projection between theory and evidence}, year = {2012}, editor = {Britta Stolterfoht and Sam Featherston}, pages = {207-240}, abstract = {In this paper, we want to bring together and compare the predictions of traditional focus projection on the one hand and the more recent pragmatics-only approaches (Roberts, 2006; Kadmon, 2006) on the other with two sources of empirical evidence, experimental and corpus-based. In essence, the paper is an empirical exploration of the evidence for focus projection, working out the empirical challenge that a pragmatics-only approach needs to find an alternative explanation for.}, doi = {10.1515/9781614510888.207}, groups = {Focus, Projection, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, focus, projection, retrievability, prosody, intonation}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2011, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Knowing How: Essays on Mind, Knowledge, and Action}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {How to resolve how to}, year = {2011}, editor = {John Bengson and Marc Moffett}, doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389364.003.0009}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Clarification Requests}, keywords = {how to, epistemic, knowledge, philosophy, abilities, attitudes, factives}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2011b, author = {Ginzburg, Jonathan and Raquel Fernández and David Schlangen}, booktitle = {Logic, Language and Meaning}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {On the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dysfluency}, year = {2011}, address = {Berlin}, editor = {Maria Aloni and Floris Roelofsen and Galit Weidman Sassoon and Katrin Schulz and Vadim Kimmelman and Matthijs Westera}, pages = {321-330}, abstract = {Although dysfluent speech is pervasive in spoken conversation, dysfluencies have received little attention within formal theories of dialogue. The majority of work on dysfluent language has come from psycholinguistic models of speech production and comprehension (e.g. [10, 3, 1]) and from structural approaches designed to improve performance in speech applications (e.g. [14, 8]). In this paper, we present a detailed formal account which: (a) unifies dysfluencies (self-repair) with Clarification Requests (CRs), without conflating them, (b) offers a precise explication of the roles of all key components of a dysfluency, including editing phrases and filled pauses, (c) accounts for the possibility of self-addressed questions in a dysfluency.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_33}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {dysfluencies, KoS, games, QUD, correction}, } @InCollection{Cooper2011, author = {Robin Cooper and Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Logic, Language and Meaning}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Negative inquisitiveness and alternatives-basednegation}, year = {2011}, address = {Berlin}, editor = {Maria Aloni and Floris Roelofsen and Galit Weidman Sassoon and Katrin Schulz and Vadim Kimmelman and Matthijs Westera}, pages = {32-41}, abstract = {We propose some fundamental requirements for the treatment of negative particles, positive/negative polar questions, and negative propositions, as they occur in dialogue with questions. We offer a view of negation that combines aspects of alternative semantics, intuitionist negation, and situation semantics. We formalize the account in TTR (a version of type theory with records) [7, 9]. Central to our claim is that negative and positive propositions should be distinguished and that in order to do this they should be defined in terms of types rather than possible worlds. This is in contrast to [11] where negative propositions are identified in terms of the syntactic or morphological properties of the sentences which introduce them.}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {negative particles, polarity, interrogatives, negation, dialogue, type theory}, url = {https://sites.google.com/site/jonathanginzburgswebsite/publications/ams11-proceedings.pdf?attredirects=0}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2012a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Matthew Purver}, booktitle = {From Quantification to Conversation}, publisher = {College Publications}, title = {Quantification, the Reprise Content Hypothesis, and Type Theory}, year = {2012}, address = {London}, pages = {85-110}, abstract = {In section 2 we provide some background needed for the remainder of the paper: first introducing the general view of meaning and context in dialogue that we assume, and then outlining (Purver and Ginzburg 2004)’s claims. Section 3 then sets out a new formulation of their (HPSG-based) approach using TTR, which yields a straightforward account of the dynamics of grounding, clarification, and anaphora for discourse involving both referential and nonreferential NPs. In section 4, we extend the account to deal with so-called scope ambiguities—we say ‘so-called’ since we will suggest that CRificational evidence indicates these ambiguities are better analyzed as essentially lexical.}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {dynamics, anaphora, reference, clarification, scope, ambiguity}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236273284_Quantification_the_Reprise_Content_Hypothesis_and_Type_Theory}, } @InProceedings{Counterfactuals2013, author = {Michela Ippolito}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {Counterfactuals and Conditional and Questions under Discussion}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In this paper, I explore the issue of the context-dependence of counterfactual conditionals and how the context constrains similarity in selecting the correct set of worlds necessary to arrive at the correct truth-conditions. I review the previous literature and make a proposal based on the idea of discourse structure and the concept of a question under discussion.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v23i0.2659}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ippolito2013.pdf:PDF}, keywords = {Counterfactuals, similarity, possible worlds, questions under discussion, consistency, relevance, conditionals}, } @Article{Rourke2013, author = {Jason Rourke}, journal = {Philosophical Studies}, title = {A counterexample to the contrastive account of knowledge}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, number = {3}, pages = {637--643}, volume = {162}, abstract = {Many epistemologists treat knowledge as a binary relation that holds between a subject and a proposition. The contrastive account of knowledge developed by Jonathan Schaffer maintains that knowledge is a ternary, contrastive relation that holds between a subject, a proposition, and a set of contextually salient alternative propositions the subject’s evidence must eliminate. For the contrastivist, it is never simply the case that S knows that p; in every case of knowledge S knows that p rather than q. This paper offers a counterexample to the contrastive account of knowledge. Part 1 summarizes the contrastive theory developed by Schaffer in a series of recent papers. Part 2 presents an example from a class of cases characterized by compatibility between the proposition p and each of the alternative propositions that occupy q. In such cases the alternative propositions that partially constitute the ternary contrastive relation play no role in the acquisition of knowledge. Part 3 considers and rejects potential responses to the counterexample. The paper concludes that the contrastive theory is not a general account of knowledge.}, doi = {10.1007/s11098-011-9786-2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Rourke2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, knowledge, epistemic, alternatives, epistemology}, publisher = {Springer}, } @InProceedings{RojasEsponda2013, author = {Rojas-Esponda, Tania}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 17th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue - Full Papers}, title = {The Roadsigns of Communication}, year = {2013}, address = {Amsterdam, The Netherlands}, publisher = {SEMDIAL}, abstract = {Special intonation and discourse particles can act as pragmatic roadsigns that signal specific moves in conversation. By making the nature of a conversational move explicit, these devices can aid in pragmatic processing. I make this idea precise using a Question under Discussion framework. Several case studies are presented.}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {intonation, tone, prosody, discourse particles, hierarchy}, url = {http://semdial.org/anthology/Z13-Rojas-Esponda_semdial_0017.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Greenberg2013, author = {Yael Greenberg and Maria Ronen}, booktitle = {Proceedings of IATL 2012}, title = {Three approximators which are almost/more or less/be-gadol the same}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In this paper we look at three approximators: Almost (and the Hebrew kim'at), more or less (and the Hebrew paxot o yoter) and be-gadol (literally in-big, which can be translated as "by and large"/"loosely speaking"/“basically”). We examine a range of similarities and differences between the three approximators and propose to account for them by assuming that all of them are scalar operators, whose semantics combines a polar (negative) component, rejecting the prejacent under an actual value to a relevant parameter, and a proximity (positive) component, accepting an alternative which is lower and close to the prejacent, but that they differ in the choice of the 'relevant parameter' in the negative component (a world, a precision standard, a standard of answerhood to the Question Under Discussion, etc.), and hence also in the alternatives to the prejacent in the positive component.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ronen2013.pdf:PDF}, keywords = {approximators, polarity, relevance, alternatives, prejacent}, url = {https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/31177616/IATL3approximators-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1628360992&Signature=TGcbxqkUjqoYWzsH-dTUWwCwzQ27gUl0BOdQd-h1Aje1VU0xiObgw0y91JsPncUz6wsgE5iHMb7h2yFtaxhaOtowvNDDMVOyJT1uwtPfRhh5y1e6eOdr8l6~bP2eBrM6cPdUWCdPfO~n0BDBTQMxnay1eSZ2es1M2Q~nBrc6Oc~Bb3BUn2SOAZbCSdKX3VsXXITj~KaDwJNM6A2CW3vmkwunOyh31wn4Oa3qvyIV1jCkhVay6SFT8VqOrF1ZTw97SWrZKMuxmtN1xdUnN1JI4HUvRb0bZta7tTnHHORINabN~LE5XYXQUAxfcPE4wTSiJsjCanB-lYlqo-02JetNhg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA}, } @Article{Coppock2013a, author = {Elizabeth Coppock and Thomas Brochhagen}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Raising and resolving issues with scalar modifiers}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, volume = {6}, abstract = {We argue that the superlative modifiers at least and at most quantify over a scale of answers to the current question under discussion (and in this sense, resolve issues), and that they draw attention to the individual possibilities along the scale (and in this sense, raise issues for discussion). The point of departure is a simple analysis on which at least denotes what only presupposes, and at most denotes what only contributes as its ordinary at-issue content. This analysis captures the truth conditions, focus-sensitivity, and distribution of superlative modifiers but leaves some pragmatic facts unexplained. We enrich the simple account with unrestricted inquisitive semantics in order to explain the fact that superlative modifiers give rise to ignorance implicatures while comparative modifiers like more and less do not, the fact that superlative modifiers do not give rise to scalar implicatures, and two puzzles concerning the interaction between superlative modifiers and deontic modals. We argue that this proposal provides the most empirically successful published account of superlative modifiers to date.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.6.3}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Coppock2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {at-issue, superlatives, quantification, scalar, presupposition, modals, modifiers, modality, numeral, scalar modifiers, QUD, focus, inquisitive semantics, implicature}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @InProceedings{Stevens2013, author = {Jon Stevens and Caitlin Light}, booktitle = {University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics}, title = {The Pragmatics of Direct Object Fronting in Historical English}, year = {2013}, number = {1}, volume = {19}, abstract = {Speyer (2008) finds an overall decline in the rate of topicalization in historical English, which we refer to pre-theoretically as direct object fronting. He attributes it to two separate phenomena: 1) the early loss of unaccented pronominal and demonstrative fronting, and 2) a gradient decline in the use of accented, contrastive fronting due to prosodic well-formedness conditions imposed by the loss of the V2 constraint. In this paper we present a prima facie problem with Speyer's account. While personal pronouns exhibit the expected behavior, the rate at which demonstrative pronouns front is more stable. We propose that, contrary to expectation, unaccented demonstratives in Old English behaved syntactically as if they were contrastive. The reason for this lies in a special information-structural function for demonstrative pronouns across Germanic, for which our corpus study provides independent evidence. Specifically, demonstratives in Germanic tend to refer anaphorically to elements whose meanings, like the meanings of contrastive elements, are not in every possible answer to the Question Under Discussion (see Roberts 1996, Buring 2003 and Schwarz to appear).}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Stevens2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {experimental, corpus, topic, pronouns, demonstratives, prosody, contrast, anaphora, demonstrative pronouns, Germanic, old English, historical}, url = {https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol19/iss1/23}, } @Article{Crane2013, author = {Thera Marie Crane}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Resultatives, progressives, statives, and relevance: The temporal pragmatics of the -ite suffix in Totela}, year = {2013}, month = {sep}, pages = {164--188}, volume = {133}, abstract = {This article presents the verbal suffix -ite in Totela (Bantu, Namibia and Zambia), which has variable temporal interpretations based both on lexical aspect (situation type) and on discourse context. The same -ite-marked predicate may be interpreted as referencing a situation that is past (resultative-like readings) or present (progressive-like readings) with respect to utterance time. The suffix is analyzed as having the aspectual function of a stativizer, asserting a relevant property of the utterance's subject. Temporal interpretations with respect to utterance time (or other perspective time) are derived from principles of relevance: the state described by an -ite-marked predicate is interpreted so that it answer the current question under discussion in discourse. The -ite suffix, most likely related to a historical resultative, still specifies a result state, but the temporal specifications of that result state are weakened and must be inferred through context. Cross-linguistic comparison of -ite with other markers that have both perfect/resultative and progressive readings suggests that the pragmatic notion of relevance and not only commonalities in temporal semantics (e.g. focus on post-state; stativizing functions) may be a key factor in the perfect/resultative/progressive connection.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2013.04.006}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Crane2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Topic, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {stativizer, relevance, totela, cross-linguistic, non-English, discouse context, temporality, tense, discourse topic}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @InCollection{Nakano2014, author = {Matthjis Westera}, booktitle = {New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence.}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Exhaustivity Through the Maxim of Relation}, year = {2014}, editor = {Yukiko Nakano and Ken Satoh and Daisuke Bekki}, abstract = {I show that the exhaustive interpretation of answers can be explained as a conversational implicature through the Maxim of Relation, dealing with the problematic epistemic step (Sauerland 2004). I assume a fairly standard Maxim of Relation, that captures the same intuition as Roberts’ (1996) contextual entailment. I show that if a richer notion of meaning is adopted, in particular that of attentive semantics (Roelofsen 2011), this Maxim of Relation automatically becomes strong enough to enable exhaustivity implicatures. The results suggest that pragmatic reasoning is sensitive not only to the information an utterance provides, but also to the possibilities it draws attention to. Foremost, it shows that exhaustivity implicatures can be genuine conversational implicatures.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-10061-6}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Westera2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {exhaustivity, competence assumption, maxim of relation, attentive content, relation, epistemic, attentive semantics, conversational implicatures, implicatures}, } @Article{Riester2013, author = {Arndt Riester and Stefan Baumann}, journal = {Dialogue {\&} Discourse}, title = {Focus Triggers and Focus Types from a Corpus Perspective}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, number = {2}, pages = {215--248}, volume = {4}, doi = {10.5087/dad.2013.210}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Riester2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {corpus, experimental, alternatives, contrast, corpus annotation, focus, givenness, information status, informationstructure, prosody, Question under Discussion, secondary prominence, pitch, German, non-English, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {University of Illinois Libraries}, } @InProceedings{Mayol2013a, author = {Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo}, booktitle = {19th ICL Papers}, title = {Contrastive topics and implicature cancellation}, year = {2013}, abstract = {This paper is concerned with the so-called ‘Problem of the Last Answer’, which arises in the context of the research on the semantics of Contrastive Topic, on the one hand, and on the distribution of the presupposition trigger too, on the other hand. Our goal is to argue that we can find a simple and elegant answer to this problem if we take into consideration more general constraints on implicature cancellation.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Mayol2013a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Topic, Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {implicature, contrastive topic, topic, presupposition, cancel}, url = {https://www.cil19.org/uploads/documents/Contrastive_topics_and_implicature_cancellation.pdf}, } @Article{Meroni2013, author = {Luisa Meroni and Andrea Gualmini}, journal = {Lingue e Linguaggio}, title = {Question under discussion triggers implicature calculation in young children}, year = {2013}, number = {1}, pages = {121-139}, volume = {12}, abstract = {Many experimental studies have shown that children don't compute scalar implicatures (SIs) as much as adults, despite mastering the prerequisites to their computation (Chierchia et al. 2001). In addition, different tasks (e.g., picture-selection or act-out) have been shown to affect SIs computation in children, leading to the claim that the complexity of judgment-tasks is beyond children's limited cognitive resources. (Pouscoulous et al. 2007; Katsos & Bishop 2011). This paper presents experimental data showing that (i) children can in fact compute SIs to the same extent as adults when this is the only contextually available option (Gualmini et al. 2008) and that (ii) they do so in a typical Truth Value Judgment task (Crain & Thornton 1998).}, doi = {10.1418/73679}, groups = {Implicature, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {language acquisition, pragmatics, question under discussion, scalar implicatures, scalars, psycholinguistics, children}, } @InProceedings{Keshet2013, author = {Ezra Keshet}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 23}, title = {Sloppy identity unbound}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Reinhart (1983) claims that only pronouns whose antecedents c-command them may give rise to sloppy identity readings. This paper presents counterexamples to this claim; for instance, referring to the famous 1960 televised presidential debate, it is acceptable to say: "Kennedy looked good. People voted for him. Nixon looked bad. People didn't." Despite the fact that the antecedent "Kennedy" for the pronoun "him" is in a previous sentence, this pronoun allows a sloppy identity reading wherein the fourth sentence ("People didn't.") means that people didn't vote for Nixon. To analyze such cases, I first propose an extension to the ~ focus operator due to Rooth (1992), allowing this operator to alter the assignment function used to interpret pronouns. One construction where Rooth places ~ is in the answers to questions. My new meaning for ~ explains why pronouns are so constrained in answers, e.g., "Who does John like? He[=John] likes Mary." Next, I argue for the Question-Under-Discussion (QUD) model of discourse described in Roberts (1996), which theorizes that every sentence is the answer to an explicit or implicit question. Finally, I show that unbound sloppy identity can be analyzed as cases where pronouns are constrained by antecedents in implicit questions. Along the way, I argue that the QUD model is compatible with the coherence relation model of discourse due to Hobbs (1979), explaining how coherence can constrain pronoun reference as well.}, doi = {doi.org/10.3765/salt.v23i0.2678}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Keshet2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {pronouns, sloppy identity, coherence, discourse, identity, anaphora, coherence relations, rhetorical relations}, } @Article{Snedegar2013, author = {Justin Snedegar}, journal = {Thought: A Journal of Philosophy}, title = {Negative Reason Existentials}, year = {2013}, month = {jun}, number = {2}, pages = {108--116}, volume = {2}, abstract = {(Schroeder 2007) presents a puzzle about negative reason existentials—claims like ‘There's no reason to cry over spilled milk’. Some of these claims are intuitively true, but we also seem to be committed to the existence of the very reasons that are said not to exist. I argue that Schroeder's own pragmatic solution to this puzzle is unsatisfactory, and propose my own based on a contrastive account of reasons, according to which reasons are fundamentally reasons for one thing rather than another, instead of reasons for things simpliciter, as has been traditionally held.}, doi = {10.1002/tht3.70}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Snedegar2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {reasons, reason ascriptions, pragmatics, contrastivism, contrastive reasons, philosophical}, publisher = {Wiley}, } @InProceedings{Yuan2013, author = {Mengxi Yuan and Yurie Hara}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th Amsterdam Colloquium}, title = {Questioning and Asserting at the Same Time: the L% Tone in A-not-A questions}, year = {2013}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Yuan2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {prosody, syntax, cross-linguistic, non-English, Mandarin, intonation, neutrality, alternatives, assertions, question}, url = {https://archive.illc.uva.nl/AC/AC2013/uploaded_files/inlineitem/36_Yuan_Hara.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Tawilapakul2013, author = {Tawilapakul, Upsorn}, school = {University of York}, title = {Counter-Expectation in Thai}, year = {2013}, abstract = {This study is dedicated to the reinvestigation of the role of the particle lɛɛw45 in Thai. It raises speculations over the conventional claims according to which lɛɛw45 plays a role in temporality as a perfective aspect marker (Kanchanawan, 1978; Boonyapatipark, 1983; among others). The reappraisal of the role of lɛɛw45 in this study, which is based on the use of it in present day Thai, offers an argument against these claims. The addition of lɛɛw45 to a sentence is not mainly aimed at temporal effects. When it appears in a sentence, lɛɛw45 does not necessarily denote the perfective aspect of the event. Moreover, it can be omitted in the sentence in which perfectivity is already inherited through the lexical aspect of the verb and the temporal structure of the predicate. Lɛɛw45 in fact plays a role as a marker of counter-expectation. It represents a previous expectation about the subject and its opposition to the asserted proposition. Examining the nature of lɛɛw45's implications thoroughly, the study has found that even though the definiteness of the subject behaves like a standard presupposition, the implicated expectation does not project in all cases. This is revealed in the results from Tonhauser et al.’s (2013) projection tests. Lɛɛw45 is context-sensitive and imposes a Strong Contextual Felicity constraint. Nonetheless, it is actually not bound to Obligatory Local Effect and its presence in the context where the projective contents are not entailed is also felicitous. Counter-expectations also involve coherence and relevance, which are determined by the interrelationship between common ground, context, and focus. The asserted proposition is required to correspond to the common ground knowledge and context designated by the expected proposition. Additionally, the expression and interpretation of lɛɛw45's counter-expectations rely on the association of lɛɛw45 with the focused element in its scope. In a particular case, the common ground knowledge, context, and focus can be identified with the assistance of Question Under Discussion (Roberts 1996, 2012). The mechanism also accounts for the production and interpretation processes proceeding in accordance with the conversational moves.}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Projection}, keywords = {projection, Thai, cross-linguistic, lexical items, particle, focus, common ground, context}, url = {https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9560/}, } @InCollection{Buering2012, author = {Daniel B\"{u}ring}, booktitle = {Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language}, publisher = {Routledge}, title = {Focus and Intonation}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Intonation describes the way the fundamental frequency of the voice, also called its pitch or F°, changes over the course of an utterance. A slightly broader term is Prosody, which covers not just intonation but also additional aspects of phonetic realization such as pauses, lengthening of segments, perhaps loudness, and spectral tilt; intonation in particular, and perhaps prosody in general, roughly corresponds to the colloquial term ‘inflection’. Certain aspects of prosody (and intonation) are grammatical in nature and as such represented in a phonological representation, called Prosodic Structure. At a minimum, prosodic structure will encode prosodic constituent structure, relative metrical strength or stress of syllables, and location and nature of certain tonal (or ‘intonational’) events (see Ladd, 1996).}, doi = {10.4324/9780203206966-16}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {focus, intonation, pirtch, prosody, philosophical, tone}, } @InProceedings{Mori2014, author = {Yoshiki Mori and Hitomi Hirayama}, booktitle = {New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence}, title = {Bare plurals in the left periphery in German and Italian}, year = {2014}, editor = {Yukiko Nakano and Ken Satoh and Daisuke Bekki}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, abstract = {Chierchia’s comparative analysis of nominals based on the two features [± arg] and [± pred] has lead to many discussions on the semantics of nominals in argument positions and predicate positions. On the other hand, many syntactic results about left dislocation and topicalization have been accumulated. In this paper, we will try to elucidate possibilities of bare plurals in the left periphery and differentiate their readings. By examining data from Italian and German we claim that different demands on foregoing contexts are organized as constructions, as far as the left periphery is concerned. In addition, those constructions also reflect an organization of discourse.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-10061-6}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Mori2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Definites and Anaphora, Cross-Linguistic, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {plurals, Italian, German, non-English, cross-linguistic, bare plural, kind-denoting nouns, left periphery, left dislocation, discourse topic, definites}, } @Article{Biezma2013, author = {Mar\'{a} Biezma}, journal = {University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics}, title = {Only One At Least: Refining the Role of Discourse in Building Alternatives}, year = {2013}, number = {1}, volume = {19}, abstract = {In this paper I provide an analysis of at least that derives the epistemic and concessive interpretations of utterances containing at least (discussed in Nakanishi & Rullmann 2009) from a single denotation. I propose that the presence of at least merely indicates that the prejacent is considered within a scale in which there are higher alternatives (which may or may not be true given what we know) and lower alternatives. I further argue that the different alternatives in the scale as well as the ordering relation need not be lexically generated but can be contextually provided. This is cashed out by making use of a discourse model.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {alternatives, epistemic, denotation, at least, scalar, focus alternatives, focus}, url = {https://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol19/iss1/3}, } @Article{Asher2013, author = {Nicholas Asher}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Implicatures and discourse structure}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, pages = {13--28}, volume = {132}, abstract = {One of the characteristic marks of Gricean implicatures in general, and scalar implicatures in particular, examples of which are given in (1), is that they are the result of a defeasible inference. (1a) John had some of the cookies (1b) John had some of the cookies. In fact he had them all. (1a) invites the inference that John didn’t have all the cookies, an inference that can be defeated by additional information, as in (1b). Scalar inferences like that in (1a) thus depend upon some sort of nonmonotonic reasoning over semantic contents. They share this characteristic of defeasiblility with inferences that result in the presence of discourse relations that link discourse segments together into a discourse structure for a coherent text or dialogue—call these inferences discourse or D inferences. I have studied these inferences about discourse structure, their effects on content and how they are computed in the theory known as Segmented Discourse Representation Theory or SDRT. In this paper I investigate how the tools used to infer discourse relations apply to what Griceans and others call scalar or quantity implicatures. The benefits of this investigation are three fold: at the theoretical level, we have a unified and relatively simple framework for computing defeasible inferences both of the quantity and discourse structure varieties; further, we can capture what's right about the intuitions of so called “localist” views about scalar implicatures; finally, this framework permits us to investigate how D-inferences and scalar inferences might interact, in particular how discourse structure might trigger scalar inferences, thus explaining the variability (Chemla, 2008) or even non-existence of embedded implicatures noted recently (e.g., Geurts and Pouscoulous, 2009), and their occasional noncancellability. The view of scalar inferences that emerges from this study is also rather different from the way both localists and Neo- Griceans conceive of them. Both localists and Neo-Griceans view implicatures as emerging from pragmatic reasoning processes that are strictly separated from the calculation of semantic values; where they differ is at what level the pragmatic implicatures are calculated. Localists take them to be calculated in parallel with semantic composition, whereas Neo-Griceans take them to have as input the complete semantic content of the assertion. My view is that scalar inferences depend on discourse structure and large view of semantic content in which semantics and pragmatics interact in a complex way to produce an interpretation of an utterance or a discourse.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.10.001}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Asher2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {embedded implicatures, implicatures, discourse structure, defeasible reasoning, reasoning, scalars, scalar implicature, dynamic semantics, SDRT, dynamics, nonmonotonic, cancellability, cancellation, cancel}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @InProceedings{Gillingham2013, author = {Gwendolyn Gillingham}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 23}, title = {Focusing on unlikely accented nominals: context alternatives and implied expectations}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In English, accenting a pronoun occasionally switches its reference rela- tive to an unaccented pronoun: (1) John pushed Bill and... a. heb/} # j fell. b. HEj/ #{b fell. However, accent does not always have this effect - it is not licit in (2) below: (2) John bought Bill a drink and then... a. hej/?b went home. b. # HE went home. This paper argues that the felicity of the accent in (1b) is dependent on a presupposition of relative unlikeliness, which is unfulfilled in (2b). The presence of this accent is due to a focus-sensitive operator, Opunlikely, which presupposes the existence of a likelier alternative to the asserted one. The reference and the distribution of accented pronouns is due to the satisfaction of this presupposition. Opunlikely not only accounts for accents on pronouns, but also on coreferential nouns and other types of constituents as well. Finally, this operator also accounts for the distribution of accent and unlikeliness associated with other focus-sensitive constructions.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v23i0.2663}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Gillingham2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {Pronominal Reference; Prosody; Accented Pronouns; Focus}, } @InProceedings{Cummins2013, author = {Chris Cummins and Patr\'{i}cia Amaral and Napoleon Katsos}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {Backgrounding and accommodation of presuppositions: an experimental approach}, year = {2013}, volume = {17}, abstract = {Recent research on presupposition has aimed to use techniques of experimental semantics and pragmatics to cast light on the processes that underlie projection and information packaging. Relatively little attention has so far been paid to the relation between the diversity of presuppositions with respect to information packaging and their projection behaviour. In this paper, we argue that information backgrounding and projection can be seen as closely related phenomena, and we present an experimental study investigating the behaviour of a variety of presupposition triggers. We interpret the results as evidence for the psychological reality of at least one of the theoretical distinctions between presupposition types posited in the literature (lexical versus resolution presuppositions), and consider their implications for the competing accounts of presupposition projection. Keywords. Presupposition; backgrounding; accommodation; experimental pragmatics. 1. Introduction Within the general field of experimental pragmatics, there has recently been an upsurge of interest in the investigation of presuppositions (Xue and Onea 2011, Amaral et al. 2011, Smith and Hall 2011, Chemla and Bott in press). At least two particular strands of research can be distinguished: one deals with presupposition projection and accommodation, and a second with the role of presuppositions in information packaging. Research dealing with presupposition projection aims to ascertain how the information conveyed by the use of presupposition triggers is integrated into the hearer’s situation model. It is classically diagnostic of presuppositions, versus other forms of content, that they project from under the scope of negation – that is, they continue to be conveyed even when their triggers are sententially negated (Levinson 1983, Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet 1990, among others). For example, both (1) and (2) are taken ordinarily to convey that John used to smoke, which is the presupposition associated with the trigger quit. (1) John quit smoking. (2) John didn’t quit smoking. However, it is also widely accepted that this form of projection need not take place. It is possible to continue (2) in a way that is judged felicitous by native speakers, but in which the presupposition is explicitly denied, as in (3). Crucially, such sentences are more coherent than explicitly self-contradictory sentences are, which suggests that the presupposition is not projecting to a global level}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Cummins2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Accomodation, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {presupposition, backgrounding, accommodation, experimental pragmatics, experimental, psycholinguistics}, } @InProceedings{Yasavul2013, author = {Murat Yasavul}, booktitle = {Ohio State Working Papers in Linguistics}, title = {Prosody Of Focus and Contrastive Topic in K’iche}, year = {2013}, pages = {129-160}, volume = {60}, abstract = {This paper discusses the findings of an experimental study about the prosodic encoding of focus and contrastive topic in K'iche'. The central question being addressed is whether prosody plays a role in distinguishing string-identical sentences where the pre-predicate expression can be interpreted as being focused or contrastively topicalized depending on context. I present a production experiment designed to identify whether such sentences differ in their prosodic properties as has been impressionistically suggested in the literature (Larsen 1988; Aissen 1992; Can Pixabaj & England 2011). The overall strategy of the experiment was to obtain naturally occurring data from native speakers of K'iche' by having them repeat target sentences they heard in conversations. The phonological analysis showed that content words in K'iche' have a rising pitch movement, a finding which is in line with Nielsen (2005). The acoustic analyses of several variables yielded a significant effect of condition only in the range of the F0 rise associated with focused and contrastively topicalized expressions. However, the difference across conditions is only ~6 Hz which may not be perceivable by listeners.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Yasavul2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {prosody, focus, contrastive topic, experimental, non-English, cross-linguistic, K'iche', intonation, tone}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/1811/80993}, } @Article{Breheny2013, author = {Richard Breheny and Heather J. Ferguson and Napoleon Katsos}, journal = {Language and Cognitive Processes}, title = {Investigating the timecourse of accessing conversational implicatures during incremental sentence interpretation}, year = {2013}, month = {may}, number = {4}, pages = {443--467}, volume = {28}, doi = {10.1080/01690965.2011.649040}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Breheny2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Implicature}, keywords = {pragmatics, visual world, implicature, psycholinguistics, experimental}, publisher = {Informa}, } @InProceedings{Westera2013, author = {Matthijs Westera}, booktitle = {17th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (DialDam)}, title = {‘Attention, I’m violating a maxim!’ A unifying account of the final rise}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Declarative sentences that end with a rising pitch in English (among other languages) have many uses. I single out several prominent uses that the literature so far has treated mostly independently. I present a compositional, unifying analysis, where the final rising pitch marks the violation of a conversational maxim, and its steepness indicates the speaker’s emotional activation. Existing theories are reproduced from these basic assumptions. I believe it contributes to a solid theoretical foundation for future work on the semantics and pragmatics of intonation.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Westera2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Implicature}, keywords = {pitch, maxims, intonation, tone, implicatures}, url = {http://semdial.org/anthology/Z13-Westera_semdial_0019.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Context2013, author = {Daniel Lassiter and Noah D Goodman}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 23}, title = {Context and scale structure and statistics in the interpretation of and positive-form adjectives}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Relative adjectives in the positive form exhibit vagueness and context-sensitivity. We suggest that these phenomena can be explained by the interaction of a free threshold variable in the meaning of the positive form with a probabilistic model of pragmatic inference. We describe a formal model of utterance interpretation as coordination, which jointly infers the value of the threshold variable and the intended meaning of the sentence. We report simulations exploring the effect of background statistical knowledge on adjective interpretation in this model. Motivated by these simulation results, we suggest that this approach can account for the correlation between scale structure and the relative/absolute distinction while also allowing for exceptions noted in previous work. Finally, we argue for a probabilistic explanation of why the sorites paradox is compelling with relative adjectives even though the second premise is false on a universal interpretation, and show that this account predicts Kennedy's (2007) observation that the sorites paradox is more compelling with relative than with absolute adjectives.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v23i0.2658}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Lassiter2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Lexical Meaning, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {Relative adjectives, absolute adjectives, vagueness, sorites, probability, coordination games, Bayesian pragmatics, games, simulation, experimental}, } @PhdThesis{Koev2013, author = {Todor Koev}, school = {Rutgers}, title = {Apposition and the Structure of Discourse}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The current dissertation focuses on two interpretational properties of APPOSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS: (i) their (often) NOT-AT-ISSUE status, i.e. the fact that they can be perceived as secondary to the main point of the utterance, and (ii) their PROJECTION behavior, i.e. the fact that they typically escape the scope of external operators (e.g. Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet 2000, Potts 2005). I analyze appositive constructions as adjuncts (e.g. Jackendoff 1977, Potts 2005) which are interpreted as in-situ conjuncts. Root clauses, appositive relative clauses, and possibly all appositive constructions are assumed to form FORCE PHRASES (see Rizzi 1997, Krifka 2001). Force heads are operators which introduce a fresh variable for the proposition of their scope. Since lexical expressions (operators or predicates) are relativized to propositional variables, Force heads can bind into the lexical expressions in their syntactic scope (cf. Stone 1999, Stone & Hardt 1999). This mechanism keeps apart appositive content from main clause content and is key to explaining the exceptional properties of appositives mentioned above. First, propositional variables introduced by Force heads express proposals to update the context set. The fact that appositive proposals are usually introduced before main clause proposals explains why appositives are often not at-issue: all proposals associated with a sentence are silently accepted except the one introduced last, which is at-issue. Second, similarly to Force heads, lexical operators introduce propositional variables for the content of their scope, but, unlike Force heads, can be bound and thus interact with higher operators. Since appositives form separate ForcePs, their interpretation does not depend on whether or not they appear in the syntactic scope of higher operators such as negation or modals. In other words, appositive content necessarily projects. The proposed analysis is embedded into a discourse model in which SPEECH CONTEXTS keep track of individual speech participants, their discourse commitments, and the context set (see Stalnaker 1978, Kaplan 1989, Farkas & Bruce 2010). The analysis is fleshed out in UPDATE WITH SPEECH CONTEXTS, an update logic in which the formal mechanisms of interpreting formulas and restricting the context set are kept separate (see also AnderBois et al. 2010, Murray 2010, Bittner 2011).}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {at-issue, at issue, not at-issue, appositives, projection, update logic, dynamics, dynamic semantics}, url = {https://search.proquest.com/openview/3686668834d9802d690c6e574100c8e0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&casa_token=UcbU6GkdmVgAAAAA:tALeY9kMIT1ZgKh8EgDnipDGDCNMODExLsQ9plRZVhg2ag6W8Pga9n-nHNVRTUNK8s_eGkBYfg}, } @InCollection{Koev2012, author = {Todor Koev}, booktitle = {Logic, Language and Meaning}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {On the Information Status of Appositive Relative Clauses}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Existing semantic theories of appositive relative clauses (ARCs) assume that ARCs contribute asserted but not at-issue content (Böer & Lycan [4], Bach [3], Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet [5], Potts [13], AnderBois et al. [2], Murray [12]). In this paper I demonstrate that the information status of ARCs depends on their linear position in the clause: clause-medial ARCs are not at-issue whereas clause-final ARCs can behave like regular at-issue content. I propose a uniform one-dimensional semantics under which ARCs are conjuncts that can acquire at-issue status if the issue raised by the main clause has been terminated. The idea is formally implemented in Dynamic Predicate Logic (Groenendijk & Stokhof [9]) enriched with propositional variables (AnderBois et al. [2]).}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-31482-7_41}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Koev2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {appositives, at issueness, not at-issue, at-issue}, } @PhdThesis{Onea2013, author = {Edgar Onea}, school = {University of G\"{o}ttingen}, title = {Potential questions in discourse and grammar}, year = {2013}, doi = {10.13140/RG.2.1.1888.1128}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Focus, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {namlich, scalars, indefinites, potential questions, discourse particles, focus, specificational constructions, congruence}, } @InProceedings{Harris2013, author = {Jesse Harris}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 23}, title = {Interjective ‘what'}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Discourse particles and interjectives allow a speaker to signal how information presented in an utterance relates to her epistemic or emotive state. I present a semantics for one such interjective: the English particle what. In addition, I provide evidence that it carries multiple discourse functions, and propose that these distinct uses are best captured by their relation to the central discourse topic.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Harris2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Experimental Approaches, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {Discourse particles, questions, approximation, prosody, corpus pragmatics, experimental, epistemic, interjective, assertion, interjection}, } @Unpublished{Martin2013, author = {Martin, Fabienne}, note = {working paper or preprint}, title = {{Decomposing (non)-restrictivity. Evaluative modifiers in post-head positions}}, year = {2013}, hal_id = {hal-00788131}, hal_version = {v2}, keywords = {restrictive vs non-restrictive modification ; evaluative modifiers ; adjectives and adverbials ; pre- vs post-head modifiers ; information packaging ; at-issue vs non at-issue component}, pdf = {https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00788131v2/file/martin-dremiphp.pdf}, url = {https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00788131}, } @Article{Rawlins2013, author = {Kyle Rawlins}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {(Un)conditionals}, year = {2013}, month = {apr}, number = {2}, pages = {111--178}, volume = {21}, abstract = {I give an account of the compositional semantics of unconditionals (e.g. Whoever goes to the party, it will be fun) that explains their relationship to if -conditionals in the Lewis/Kratzer/Heim tradition. Unconditionals involve an alternative-denoting adjunct (in English in particular, a question-denoting adjunct) that supplies domain restrictions pointwise (in the sense of Hamblin) to a main-clause operator such as a modal. The differences from if -clauses follow from the structure of the adjuncts; both are conditionals in the Lewisian sense. In the course of treating unconditionals, I provide a concrete implementation of conditionals where conditional adjuncts in general are a species of correlative, and show what detaching this hypothesis from if involves.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-012-9087-0}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Rawlins2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Projection}, keywords = {projection, conditionals, questions, alternative semantics, indifference, domain restriction, modals}, publisher = {Springer}, } @MastersThesis{Buitrago2013, author = {Natalia Buitrago}, school = {Cornell University}, title = {Types Of Focus In Spanish: Exploring The Connection Between Function And Realization}, year = {2013}, abstract = {This thesis revisits the divide between information focus and contrastive focus in Spanish. This divide is said to manifest itself not only in meaning differences, but in surface structure as well, resulting in different syntactic and phonological realizations depending on the intended pragmatic function of a focused sentence. According to previous accounts, an utterance in which focus is expressed by dislocating the relevant element to the end of the sentence is assumed to signify information focus, while a strategy utilizing a specific prosody change on the focused element is said to express contrast. This work argues, in opposition to previous assumptions from the literature, that there is not a strict divide between the realization of one kind of focus or another, and in fact, that these preconceived meaning divides are not themselves straightforward to characterize. Further, this work argues for the possibility that the choice of focus construction is highly influenced by speakers' communicative intentions and constraints. The conclusions reached in this thesis are the product of a combination of empirical and theoretical work. Empirical evidence is drawn from two sources: 1) data from an original elicitation experiment involving native speakers of Spanish producing focused constructions under different pragmatic situations; and 2) findings from the literature on on-line sentence processing studying focused constructions specifically. The first source of data points at the conclusion that the strict information-as-syntactic vs. contrast-as-phonological divide has no base in Spanish. The second source argues for the need for a more functionally-informed approach to focus constructions. A formal analysis of the data using the QUD framework also demonstrates that different kinds of focus can be represented under a single unified semantic approach.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Cross-Linguistic, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {focus, information focus, contrastive focus, contrastive, contrast, prosody, experimental, cross-linguistic, Spanish, non-English, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://hdl.handle.net/1813/34118}, } @Book{Scharp2013, author = {Kevin Scharp}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Replacing Truth}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The book proposes a theory of the nature and logic of truth in which truth is an inconsistent concept that should be replaced for certain theoretical purposes. The book opens with an overview of work on the nature of truth (e.g. correspondence theories, deflationism), work on the liar and related paradoxes, and a comprehensive scheme for combining these two literatures into a unified study of the concept truth. Truth is best understood as an inconsistent concept, and the book proposes a detailed theory of inconsistent concepts that can be applied to the case of truth. Truth also happens to be a useful concept, but its inconsistency inhibits its utility; as such, it should be replaced with consistent concepts that can do truth’s job without giving rise to paradoxes. It offers a pair of replacements, which it dubs ascending truth and descending truth, along with an axiomatic theory of them and a new kind of possible-worlds semantics for this theory. As for the nature of truth, it develops Davidson’s idea that it is best understood as the core of a measurement system for rational phenomena (e.g. belief, desire, and meaning). The book finishes with a semantic theory that treats truth predicates as assessment-sensitive (i.e. their extension is relative to a context of assessment), and a demonstration of how this theory solves the problems posed by the liar and other paradoxes.}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, truth, possible worlds, epistemic, contextualism, inconsistency, objectivity, reference, knowledge}, } @InCollection{Fox2012, author = {Chris Fox}, booktitle = {The Logica Yearbook 2012}, publisher = {College Publications}, title = {Axiomatising Questions}, year = {2012}, editor = {Vit Punochar and Petr Svarny}, abstract = {Accounts of the formal semantics of natural language often adopt a pre-existing framework. Such formalisations rely upon informal narrative to explain the intended interpretation of an expression - an expression that may have different interpretations in different circumstances, and may supports patterns of behaviour that exceed what is intended. This ought to make us question the sense in which such formalisations capture our intuitions about semantic behaviour. In the case of theories of questions and answers, a question might be interpreted as a set (of possible propositional answers), or as a function (that yields a proposition given a term that is intended to be interpreted as a phrasal answer), but the formal theory itself provides no means of distinguishing such sets and functions from other cases where they are not intended to represent questions, or their answers. Here we sketch an alternative approach to formalisation a theory of questions and answers that aims to be sensitive to such ontological considerations.}, keywords = {questions, answers, ontology, methodology}, url = {http://repository.essex.ac.uk/14405/1/CFox-Questions-Logica2012-paper.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Yanovich2013, author = {Igor Yanovich}, school = {MIT}, title = {Four pieces for modality, context and usage}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The main part of this dissertation consists of four loosely connected chapters on the semantics of modals. The chapters inform each other and employ similar methods, but generally each one is self-contained and can be read in isolation. Chapter 2 introduces new semantics for epistemic modality. I argue that the epistemic modal base consists of the propositions that can be obtained by the interlocutors early enough to affect their resolution of their current practical goal. Integrated into the standard contextualist semantics, the new definition successfully accounts for two sets of data that have been claimed to falsify standard contextualism, namely from disagreement dialogues and complements of attitude verbs. Chapter 3 traces the historical rise of the may-under-hope construction, as in I hope we may succeed. In that construction, the modal does not contribute its normal existential modal force. It turns out that despite the construction's archaic flavor in Present-Day English, it is a very recent innovation that arose not earlier than the 16th century. I put forward a hypothesis that the may-under-hope construction arose as the replacement of an earlier construction where the inflectional subjunctive under verbs of hoping was used to mark a specific type of formal hopes about good health. Chapter 4 proposes that O(ld) E(nglish) *motan, the ancestor of Modern English must, was a variable-force modal somewhat similar to the variable-force modals of the American Pacific Northwest. I argue that in Alfredian OE, motan(p) presupposed that if p gets a chance to actualize, it will. I also argue that several centuries later, in the 'AB' dialect, Early Middle English *moten is was genuinely ambiguous between possibility and necessity. Thus a new trajectory of semantic change is discovered: variable force, to ambiguity between possibility and necessity, to regular necessity. Chapter 5 argues that, first, restrictions on the relative scope of deontics and clausemate negation can hardly be all captured within the syntactic component, and second, that capturing some of them can be due to semantic filters on representations. I support the second claim by showing how such semantic filters on scope may arise historically, using Russian stoit 'should' and English have to as examples.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {modality, epistemic, epistemic modality, contextualism, old english, goals}, url = {https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/84422}, } @PhdThesis{Degen2013, author = {Judith Degen}, school = {University of Rochester}, title = {Alternatives in Pragmatic Reasoning}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In the face of underspecified utterances, listeners routinely and without much apparent effort make the right kinds of pragmatic inferences about a speaker's intended meaning. This dissertation investigates the processing of scalar implicatures as a way of addressing how listeners perform this remarkable feat. In particular, the role of context in the processing of scalar implicatures from "some" to "not all" is explored. Contrary to the widely held assumption that scalar implicatures are highly regularized, frequent, and relatively context-independent, this dissertation suggests that they are in fact relatively infrequent and highly context-dependent; both the robustness and the speed with which scalar implicatures from "some" to "not all" are computed are modulated by the probabilistic support that the implicature receives from multiple contextual cues. Scalar implicatures are found to be especially sensitive to the naturalness or expectedness of both scalar and non-scalar alternative utterances the speaker could have produced, but didn't. A novel contextualist account of scalar implicature processing that has roots in both constraint-based and information-theoretic accounts of language processing is proposed that provides a unifying explanation for a) the varying robustness of scalar implicatures across different contexts, b) the varying speed of scalar implicatures across different contexts, and c) the speed and efficiency of communication.}, groups = {Implicature, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {implicatures, scalar implicature, alternatives, experimental, psycholinguistics, corpus}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/alternatives-pragmatic-reasoning/docview/1465060224/se-2?accountid=9783}, } @PhdThesis{Washburn2013, author = {Mary Byram Washburn}, school = {University of Southern California}, title = {Narrowing the Focus: Experimental studies on exhaustivity and contrast}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Focus structure has a profound effect on language production and processing. Yet, despite that focus has so much influence on an utterance, it still remains unclear what the meaning of focus is. Some theories consider focus to be entirely pragmatic, having no influence on the truth conditions or presuppositions of a focused sentence. Other theories consider focus to have a semantic contribution, contributing either to the truth conditions or the presuppositions of a focused sentence, but even within these, there is disagreement. For instance, von Stechow (1981, 1982) developed a theory in which the meaning of focus is to divide an utterance into an assertion and a background. On the other hand, Rooth (1985) developed a theory in which the meaning of focus is to introduce alternatives to the focused sentence into the derivation. Much of the debate between these theories of meaning has so far centered around how adequately the theory can compositionally account for the congruence between questions and focus in their answers, truth conditional focus association effects with operators like only, and, occasionally, word order. The difficulty for research into focus is that several very different types of theories have been demonstrated to be equivalently capable of accounting for these patterns. This dissertation, then, will attempt to address the question of what focus means from a slightly different angle. Its goal will be to narrow the realm of possible meanings for focus by experimentally testing for one possible property of focus: contrast. Specifically, this dissertation uses five experiments to test whether comprehenders need to compare a focused proposition to other propositions in order to interpret it. It investigates three things: 1) It investigates whether focus accesses a set of alternatives to an utterance. It will be looking for evidence that hearers are using alternatives to interpret a sentence with a focused word. 2) It investigates whether the members of this set are contrasted with the actual utterance. If hearers are using a set of alternatives to interpret focus, it could be the case that they access the set without forming any opinions about its members or the case that they consider all members except the actual proposition to be less ideal or even false. 3) It investigates whether this set of alternatives is accessed as part of the semantic derivation (ex: assertion or presupposition) or as a separate pragmatic process. Furthermore, it investigates whether the presence of a set of alternatives is a part of the truth conditions of a focused sentence (ex: an assertion of the sentence) or a part of the definedness conditions of a focused sentence (ex: a presupposition of the sentence). This dissertation finds that focus has two important properties: focus accesses a set of alternatives and at least this part of its meaning is semantically encoded as either a presupposition, an expressive meaning, or a context definedness condition. Additionally, members of the set of alternatives can be true and are semantic relations of the focused word. Even the English it-cleft is non-exhaustive. This recommends against purely pragmatic accounts of focus, and demonstrates that any theory of focus must include access to a set of alternatives.}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Focus}, keywords = {focus, alternatives, contrast, exhaustivity, psycholinguistics, semantics}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/narrowing-focus-experimental-studies-on/docview/1458633257/se-2?accountid=9783}, } @InCollection{Schaffer2013, author = {Jonathan Schaffer}, booktitle = {Contrastivism in Philosophy}, publisher = {Routledge}, title = {Causal Contextualisms}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Causal statements are commonly made in some context, against a background which includes the assumption of some causal field. A causal statement will be the answer to a causal question, and the question ‘What caused this explosion?’ can be expanded into ‘What made the difference between those times, or those cases, within a certain range, in which no such explosion occurred, and this case in which an explosion did occur?’ Both causes and e ects are seen as di erences within a field. (Mackie 1974, 34-35) Causal claims are context sensitive. For instance, if the engineer finds that the poor road conditions contributed to the accident, then it would be acceptable for her to say: 1. The poor road conditions caused the accident Yet if the detective wants to focus on the drunk driver, then it would seem acceptable for him to deny 1 and instead say: 2. The poor road conditions didn’t cause the accident, it was the drunk driver So much is commonplace. As Lewis notes: We sometimes single out one among all the causes of some event and call it ‘the’ cause, as if there were no others. Or we single out a few as the ‘causes’, calling the rest mere ‘causal factors’ or ‘causal conditions’. . . We may select the abnormal or extraordinary causes, or those under human control, or those we deem good or bad, or just those we want to talk about. (1986, 162) Yet, despite extensive studies of context sensitivity for other aspects of language such as knowledge ascriptions, there has been little discussion of the context sensitivity of causal claims. I will address three questions. In section 1, I will address the question of whether the context sensitivity of causal claims is partly semantic, or wholly pragmatic. I will argue-in a way familiar from arguments for epistemic contextualism-that the context sensitivity of causal claims is partly semantic since it does not fully fit the pragmatic mold. In section 2, I will consider the question of whether causal claims are sensitive to contrasts, defaults, and/or models. I will argue that treating causal claims as sensitive to contrasts (for both cause and e ect) does all the needed work. Finally in section 3, I will face the question-naturally arising from my answers to the first two questions-of how semantic sensitivity to contrasts might be implemented within an overall plausible semantic framework. This will turn out to be something of a puzzle. Accordingly, I must conclude that we do not yet have a clear understanding of context sensitivity as it arises for causal claims.}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, causal, contrasts, modals, modality, dynamics}, } @InCollection{Smith2013, author = {Dustin A. Smith and Henry Lieberman}, booktitle = {CONTEXT 2013: Modeling and Using Context}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Interpreting Vague and Ambiguous Referring Expressions by Dynamically Binding to Properties of the Context Set}, year = {2013}, pages = {15-30}, abstract = {Referring expressions with vague and ambiguous modifiers, such as ”a quick visit” and ”the big meeting”, are difficult for computers to interpret because their words’ meanings are in part defined by context, which changes throughout the course of an interpretation. In this paper, we present an approach to interpreting context-dependent referring expressions that uses dynamic binding. During the incremental interpretation of a referring expression, a word’s meaning can be defined in part by properties from the current candidate referents—its denotation up to the previous word for the tentative interpretation.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-40972-1_2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Smith2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Lexical Meaning, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {borderline case, belief state, lexical item, comparison class, choice point, dynamics, reference}, } @InProceedings{Karvovskaya2013, author = {Lena Karvovskaya}, title = {'Also' in Ishkashimi : additive particle and sentence connector}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The paper discusses the distribution and meaning of the additive particle -mes in Ishkashimi. -mes receives different semantic associations while staying in the same syntactic position. Thus, structurally combined with an object, it can semantically associate with the focused object or with the whole focused VP; similarly, combined with the subject it can semantically associate with the focused subject and with the whole focused sentence.}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning, Focus}, keywords = {Ishkashimi, focus, additive particle, bracketing paradox, non-English, cross-linguistic, also, dynamics, dynamic semantics}, url = {https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/6382/file/karv_75_97.pdf}, } @Article{Romoli2013, author = {Jacopo Romoli}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {A scalar implicature-based approach to neg-raising}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, number = {4}, pages = {291--353}, volume = {36}, abstract = {In this paper, I give an analysis of neg-raising inferences as scalar implicatures. The main motivation for this account as opposed to a presupposition-based approach like Gajewski (Linguist Philos 30(3):289–328, 2007) comes from the differences between presuppositions and neg-raising inferences. In response to this issue, Gajewski (2007) argues that neg-raising predicates are soft presuppositional triggers and adopts the account of how their presuppositions arise by Abusch (J Semantics 27(1):1–44, 2010). However, I argue that there is a difference between soft triggers and neg-raising predicates in their behavior in embeddings; a difference that is straightforwardly accounted for in the present approach. Furthermore, by adopting Abusch’s (2010) account of soft triggers, Gajewski (2007) inherits the assumptions of a pragmatic principle of disjunctive closure and of a non-standard interaction between semantics and pragmatics—assumptions that are not needed by the present proposal, which is just based on a regular theory of scalar implicatures. I also show that the arguments that Gajewski (2007) presents in favor of the presuppositional account can be explained also by the scalar implicatures-based approach proposed here. Finally, while the main point of the paper is a comparison with the presuppositional account, I sketch a preliminary comparison with more syntactic approaches to neg-raising.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-013-9136-2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Romoli2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {presuppositions, scalar implicatures, alternatives, dynamics, dynamic semantics, neg-raising, scalars, implicature}, publisher = {Springer}, } @InProceedings{Kurumada2013, author = {Kurumada, Chigusa}, booktitle = {UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society}, title = {Contextual inferences over speakers pragmatic intentions Preschoolers and comprehension of and contrastive prosody}, year = {2013}, abstract = {We investigate pre-schoolers’ ability in drawing pragmatic inferences based on prosodic information. Previous work has found that young children are generally oblivious to intonational meaning of utterances. In particular, the ability to comprehend contrastive prosody develops late during language acquisition (after the age of 6). In three experiments, we show that preschoolers can engage in prosody-based pragmatic inferences if the context provides supports for them. Furthermore, we find that preschoolers’ interpretation of prosody involves complex counter-factual reasoning (‘what the speaker would have said if she had intended another meaning’). The picture emerging from our studies contrasts with previous work: Through rich contextual inferences, four-year olds are able to bootstrap their interpretation of prosodic information, and achieve adult like performance in intonation interpretation.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Kurumada2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {Prosody, language acquisition, contrastive accent, Principle of Contrast, rational inference, children, intonation, learning}, url = {https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0g77z5t8}, } @Article{10.2307/24671860, author = {Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo}, journal = {Language}, title = {(Non)Integrated Evaluative Adverbs in Questions: A Cross-Romance Study}, year = {2013}, issn = {00978507, 15350665}, number = {2}, pages = {195--230}, volume = {89}, abstract = {The goal of this article is to analyze the semantic contribution of evaluative adverbs (EAs) such as unfortunately in several languages of the Romance family, namely French, Catalan, and Spanish. Following Bonami and Godard (2008), we propose to analyze EAs as items that convey projective meaning in order to explain their peculiar semantic behavior (they cannot be directly denied, do not change the truth conditions of the proposition they evaluate, and are not factive) and their unacceptability in negative assertions. Unlike what has been claimed for many other languages, French allows EAs in questions, and we show that Catalan and Spanish do too, as long as some conditions are met. We propose an account that derives their interpretation in both assertions and questions: integrated French EAs take the proposition to their right, and if they appear in a WH-question, their interpretation is similar to that of unconditionals. In contrast, nonintegrated EAs in Catalan and Spanish have scope over a set of propositions, and are acceptable in questions only if the speaker is biased toward one of the propositions in the set denoted by the question. The acceptability of EAs in such questions, rejected by previous literature, is confirmed by an experimental study.}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning, Projection, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, non-English, adverbs, French, Catalan, Spanish, projection, experimental}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/24671860}, } @InProceedings{Yasavul2013a, author = {Murat Yasavul}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 23}, title = {Two Kinds of focus constructions in K'iche'}, year = {2013}, pages = {611-632}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v23i0.3161}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {focus, K'iche', clefts, exhaustivity, dynamic semantics, dynamics}, } @Article{Katzir2013, author = {Roni Katzir and Raj Singh}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {A note on presupposition accommodation}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, volume = {6}, abstract = {The proviso problem arises for theories of presupposition whose projection component fails to derive certain presuppositions that are contributed by their constituent sentences. Mismatch-based satisfaction theories respond to the difficulty by tying the emergence of the proviso problem to presupposition accommodation. Consequently, when the context entails the projected presupposition and no accommodation is required, mismatch-based satisfaction theories predict that the relevant inferences will be absent. Evidence for this predicted connection between the proviso problem and the need for accommodation is provided by Heim (1992, 2006). Against this conclusion, Geurts (1996) has provided evidence that the proviso problem arises even when the context does entail the sentence's projected presupposition. We will argue that there are confounds in both arguments. The goal of our note is to identify the relevant confounds and to characterize the data that can overcome them. Our attempts to construct examples that control for the confounds and obtain the crucial judgments will prove unsuccessful, leaving the debate unsettled and raising new challenges to constructing the right kinds of data.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.6.5}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Katzir2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Accomodation, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {presupposition; accommodation; proviso problem; mismatch; ignorance inferences; question under discussion}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @Article{Jayez2013, author = {Jacques Jayez and Gr{\'{e}}goire Winterstein}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Additivity and probability}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, pages = {85--102}, volume = {132}, abstract = {In this work, we give a new semantics to the notion of additivity as embodied by several discourse markers and particles in French: et, de plus and d’ailleurs. The common property of these different elements is the notion of independence of their arguments. We show that existing accounts of additive particles fail to do full justice to this notion of independence, and we propose a new semantics for and that captures this notion in a Bayesian fashion. We then evaluate the applicability of this analysis to de plus and d’ailleurs and show that, unlike et, these elements are strongly argumentative: they make an explicit reference to an external issue that is disputed in the current conversation.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.11.004}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Jayez2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {additives, French, discourse particles, non-English, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Benz2013a, author = {Anton Benz and Katja Jasinskaja and Fabienne Salfner}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Implicature and discourse structure: An introduction}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, pages = {1--12}, volume = {132}, abstract = {This special issue brings together two major approaches to implicated, non-literal meaning of an utterance: the Gricean theory of conversational implicature and theories of discourse macro-structure. The main questions addressed by the authors of contributed papers are whether and how implicatures of individual utterances depend on discourse context and vice versa. The purpose of this introduction is to provide the reader with necessary background on Gricean implicature, discourse structure, and the interaction between them.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2013.02.002}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Benz2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {Implicature, Context, Discourse structure, Relevance, Coherence, rhetorical relations}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Jasinskaja2013, author = {Katja Jasinskaja}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Corrective elaboration}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, pages = {51--66}, volume = {132}, abstract = {This paper studies the similarities between corrections expressed by plain juxtaposition of utterances (John didn’t praise Bill. He praised Mary.) and elaborations (John praised a student. He praised Mary.) and develops a unified pragmatic account of how these discourse relations are inferred. The inference results from a combination of the exhaustivity implicatures of the individual utterances on the assumption that the discourse topic, which determines the quantification domain of exhaustivity, remains constant.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.10.010}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Jasinskaja2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {Correction, Elaboration, Exhaustivity, Negation, Question, Discourse, discourse topic, discourse relations, topic, coherence, coherence relations}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Cummins2013a, author = {Chris Cummins}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Modelling implicatures from modified numerals}, year = {2013}, month = {aug}, pages = {103--114}, volume = {132}, abstract = {It has been argued that comparative and superlative quantifiers (such as “more than” and “at least”) fail to yield scalar implicatures in unembedded declarative contexts (Krifka, 1999, Fox and Hackl, 2006). However, recent experimental work has shown that such implicatures are available, and that these are constrained by considerations of granularity or numeral salience (Cummins et al., 2012). That is, “more than n” triggers a pragmatic upper-bound, the value of which depends on the numeral n. However, Cummins et al. further show that this effect is weakened by prior mention of the numeral n, a finding that they interpret in terms of priming effects. In this paper I discuss a recent theoretical proposal that accommodates these findings by arguing for a model of numerical quantifier usage based on multiple constraint satisfaction. This approach provides a means of accounting for the influence of contextual factors on the speaker's choice of utterance. It also makes predictions as to how a rational hearer should use context in their interpretation of utterances. Here I explore how this can yield the diversity of interpretations exhibited by participants in Cummins et al. (2012). More generally I consider how such an account predicts that a hearer will infer context on the basis of an utterance, and examine how this offers a potential explanation for the previously observed failure of implicature in the domain of modified numerals. I discuss the implications of this for experimental semantic and pragmatic methodologies, with particular reference to the numeral domain.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2012.09.006}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Cummins2013a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {scalar implicature, numerals, quantifier, priming, context, scalars, salience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg2013, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Raquel Fernandez and David Schlangen}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech, DiSS 2013}, title = {Self-addressed questions in disfluencies}, year = {2013}, abstract = {The paper considers self-addressed queries – queries speakers address to themselves in the aftermath of a filled pause. We study their distribution in the BNC and show that such queries show signs of sensitivity to the syntactic/semantic type of the sub-utterance they follow. We offer a formal model that explains the coherence of such queries.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ginzburg2013.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, KoS, ellipsis, disfluency}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281385788_Self-addressed_questions_in_disfluencies}, } @InProceedings{Lupkowski2013, author = {Pawel Lupkowski and Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Proceedings of IWCS 2013}, title = {A Corpus-based Taxonomy of Question Responses}, year = {2013}, abstract = {In this paper we consider the issue of answering a query with a query. Although these are common, with the exception of Clarification Requests, they have not been studied empirically. After briefly reviewing different theoretical approaches on this subject, we present a corpus study of query responses in the British National Corpus and develop a taxonomy for query responses. We sketch a formal analysis of the response categories in the framework of KoS.}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {KoS, clarification requests, corpus, experimental, dependence questions, form questions, motivation questions, indirect answers}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/W13-0209.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg2013a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Sara Moradlou}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SemDial 2013 (DialDam)}, title = {The Earliest Utterances in Dialogue: Towards a Formal Theory of Parent/Child Talk in Interaction}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Early, initial utterances by children have received relatively little attention from researchers on language acquisition and almost no attempts to describe them using a formal grammar. In this paper we develop a taxonomy for such utterances, inspired by a study of the Providence corpus from CHILDES and driven by the need to describe how the contents of early child utterances arise from an interaction of form and dialogical context. The results of our corpus study demonstrate that even at this early stage quite intricate semantic mechanisms are in play, including non-referential meaning, akin to non–specific readings of quantifiers. We sketch a formal framework for describing the dialogue context and grammar that underlies such utterances. We consider very briefly and informally how some such utterances emerge from parent/child interaction.}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {corpus, experimental, learning, children, KoS}, url = {http://www.illc.uva.nl/semdial/dialdam/papers/GinzburgMoradlou_dialdam.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg2009, author = {Ginzburg, Jonathan}, booktitle = {Fall 2009 Workshop in Philosophy and Linguistics, University of Michigan}, title = {Questions and internalizing relevance}, year = {2009}, organization = {Citeseer}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {KoS, clarification requests, relevance, interrogatives, corpus, experimental}, url = {http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~rthomaso/lpw09/ginzburg.pdf}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2010, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Raquel Fern\'{a}ndez}, booktitle = {Handbook of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Computational Models of Dialogue}, year = {2010}, comment = {A description of the main issues surrounding dialogue processing, a survey of existing computational systems, and a sketch of solutions within KoS.}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {KoS, computational linguistics, clarification requests, QUD}, url = {https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/r.fernandezrovira/papers/2010/gf09.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg2001, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Robin Cooper}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 39th meeting of the Assocation for Computational Linguistics}, title = {Resolving Ellipsis in Clarification}, year = {2001}, abstract = {We offer a computational analysis of the resolution of ellipsis in certain cases of dialogue clarification. We show that this goes beyond standard techniques used in anaphora and ellipsis resolution and requires operations on highly structured, linguistically heterogeneous representations. We characterize these operations and the representations on which they operate. We offer an analysis couched in a version of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar combined with a theory of information states (IS) in dialogue. We sketch an algorithm for the process of utterance integration in ISs which leads to grounding or clarification.}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {computational linguistics, ellipsis, anaphora, information states, KoS}, url = {https://sites.google.com/site/jonathanginzburgswebsite/publications/acl2001.pdf?attredirects=0}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2001a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Computing Meaning, Vol 2}, publisher = {Kluwer}, title = {Fragmenting Meaning: Clarification Ellipsis and Nominal Anaphora}, year = {2001}, abstract = {In this paper, I propose to relate and effect progress in performing two tasks: first, I show how the process of utterance clarification licenses a form of ellipsis which requires meanings to be stored in the context in a highly structured fashion and to encode presuppositions concerning the structure of previously occurring utterances. With this as some motivation for a particular form of representation of the updates effected by utterances, I will turn to nominal anaphora and suggest that this can offer a basis for a view of anaphora resolution which circumvents a number of significant puzzles which plague formal semantic approaches originally designed to process text/monologue.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {ellipsis, KoS, dialogue understanding, situation semantics, anaphora, clarification ellipsis}, url = {https://sites.google.com/site/jonathanginzburgswebsite/publications/til-iwcs3-fin.pdf?attredirects=0}, } @InProceedings{Purver2003, author = {Matthew Purver and Patrick Healey and James King and Jonathan Ginzburg and Greg Mills}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 4th SIGdial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue}, title = {Answering Clarification Questions}, year = {2003}, pages = {23-33}, abstract = {This paper describes the results of corpus and experimental investigation into the factors that affect the way clarification questions in dialogue are interpreted, and the way they are responded to. We present some results from an investigation using the BNC which show some general correlations between clarification request type, likelihood of answering, answer type and distance between question and answer. We then describe a new experimental technique for integrating manipulations into text-based synchronous dialogue, and give more specific results concerning the effect of word category and level of grounding on interpretation and response type.}, comment = {Describes what later became the Dialogue Experimental Tool (DiET)}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Clarification Requests}, keywords = {experimental, corpus, clarification requests, dialogue manipulation}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/W03-2103.pdf}, } @InCollection{, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Current and New Directions in Discourse and Dialogue}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Disentangling Public from Non-Public Meaning}, year = {2003}, editor = {Jan C.J. van Kuppevelt and R.W. Smith}, pages = {183-211}, abstract = {Analyses of interaction need to characterize not solely’ success conditions’, a traditional and important means of analyzing action, but also ‘clarification potential’, the range of potential clarification requests (CRs) available in the aftermath of a conversational move. After briefly considering the very productive and effective ways of producing CRs relating to the grammatically governed content of an utterance, I turn to CRs that pertain to a conversational participant’s non-public intentions, the commonest being the bare Why?, dubbed here Whymeta. I demonstrate that Whymeta shows distinct behaviour from CRs that pertain to grammatically governed content. The most prominent feature perhaps being that, whereas the latter are almost invariably adjacent to the utterances whose clarification they seek, non-adjacency is quite natural for Whymeta. It can occur at a stage where a second part adjacency pair response has been provided to the utterance it pertains to, suggesting that the information Whymeta is seeking is a ‘useful extra’, not an essential ingredient required for providing an appropriate response. Rather than treat Whymeta as clarifying a contextually instantiable goals/plan parameter, I propose that it be treated as an instance of a metadiscursive utterance like I don’t want to talk about this.}, comment = {Analyzes clarification requests that pertain to a conversational participant's non-public intentions, the commonest being the bare Why? Demonstrates that the information Why? is seeking is a `useful extra', not an essential ingredient required for providing an appropriate response.}, doi = {10.1007/978-94-010-0019-2_9}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {dialogue, clarification request, plan recognition, grounding, metacommunication, coherence}, } @Article{Ginzburg2004, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Robin Cooper}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Clarification, Ellipsis, and the Nature of Contextual Updates}, year = {2004}, number = {3}, pages = {297-366}, volume = {27}, abstract = {The paper investigates an elliptical construction, Clarification Ellipsis, that occurs in dialogue. We suggest that this provides data that demonstrates that updates resulting from utterances cannot be defined in purely semantic terms, contrary to the prevailing assumptions of existing approaches to dynamic semantics. We offer a computationally oriented analysis of the resolution of ellipsis in certain cases of dialogue clarification. We show that this goes beyond standard techniques used in anaphora and ellipsis resolution and requires operations on highly structured, linguistically heterogeneous representations. We characterize these operations and the representations on which they operate. We offer an analysis couched in a version of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar combined with a theory of information states (IS) in dialogue. We sketch an algorithm for the process of utterance integration in IS which leads to grounding or clarification. The account proposed here has direct applications to the theory of attitude reports, an issue which is explored briefly in the concluding remarks of the paper.}, comment = {A detailed analysis of Clarification Ellipsis and its implications for dynamic semantics.}, doi = {10.1023/B:LING.0000023369.19306.90}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution, Clarification Requests}, keywords = {clarification requests, ellipsis, update semantics, dynamic semantics, dynamics, information states, clarification ellipsis, computational linguistics, grounding}, } @Article{Purver2004, author = {Matthew Purver and Jonathan Ginzburg}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Clarifying Noun Phrase Semantics}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Reprise questions are a common dialogue device allowing a conversational participant to request clarification of the meaning intended by a speaker when uttering a word or phrase. As such they can act as semantic probes, providing us with information about what meaning can be associated with word and phrase types and thus helping to sharpen the principle of compositionality. This paper discusses the evidence provided by reprise questions concerning the meaning of nouns, noun phrases and determiners. Our central claim is that reprise questions strongly suggest that quantified noun phrases denote (situationdependent) individuals – or sets of individuals – rather than sets of sets, or properties of properties. We outline a resulting analysis within the HPSG framework, and discuss its extension to such phenomena as quantifier scope, anaphora and monotone decreasing quantifiers.}, comment = {Extends the account of Clarification Ellipsis to NPs in general, including generalized quantifiers. The paper offers a new perspective on long standing semantic debates: NPs are taken as functional sets rather than generalised quantifiers, with definites and indefinites distinguished by differences in contextual parameter projection.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/21.3.283}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {reprise questions, clarification ellipsis, clarification requests, definites}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg1996a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory}, publisher = {Blackwell}, title = {Interrogatives: Questions, facts, and dialogue}, year = {1996}, abstract = {This paper focuses on the semantics of interrogative sentences and has three main parts. The first critically reviews some basic issues drawing on the recent literature. In the second, I present and motivate the outlines of a theory of questions and semantics for interrogatives. Both sections are based on work presented in much fuller detail in Ginzburg 1994a. The third section offers a dialogue setting for the theory developed in the second part.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {semantics, questions, interrogatives, meaning, dialogue}, } @Article{Ginzburg2005, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, journal = {Journal of Logic and Computation}, title = {Abstraction and Ontology: questions as propositional abstracts in type theory with records}, year = {2005}, number = {2}, pages = {113-130}, volume = {15}, abstract = {The paper considers how to scale up dialogue protocols to multilogue, settings with multiple conversationalists. We extract two benchmarks to evaluate scaled up protocols based on the long distance resolution possibilities of nonsentential utterances in dialogue and multilogue in the British National Corpus. In light of these benchmarks, we then consider three possible transformations to dialogue protocols, inspired by Goffman’s audience taxonomy and formulated within an issue-based approach to dialogue management. We show that one such transformation yields protocols for querying and assertion that fulfill these benchmarks. We indicate how these protocols can be implemented in terms of conversational update rules.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {questions, interrogatives, semantics, propositional abstracts, type theory, semantics of interrogatives, philosophical, update, dynamic semantics}, url = {https://sites.google.com/site/jonathanginzburgswebsite/publications/jg-jolc05.pdf?attredirects=0}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2006, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Zoran Macura}, booktitle = {The Emergence of Communication and Language}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Lexical Acquisition with and without Metacommunication}, year = {2006}, editor = {Lyon, Caroline and Nehaniv, Chrystopher L., and Cangelosi, Angelo}, pages = {287-301}, abstract = {A central concern of work on the evolution of language has been to offer an account for the emergence of syntactically complex structure, which underwrites a compositional semantics. In this paper we consider the emergence of one class of utterances which illustrate that semantic expressiveness is not correlated with syntactic complexity, namely metacommunicative interaction (MCI) utterances. These are utterance acts in which conversationalists acknowledge understanding or request clarification. We offer a simple characterisation of the incremental change required for MCI to emerge from an MCI-less linguistic interaction system. This theoretical setting underpins and motivates the development of an ALife environment in which the lexicon dynamics of populations that possess and lack MCI capabilities are compared. We ran a series of experiments whose initial state involved agents possessing distinct lexicons and whose end state was one in which all agents associated meanings with each word in a lexicon. The main effect demonstrated, one we dub the Babel effect, is that the convergence rate of a population that relies exclusively on introspection is intrinsically bounded and, moreover, this bound decreases with an increasing population. This bound seems to disappear once agents are endowed with clarification requests.}, doi = {10.1007/978-1-84628-779-4_15}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {semantics, evolution, metacommunication, clarification requests, experimental}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg2007, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Raquel Fern\'{a}ndez and David Schlangen}, booktitle = {Decalog 2007: Proceedings of the 11th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue}, title = {Unifying Self- and Other-Repair}, year = {2007}, editor = {Ron Artstein and Laure Vieu}, abstract = {We discuss similarities between midutterance self-correction, which is often seen as a phenomenon that lies outside the scope of theories of dialogue meaning, and other discourse phenomena, and argue that an approach that captures these similarities is desirable. We then provide a sketch of such an approach, using Ginzburg’s KoS formalism, and discuss the implications of including ‘sub-utterance-unit’ phenomena in discourse theories.}, comment = {Extends the analysis of Clarification interaction to self-correction.}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {KoS, correction, clarification requests}, url = {https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/r.fernandezrovira/papers/2007/ginzburg_etal_semdial07.pdf}, } @InCollection{Macura2008, author = {Zoran Macura and Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Language in Flux: Dialogue Coordination, Language Variation, Change and Evolution}, publisher = {College Publications}, title = {Dynamics and Adaptiveness of Metacommunicative Interaction in a Foraging Environment}, year = {2008}, address = {London}, editor = {Ruth Kempson and Robin Cooper}, abstract = {In this paper we will describe an artificial life model that is used to provide an evolutionary grounding for metacommunicative interaction (MCI)— utterance acts in which conversationalists acknowledge understanding or request clarification. Specifically, we ran artificial life experiments on populations of foraging agents who are able to communicate about entities in a simulated environment, where the main difference between the populations is in their MCI capability. Populations which possess MCI capabilities were quantitatively compared with those that lack them with respect to their lexicon dynamics and adaptability in diverse environments. These experiments reveal some clear differences between MCI-realised populations— that learn words using MCI—and MCI-non-realised population—that learn words solely by introspection, where the main finding using this model is that in an increasingly complex language, MCI has overwhelming adaptive power and importance. These results demonstrate in a very clear way how adaptive MCI can be in primordial settings of language use.}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {semantics, evolution, metacommunication, clarification requests, experimental}, } @Article{Ginzburg2009a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Dimitra Kolliakou}, journal = {Journal of Linguistics}, title = {Answers without questions: The emergence of fragments in child language}, year = {2009}, number = {3}, pages = {641-673}, volume = {45}, abstract = {Non-sentential utterances (NSUs), utterances that lack an overt verbal (more generally predicative) constituent, are common in adult speech. This paper presents the results of a corpus study of the emergence of certain classes of NSUs in child language, based primarily on data from the Manchester Corpus from CHILDES. Our principal finding is the late short query effect: the main classes of non-sentential queries (NSQs) are acquired much later than non-sentential answers (NSAs). At a stage when the child has productive use of sentential queries, and has mastered elliptical declaratives and the polar lexemes 'yes' and 'no', non-sentential questions are virtually absent. This happens despite the fact that such questions are common in the speech of the child's caregivers and that the contexts are ones which should facilitate the production of such NSUs. We argue that these results are intrinsically problematic for analyses of NSUs in terms of a single, generalized mechanism of phonological reduction, as standard in generative grammar. We show how to model this effect within an approach of dialogue-oriented constructionism, wherein NSUs are grammatical words or constructions whose main predicate is a contextual parameter resolved in a manner akin to indexical terms, the relevant aspect of context being the discourse topic. We sketch an explanation for the order of acquisition of NSUs, based on a notion which combines accessibility of contextual parameters and complexity of content construction.}, doi = {10.1017/S0022226709990053}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {Linguistics; Child development; Language acquisition; Grammar; Questions; Caregivers; Phonological analysis; Order of acquisition; syntactic structures; Question answer sequences; Corpus linguistics; Deixis; Sentences; Lexicon; Child language; Predicate; Generative grammar; Reduction (Phonological or Phonetic), experimental, corpus, elliptical declaratives, declaratives}, } @InCollection{Ginzburg2010a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Handbook of Logic and Language, 2nd Edition}, publisher = {Elsevier}, title = {Questions: Logic and Interaction}, year = {2010}, editor = {Johan van Benthem and Alice ter Meulen}, abstract = {This update to Jeroen Groenendijk and Martin Stokhof’s 1997 article focuses on the two main areas of logico-linguistic research on questions recently: first, the logic and ontology of questions—what are questions and how do they relate to other semantic entities? Second, questions in interaction— issues such as how questions affect context, why questions get asked, what range of responses—not just answers—do questions give rise to. The boundaries between these two areas is somewhat artificial and, therefore, not easy to demarcate, particularly in an era where meanings are often explicated in terms of context change. A brief indication of other research in the area is provided before the concluding remarks.}, groups = {Clarification Requests, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {questions, KoS, clarification requests, utility, decision theory, logic, ontology, philosophical}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259810798_Questions_logic_and_interaction}, } @InProceedings{Bajaj2014, author = {Vandana Bajaj and Viviane Deprez and Julien Musolino}, booktitle = {Proceedings from the 48th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society}, title = {The Question Under Discussion and its Role in Scopal Ambiguity Resolution}, year = {2014}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bajaj2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {learning, children, ambiguity, scope, quantifier, experimental, only}, url = {https://www.academia.edu/download/33016891/CLS48_BajajDeprezMusolino.pdf}, } @Article{Coppock2014, author = {Coppock, Elizabeth and Beaver, David I.}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {{Principles of the Exclusive Muddle}}, year = {2014}, issn = {0167-5133}, month = {08}, number = {3}, pages = {371-432}, volume = {31}, abstract = {{This paper provides a lexical entry schema for exclusives covering the adverbs only, just, exclusively, merely, purely, solely, simply, and the adjectives only, sole, pure, exclusive and alone. We argue, on the basis of inter-paraphrasability relations among these exclusives and entailments involving at least and at most, that all of these items make an at-issue contribution of an upper bound on the viable answers to the current question under discussion (expressible with at most), and signal that a lower bound on those answers (expressible with at least) is taken for granted. The lexical entry schema accommodates two main points of variation, which makes it possible to capture the differences in meaning among these terms: (i) semantic type (restricted to the class of modifiers), and (ii) constraints on the current question under discussion or the strength ranking over its alternative possible answers. We propose 22 different specific instantiations of the schema for exclusives in English.}}, doi = {10.1093/jos/fft007}, eprint = {https://academic.oup.com/jos/article-pdf/31/3/371/9667577/fft007.pdf}, groups = {Domain Restriction (with only), Lexical Meaning, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {lexical items, only, domain restriction, exclusives, at-issueness, at issue}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/fft007}, } @InProceedings{Ziai2014, author = {Ramon Ziai ; Detmar Meurers}, booktitle = {LAW VIII - The 8th Linguistic Annotation Workshop}, title = {Focus Annotation in Reading Comprehension Data}, year = {2014}, pages = {159-168}, abstract = {When characterizing the information structure of sentences, the so-called focus identifies the part of a sentence addressing the current question under discussion in the discourse. While this notion is precisely defined in formal semantics and potentially very useful in theoretical and practical terms, it has turned out to be difficult to reliably annotate focus in corpus data. We present a new focus annotation effort designed to overcome this problem. On the one hand, it is based on a task-based corpus providing more explicit context. The annotation study is based on the CREG corpus (Ott et al., 2012), which consists of answers to explicitly given reading comprehension questions. On the other hand, we operationalize focus annotation as an incremental process including several substeps which provide guidance, such as explicit answer typing. We evaluate the focus annotation both intrinsically by calculating agreement between annotators and extrinsically by showing that the focus information substantially improves the automatic meaning assessment of answers in the CoMiC system (Meurers et al., 2011).}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ziai2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {focus annotation, reading comprehension data, new focus annotation effort, information structure, automatic meaning assessment, corpus data, comprehension question, formal semantics, so-called focus identifies, explicit answer, incremental process, several substeps, focus information, task-based corpus, corpus, practical term, annotation study, current question, creg corpus, annotate focus, explicit context, comic system}, url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.675.715}, } @Article{RojasEsponda2014, author = {Tania Rojas-Esponda}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {A discourse model for überhaupt}, year = {2014}, month = {mar}, volume = {7}, abstract = {The German particle "überhaupt" exhibits a variety of uses with seemingly unrelated meanings. Correspondingly, only partial and non-unified theoretical accounts have been proposed. I show how the various intuitions and ostensibly different meanings can be derived from a unified characterization of "überhaupt" as a move to a higher-level question under discussion. The account explains how "überhaupt" could correspond to a single word in German, and it provides additional support for questions under discussion as an important aspect of contexts.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.7.1}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/RojasEsponada2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {uberhaupt, discourse particle, question under discussion, discourse strategy, focus, German, non-English, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @InProceedings{Title2014, author = {Judith Degen and Noah Goodman}, booktitle = {UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society}, title = {Lost your marbles The and puzzle of dependent measures in experimental pragmatics}, year = {2014}, abstract = {A rarely discussed but important issue in research on pragmatic inference is the choice of dependent measure for estimating the robustness of pragmatic inferences and their sensitivity to contextual manipulations. Here we present the results from three studies exploring the effect of contextual manipulations on scalar implicature. In all three studies we manipulate the salient question under discussion and the perceptual availability of relevant set sizes. The studies differ only in the dependent measure used: Exp. 1 uses truth judgements, Exp. 2 uses word probability ratings, and Exp. 3 uses a direct measure of sentence interpretation. We argue that the first two are effectively measures of production, and find they are sensitive to our contextual manipulations. In contrast the interpretation measure shows no effect of context. We argue that this methodologically troubling finding can be understood and predicted by using the framework of probabilistic pragmatics.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Degen2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Implicature}, keywords = {pragmatics, psycholinguistics, scalar implicature, scalars, QUD, methodology, experimental pragmatics, experimental}, url = {https://escholarship.org/uc/item/97t2w1f3}, } @InProceedings{Westera2014, author = {Matthijs Westera and Adrian Brasoveanu}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 24}, title = {Ignorance in context The interaction of and modified numerals and QUDs}, year = {2014}, abstract = {We argue for a purely pragmatic account of the ignorance inferences associated with superlative but not comparative modifiers (at least vs. more than). Ignorance inferences for both modifiers are triggered when the question under discussion (QUD) requires an exact answer, but when these modifiers are used out of the blue the QUD is implicitly reconstructed based on the way these modifiers are typically used, and on the fact that at least n, but not more than n, mentions and does not exclude the lower bound exactly n. The paper presents new experimental evidence for the context-sensitivity of ignorance inferences, and also for the hypothesis that the higher processing cost reported in the literature for superlative modifiers is context-dependent in the exact same way.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v24i0.2436}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Westera2014a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {superlative vs. comparative modifiers, ignorance inferences, questions under discussion, experimental semantics and pragmatics, experimental, superlatives}, } @Article{BalcerakJackson2014, author = {Brendan {Balcerak Jackson}}, journal = {Erkenntnis}, title = {Verbal Disputes and Substantiveness}, year = {2014}, month = {feb}, number = {S1}, pages = {31--54}, volume = {79}, abstract = {One way to challenge the substantiveness of a particular philosophical issue is to argue that those who debate the issue are engaged in a merely verbal dispute. For example, it has been maintained that the apparent disagreement over the mind/brain identity thesis is a merely verbal dispute, and thus that there is no substantive question of whether or not mental properties are identical to neurological properties. The goal of this paper is to help clarify the relationship between mere verbalness and substantiveness. I first argue that we should see mere verbalness as a certain kind of discourse defect that arises when the parties differ as to what each takes to be the immediate question under discussion. I then argue that mere verbalness, so understood, does not imply that the question either party is attempting to address is a non-substantive one. Even if it turns out that the parties to the mind/brain dispute are addressing subtly different questions, these might both be substantive questions to which their respective metaphysical views provide substantive answers. One reason it is tempting to reach deflationary conclusions from the charge of mere verbalness is that we fail to distinguish it from the claim that a sentence under dispute is, in a certain sense, indisputable. Another reason is that we fail to distinguish mere verbalness from a certain sort of indeterminacy. While indisputability and indeterminacy plausibly capture forms of nonsubstantiveness, I argue that mere verbalness is insufficient to establish either indisputability or indeterminacy.}, doi = {10.1007/s10670-013-9444-5}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/BalcerakJohnson2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, identity, identity theory, literal meaning, substantive questions, metaphysics, metaphysical question, linguistic framework}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Toosarvandani2014, author = {Maziar Toosarvandani}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Contrast and the structure of discourse}, year = {2014}, month = {apr}, volume = {7}, abstract = {The semantics of the coordinator but does not fit neatly into the traditional distinction between entailments and conversational implicatures. In its counterexpectational use, but can convey an implication relating its two conjuncts, which Grice (1975) classifies as a conventional implicature because its behavior diverges from both entailments and conversational implicatures. I propose that this meaning component arises from but’s interaction with the discourse context – specifically, how it makes conventional reference to the question under discussion (QUD) in the sense of Roberts (1996/2012, 2004). This derives the variable interpretation of the implication in the counterexpectational use, as well as its absence in the corrective and semantic opposition uses of but. This account provides a new perspective on the relationship between the different uses of but as a type of modal polysemy (Kratzer 1981, 1991), and it suggests that other expressions that have been argued to have conventional implicatures might also make conventional reference to the QUD.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.7.4}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Toosarvandani2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Lexical Meaning, Implicature}, keywords = {but, implicature, conjunction, entailment}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @InCollection{Zimmermann2014, author = {Malte Zimmermann}, booktitle = {Approaches to Meaning: Composition, Values, and Interpretation}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Was glaubt EDE, wer der Mörder ist? On D-trees, Embedded Foci, and Indirect Scope Marking}, year = {2014}, pages = {306-340}, abstract = {Malte Zimmermann takes a closer look at embedded foci elaborating on the theory of question under discussion and draws a connection to wh-scope-marking constructions. The idea of "Was glaubt EDE, wer der M\"{o}rder ist? on D-trees, Embedded Foci, and Indirect Scope Marking" is that the wh-scope-marking construction grammaticalizes part of a pattern of two questions where one question is a subquestion of the other. Analogously, embedded foci are licensed if there is a question denotation in the discourse that is related to a subquestion asking for the embedded focus. The paper shows that the structure of the discourse has an impact on the nesting of new information.}, doi = {10.1163/9789004279377_014}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {focus, scope, embedded foci, non-English, cross-linguistic}, } @PhdThesis{Recht2015, author = {Tom Recht}, school = {University of California, Berkeley}, title = {Verb-Initial Clauses in Ancient Greek Prose: A Discourse-Pragmatic Study}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Word order in Ancient Greek, a ‘free word order’ or discourse-configurational language, depends largely on pragmatic and information-structural factors, but the precise nature of these factors is still a matter of some controversy (Dik 1995, Matić 2003). In this dissertation, I examine the set of constructions in which a verb appears in first position in its clause, and consider the conditions under which such constructions appear and the roles they play in structuring Greek discourse. I distinguish between topical and focal initial verbs, and show that the former class (which are the main concern of the study) in fact occur as part of larger units definable in terms of both prosody and pragmatics. The function of such units, I argue, is to mark specific kinds of transitions between the implicit questions that structure discourse (Questions Under Discussion [QUDs], Roberts 1996). I describe and categorize the types of QUD transitions marked by verb-initial units in a corpus of five fifth-and fourth-century Greek prose authors, and relate these to transitions marked by other classes of constructions, including a newly identified contrastive-topic construction. My account improves on preceding models by unifying a number of phenomena previously treated as disparate. It also represents the first large-scale application of the QUD model to real discourse.}, groups = {Focus, Accomodation, Cross-Linguistic, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {accommodation, focus, presuppositon, topics, verb placement, contrastive topic, non-English, cross-linguistic, Greek}, url = {https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Recht_berkeley_0028E_15275.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Abrusan2014, author = {M\'{a}rta Abrus\'{a}n}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {On the focus-sensitive presupposition triggers too, again, also, even Márta ABRUSÁN — CNRS, IRIT Toulouse}, year = {2014}, pages = {6-23}, volume = {18}, abstract = {This paper proposes to derive the presupposition of additive particles too, as well, also and the temporal particle again. It argues that the presuppositions of these particles can be predicted by the same presupposition triggering mechanism that was proposed for so-called soft triggers in Abrus\'{a}n (2011). It is shown that presupposition suspension facts, characteristic of soft triggers, do not arise with additive particles because of their anaphoric and focus-sensitive nature. Finally, the paper proposes that the soft-hard presupposition distinction can be explained not in terms of differences in the nature of the presupposition but rather as a consequence of the anaphoric/focus-sensitive nature of various triggers.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Abrusan2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Projection and Presupposition, Anaphora Resolution, Projection}, keywords = {presuppositions, anaphora, focus, additive particles, additives, lexical items, triggers}, } @PhdThesis{Tian2014, author = {Ye Tian}, school = {UCL}, title = {Negation Processing: A Dynamic Pragmatic Account}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This thesis investigates the processing of negative assertions. Psycholinguistic research shows that out-of-context negative sentences are more difficult to process than positive sentences. In the early stages of negation processing, the positive counterpart is often represented. Pragmatic research shows that negative sentences have richer pragmatic functions than positive sentences. These findings require a theory of negative sentence processing that can account for both the processing effects and pragmatic functions. Among current theories, a popular approach – rejection approach – attributes the processing effects to the processing of the linguistically coded meaning of negative sentences. They propose that negative sentences are represented as the rejection of their positive counterparts. They state that the representation of the positive counterpart is a mandatory first step of negation processing, and explain the processing cost in terms of the extra step of embedding. Arguing against current theories (especially rejection accounts), I propose the dynamic pragmatic account. In general, sentence processing – with or without explicit context- should not only involve processing the linguistically coded content, but also involve inferring pragmatically retrieved content such as how the sentence relates to the broader discourse. Specifically, when we interpret an assertion, we not only process the asserted meaning, but also the Question Under Discussion (QUD) addressed by this assertion, which can be retrieved and accommodated using linguistic and non-linguistic cues. Negation is a cue for retrieving the prominent QUD. Without contextual support or further cues, the most prominent QUD for a negative sentence ¬p is the positive question whether p. The projection of this positive QUD is due to the most frequent uses of negation, and is sensitive to other factors (e.g. frequency of the predicate and context) and other QUD cues (e.g. prosodic focus and cleft construction). I propose that the accommodation of a positive QUD contributes to the processing cost of negation, explains why the positive counterparts are often represented, and accounts for the pragmatic effects of negative sentences. The dynamic pragmatic account and competing theories are tested in three series of experiments in Chapters 3-5. In Chapter 3, I show that the representation of the positive counterpart is not a mandatory first step for negation processing. Rather it is likely due to QUD accommodation. When a negative sentence projects a negative prominent QUD (such as a cleft negative sentence “It is John who hasn’t ironed his shirt”), the positive counterpart is no longer represented. In Chapter 4, I investigate the verification of negative sentences against pictures. Previous studies have reported inconsistent results where verifying true negative sentences can take less, equal amount or more time than verifying false negatives. I argue that two strategies can be used in the task: the default strategy and the truth-functional strategy. The default strategy is to infer and represent the situation that makes the sentence true and compare it with the evidence. In addition, the accommodation of the positive QUD may encourage the development of a truth-functional strategy, in which participants answer the positive QUD and then switch the truth index. I show that when negative sentences project positive QUDs, there is a training effect: the reaction time pattern of true and false negatives change over time, indicating a development of a taskspecific strategy; on the other hand, when negative sentences project negative QUDs, participants no longer develop the task-specific strategy. In Chapter 5, I investigate the time course of negative sentence processing in a visual world eye-tracking study. The results show that processing simple negative sentences is delayed compared to processing simple positives, but processing cleft negatives is no more delayed than processing cleft positives. Importantly, both QUD accommodation and the integration of the meaning of negation can happen incrementally. Overall, the findings speak against current models of negation processing (especially rejection accounts), and support the dynamic pragmatic account.}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, negation processing, assertion, experimental, common ground, polarity}, url = {https://www.academia.edu/download/35133559/thesis_YTian_2014_UCL_final.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Elliott2014, author = {Elliott, Patrick D. and Nicolae, Andreea and Sudo, Yasutada}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 24}, title = {VP ellipsis without parallel binding: towards a QuD approach}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Abstract VP Ellipsis (VPE) whose antecedent VP contains a pronoun famously gives rise to an ambiguity between strict and sloppy readings. Since Sag's (1976) seminal work, it is generally assumed that the strict reading involves free pronouns in both the elided VP and its antecedent, whereas the sloppy reading involves bound pronouns. The majority of current approaches to VPE are tailored to derive this parallel binding requirement, ruling out mixed readings where one of the VPs involves a bound pronoun and the other a free pronoun in parallel positions. Contrary to this assumption, it is observed that there are cases of VPE where the antecedent VP contains a bound pronoun but the elided VP contains a free E-type pronoun anchored to the quantifier, in violation of parallel binding. We dub this the 'sticky reading' of VPE. To account for it, we propose a new identity condition on VPE which is less stringent than is standardly assumed. We formalize this using an extension of Roberts's (2012) Question under Discussion (QuD) theory of information structure.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v24i0.3639}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Elliott2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {ellipsis, pronouns, quantifiers, verb phrases}, } @InProceedings{Barlew2014, author = {Jefferson Barlew}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 24}, title = {Salience and uniqueness and the definite determiner -t\`{e} in Bulu}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Analyses of the meanings of definite determiners both in English (Kadmon 1990; Roberts 2003; Elbourne 2013, among others) and crosslinguistically (Schwarz 2013; Arkoh & Matthewson 2013) have been framed in terms of two dimensions of meaning: familiarity and uniqueness. This paper presents an analysis of the Bulu (Bantu, Cameroon) definite determiner -tè. I argue that the antecedent of an NP with -tè is required to be salient and unique. Thus, salience is an additional dimension along which there is crosslinguistic variation in the meanings of definite determiners.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v24i0.2992}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Barlew2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {Bulu, definite determiner, familiarity, uniqueness, salience, attention, non-English, cross-linguistic}, } @PhdThesis{Constant2014, author = {Noah Constant}, school = {University of Massachusets, Amherst}, title = {Contrastive Topic: Meanings and Realizations}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This dissertation develops a theory of contrastive topics (CTs)—what they mean, and how they are realized. I give a compositional semantics for CT constructions, built on the idea that CT marks anaphora to a complex question in the discourse. The account allows us to maintain an inclusive view of what counts as a contrastive topic, making reasonable predictions about sentences with CT phrases of difference types, in various combinations, and across various speech acts. Empirically, the dissertation focuses on contrastive topic marking in English and Mandarin Chinese. In English, CT phrases are typically realized with a “rising” prosody. I offer an explicit model that predicts the intonational features of English sentences containing contrastive topics. In Mandarin, sentences with CTs often exhibit the discourse particle -ne. I provide a detailed description of the particle’s distribution, and offer the first sustained argument that -ne is a CT marker.}, doi = {10.7275/5694973.0}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Topic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {contrastive topic, anaphora, prosody, Mandarin, non-English, cross-linguistic, discourse particles}, } @Article{Fusco2014, author = {Melissa Fusco}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Free choice permission and the counterfactuals of pragmatics}, year = {2014}, month = {jul}, number = {4}, pages = {275--290}, volume = {37}, abstract = {This paper addresses a little puzzle with a surprisingly long pedigree and a surprisingly large wake: the puzzle of Free Choice Permission. I begin by presenting a popular sketch of a pragmatic solution to the puzzle, due to Kratzer and Shimoyama, which has received a good deal of discussion, endorsement and elaboration in recent work :535–590, 2006; Fox, in: Sauerland and Stateva Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics, 2007; Geurts, Mind Lang 24:51–79, 2009; von Fintel, Central APA session on Deontic Modals, 2012). I then explain why the general form of the Kratzer and Shimoyama explanation is not extensionally adequate. This leaves us with two possibilities with regard to the original solution-sketch; either the suggested pragmatic route fails, or it succeeds in a particularly strange way: Free Choice permission is rendered a kind pragmatic illusion on the part of both speakers and hearers. Finally, I discuss some ramifications.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-014-9154-8}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Fusco2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {pragmatics, semantics, counterfactuals, permission, Neo-Gricean pragmatics, philosophical, modality}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Schaffer2014, author = {Jonathan Schaffer and Zolt{\'{a}}n Gendler Szab{\'{o}}}, journal = {Philosophical Studies}, title = {Epistemic comparativism: a contextualist semantics for knowledge ascriptions}, year = {2014}, month = {may}, number = {2}, pages = {491--543}, volume = {168}, abstract = {Knowledge ascriptions seem context sensitive. Yet it is widely thought that epistemic contextualism does not have a plausible semantic implementation. We aim to overcome this concern by articulating and defending an explicit contextualist semantics for 'know,' which integrates a fairly orthodox contextualist conception of knowledge as the elimination of the relevant alternatives, with a fairly orthodox "Amherst" semantics for A-quantification over a contextually variable domain of situations. Whatever problems epistemic contextualism might face, lack of an orthodox semantic implementation is not among them.}, doi = {10.1007/s11098-013-0141-7}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Schaffer2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, knowledge, epistemic contextualism, semantics, context}, publisher = {Springer}, } @InProceedings{Faller2014, author = {Martina Faller}, booktitle = {Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society}, title = {Reportativity, (not-)at-issueness, and assertion}, year = {2014}, volume = {40}, doi = {10.3765/bls.v40i0.3133}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Faller2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection}, keywords = {Quechua, at issue, at-issue, evidentials, cross-linguistic, non-English}, } @Article{Davidson2014, author = {Kathryn Davidson}, journal = {Sign Language and Linguistics}, title = {Scalar implicatures in a signed language}, year = {2014}, number = {1}, pages = {1-19}, volume = {17}, abstract = {This paper tests the calculation of scalar implicatures in American Sign Language (ASL) in one of the first experimental pragmatic studies in the manual/visual modality. Both native signers of ASL and native speakers of English participated in an automated Felicity Judgment Task to compare implicatures based on two traditional scales as well as “ad hoc” scales in their respective languages. Results show that native signers of ASL calculate scalar implicatures based on a prototypical scale in ASL in the same pattern as native speakers of English, within the same experimental paradigm. There are similarly high rates of exact interpretations of numbers in ASL as in English, despite the iconicity of the numerals in ASL. Finally, an ad hoc scale was tested showing fewer implicatures in English than on the conventionalized scales. In ASL, there was a trend toward increased implicatures on the ad hoc scale which made use of the unique ability of ASL to convey spatial information using the classifier system. Taken together, these results show that conventionalized scales in ASL have the same semantic/pragmatic scalar properties as in spoken languages, although in non-conventionalized scales the inclusion of additional information such as spatial location may affect pragmatic interpretation.}, doi = {10.1075/sll.17.1.01dav}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Experimental Approaches, Implicature}, keywords = {experimental pragmatics, sign languages, scalar implicatures, exhaustivity, ad hoc scale, non-English}, } @PhdThesis{Barros2014, author = {Matthew Barros}, school = {Rutgers}, title = {Sluicing and Identity in Ellipsis}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This thesis is concerned with sluicing, the ellipsis of TP in a Wh-question leaving a Wh- phrase “remnant” overt. Sluicing is subject to an identity condition that must hold between the sluiced question and its antecedent. There is currently no consensus on whether this condition should be characterized as syntactic or semantic in nature, or whether a hybrid condition that makes reference to both semantic and syntactic identity is needed (Merchant 2005, Chung 2013, Barker 2013). I provide a new identity condition that captures extant syntactic generalizations while allowing for enough wiggle room to let in detectible mismatches between the antecedent and sluice. The identity condition I propose is “split” between two sub-conditions, one that pertains to the relationship between the sluiced Wh-phrase and its correlate in the antecedent (the Remnant Condition), and one that pertains to the sluiced question as a whole (the Sluice Condition). The Split Identity hypothesis counts as a hybrid identity condition. The Remnant Condition is novel, and requires that the remnant have a syntactic correlate in the antecedent with which it matches semantically. Split Identity is shown to capture the data motivating extant syntactic generalizations. The Sluice Condition requires that the sluiced question and the Question under Discussion (QuD) that the antecedent makes salient seek the same answers, and is an implementation of QuD-based approaches to the semantic condition on sluicing, such as recently proposed in AnderBois 2011. The Split identity condition also lets in “pseudosluices” alongside isomorphic sluices, where the sluiced question is a cleft or a copular question while the antecedent is not. Pseudosluicing has often been proposed as a last resort mechanism, only available when an isomorphic structure is independently ruled out (Rodrigues et al. 2009, Vicente 2008, van Craenenbroeck 2010). I defend a view where pseudosluicing is not a special case of sluicing, so that the identity condition should not distinguish between copular and non- copular clauses in the determination of identity. Split Identity achieves this in making no reference to the syntactic content of the ellipsis site.}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Language, literature and linguistics, Clefts, Copulas, Ellipsis, Identity, Isomorphism, Pragmatics, Pseudosluicing, Qud, Question under discussion, Semantics, Sluicing, Syntax}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/sluicing-identity-ellipsis/docview/1654751961/se-2?accountid=9783}, } @Unpublished{Abrusan2014a, author = {M\'{a}rta Abrus\'{a}n}, note = {Manuscript}, title = {Disappearing acts of presuppositions:Cancelling the soft-hard distinction}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Some presuppositions are easier to cancel than others in embedded contexts. This contrast has been used as evidence for distinguishing two fundamentally different kinds of presuppositions, soft and hard (cf. Abusch 2002, 2010). ‘Soft’ presuppositions are usually assumed to arise in a pragmatic way, while ‘hard’ presuppositions are thought to be genuine semantic presuppositions. This paper argues against such a distinction and proposes to explain the difference in cancellation from inherent differences in how preposition triggers interact with the context: their anaphoricity, focus-sensitivity and question-answer congruence. As a second aim, the paper also derives the presuppositions of additive particles such as too, also, again and it-clefts, and adduces further empirical evidence for the focus sensitivity of factive inferences.}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {presupposition, cancellation, additives, anaphora, focus-sensitivity}, url = {https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/TMzNzZiN/.AbrusanDisappearingActsOfPresupp.pdf}, } @Article{Thomas2014, author = {Guillaume Thomas}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Nominal tense and temporal implicatures: evidence from Mby{\'{a}}}, year = {2014}, month = {sep}, number = {4}, pages = {357--412}, volume = {22}, abstract = {In this paper, I discuss the distribution and the interpretation of the temporal suffix -kue in Mbyá, a Guaraní language that is closely related to Paraguayan Guaraní. This suffix is attested both inside noun phrases and inside clauses. Interestingly, its nominal uses give rise to inferences that are unattested in its clausal uses. These inferences were first identified in Paraguayan Guaraní by Tonhauser (PhD thesis, 2006; Language 83:831–869, 2007), who called them the existence property and the change of state property. Tonhauser further argued that these properties are built into the lexical entry of the nominal temporal marker -kue. By contrast, I argue that -kue denotes a relative past tense both in its nominal and clausal uses, and that the existence and change of state properties are pragmatic inferences that arise from the interaction of the literal meaning of -kue with general constraints on the interpretation of noun phrases, notably constraints on the topicality of the time of evaluation of noun phrases. This allows me to maintain a uniform analysis of -kue across its nominal uses and its clausal uses. The analysis of -kue in Mbyá is relevant to a number of current debates on the expression of tense crosslinguistically. Firstly, the existence of relative tenses has sometimes been called into question. Klein (Time in language, 1994) notably argues that relative tenses are actually combinations of tense with the perfect aspect. Others have argued that there exist true relative tenses in certain languages (see e.g. Bohnemeyer, NLLT 1–38, 2013). I argue that facts of Mbyá support the latter view. Secondly, Klein (1994) famously defined tenses as relations between topic times and the time of utterance. I argue, on the other hand, that relative tenses only denote relations between times, and that the topicality or non-topicality of their temporal arguments depends on their context of use, including their syntactic environment. Thirdly, this paper contributes to debates on the nature and reality of nominal tenses (see Nordlinger and Sadler, Language 80:776–806, 2004; Lecarme, In: Binnick (ed) The Oxford handbook of tense and aspect, 2012), by arguing that tense in Mbyá is a genuinely nominal category, in the sense that temporal functional projections are part of the extended projection of the noun phrase.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-014-9108-2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Thomas2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, Guarani, Mbya, non-English, tense, implicatures, temporal implicature, projection}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Syrett2014, author = {Kristen Syrett and Georgia Simon and Kirsten Nisula}, journal = {Journal of Linguistics}, title = {Prosodic disambiguation of scopally ambiguous quantificational sentences in a discourse context}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Researchers have long sought to determine the strength of the relation between prosody and the interpretation of scopally ambiguous sentences in English involving quantification and negation (e.g. All the men didn't go). While Jackendoff (1972) proposed a one-to-one mapping between sentence-final contour and the scope of negation (falling contour: narrow scope, fall-rise contour: wide scope), in subsequent work, researchers (e.g. Ladd 1980; Ward & Hirschberg 1985; Kadmon & Roberts 1986) disentangled the link between prosody and scope. Even though these pragmatic accounts predict variability in production, they still allow for some correlation between scope and prosody. To date, we lack systematic evidence to bear on this discussion. Here, we present findings from two perception experiments aimed at investigating whether prosodic information – including, but not limited to, sentence-final contour – can successfully disambiguate such sentences. We show that when speakers provide consistent auditory cues to sentential interpretation, hearers can successfully recruit these cues to arrive at the correct interpretation as intended by the speaker. In light of these results, we argue that psycholinguistic studies (including language acquisition studies) investigating participants’ ability to access multiple interpretations of scopally ambiguous sentences – quantificational and otherwise – should carefully control for prosody.}, doi = {10.1017/S0022226714000012}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Syrett2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, prosody, negation, scope, quantification}, } @InProceedings{Bade2014, author = {Nadine Bade}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {Obligatory implicatures and the presupposition of ''too''}, year = {2014}, pages = {42-59}, volume = {18}, abstract = {The paper provides an analysis for the obligatory occurence of the presupposition triggers “too”, “again” and “know”. The claim is that these triggers are inserted to avoid a mandatory exhaustivity implicature that contradicts the context. Two main empirical arguments for why this account is to be preferred over analyses of these obligatory triggers that make use of a principle Maximize Presupposition will be presented.}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {presupposition, knowledge, epistemic, implicature, exhaustivity, maximization}, url = {https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/303}, } @InProceedings{Lassiter2014, author = {Daniel Lassiter}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 24}, title = {The weakness of must In and defense of a Mantra}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Many linguist have claimed that must’s meaning is weaker than epistemic necessity—a claim dubbed “the Mantra” in an influential recent paper by von Fintel and Gillies (2008). von Fintel and Gillies argue that the Mantra is false, and that the intuitions that have driven it can be accounted for by appealing to evidential meaning: must requires that the proposition it embeds is true and maximally certain, but also known only by indirect means. I show that von Fintel and Gillies do not provide a compelling argument against the Mantra, and that their theory of evidential meaning, while promising in certain respects, also has serious empirical and conceptual problems. In addition, a variety of corpus examples indicate that speakers who assert must p are not always maximally confident in the truth of p. As an alternative, I re-implement von Fintel and Gillies’ theory of indirect evidentiality in a probabilistic, Mantra-compatible framework. Ultimately, both sides of the debate are partly right: must is weak in several respects, but it also encodes an indirect evidential meaning.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v24i0.2985}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Lassiter2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Evidentiality, Projection}, keywords = {epistemic modality, doxastic modality, evidentiality, inference, probability, must, lexical items}, } @InProceedings{Title2014a, author = {Michael Tessler and Noah D Goodman}, booktitle = {UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society}, title = {Some arguments are probably valid Syllogistic and reasoning as communication}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Syllogistic reasoning lies at the intriguing intersection of natural and formal reasoning, of language and logic. Syllogisms comprise a formal system of reasoning yet use natural language quantifiers, and invite natural language conclusions. How can we make sense of the interplay between logic and language? We develop a computational-level theory that considers reasoning over concrete situations, constructed probabilistically by sampling. The base model can be enriched to consider the pragmatics of natural language arguments. The model predictions are compared with behavioral data from a recent meta-analysis. The flexibility of the model is then explored in a data set of syllogisms using the generalized quantifiers most and few. We conclude by relating our model to two extant theories of syllogistic reasoning – Mental Models and Probability Heuristics.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tessler2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, logic, reasoning, epistemology, QUD, Bayesianism, probability}, url = {https://escholarship.org/content/qt5nm2h7pv/qt5nm2h7pv.pdf}, } @Article{Murray2014, author = {Sarah E. Murray}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Varieties of update}, year = {2014}, month = {mar}, volume = {7}, abstract = {This paper discusses three potential varieties of update: updates to the common ground, structuring updates, and updates that introduce discourse referents. These different types of update are used to model different aspects of natural language phenomena. Not-at-issue information directly updates the common ground. The illocutionary mood of a sentence structures the context. Other updates introduce discourse referents of various types, including propositional discourse referents for at-issue information. Distinguishing these types of update allows a unified treatment of a broad range of phenomena, including the grammatical evidentials found in Cheyenne (Algonquian) as well as English evidential parentheticals, appositives, and mood marking. An update semantics that can formalize all of these varieties of update is given, integrating the different kinds of semantic contributions into a single representation of meaning.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.7.2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Murray2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, The Language Game, Evidentiality, Projection, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {update semantics, evidentials, parentheticals, appositives, mood, hedges, dynamics, dynamic semantics, common ground, reference, at-issue, at issue, Cheyenne, Algonquian, non-English, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @Article{Ginzburg2014, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Raquel Fernández and David Schlangen}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Disfluencies as intra-utterance dialogue moves}, year = {2014}, month = {June}, number = {9}, pages = {1--64}, volume = {7}, abstract = {Although disfluent speech is pervasive in spoken conversation, disfluencies have received little attention within formal theories of grammar. The majority of work on disfluent language has come from psycholinguistic models of speech production and comprehension and from structural approaches designed to improve performance in speech applications. In this paper, we argue for the inclusion of this phenomenon in the scope of formal grammar, and present a detailed formal account which: (a) unifies disfluencies (self-repair) with Clarification Requests, without conflating them, (b) offers a precise explication of the roles of all key components of a disfluency, including editing phrases and filled pauses, and (c) accounts for the possibility of self addressed questions in a disfluency.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.7.9}, groups = {Clarification Requests}, keywords = {Disfluency, Repair, Semantics, Pragmatics, Dialogue, KoS, Formal Grammar, clarification requests}, } @Article{Martin2014, author = {Fabienne Martin}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive modification and evaluative predicates}, year = {2014}, month = {sep}, pages = {34--54}, volume = {149}, abstract = {Evaluative adjectives have often been claimed to manifest a strong, and even exclusive, preference for the nonrestrictive reading (henceforth the ‘nonrestrictive bias’ of evaluative adjectives). For those languages like French that allow both the post and pre-head positions for at least a subset of their adjectives, a frequent observation reported in support of this claim is that evaluative adjectives are often odd in post-nominal position. The argument relies on what has been called the complementarity hypothesis, namely the hypothesis that pre-head modifiers receive a nonrestrictive interpretation in Romance, while post-head modifiers receive a restrictive interpretation. An immediate problem for this argument is that evaluatives do appear in postnominal positions in corpora. One of the goals of this paper is to reconcile these data with the nonrestrictive bias and the complementarity hypothesis. The idea pursued is that a modifier can either be (non)restrictive according to the standard definitions, which are purely extensional, or be (non)restrictive with respect to a particular modal base α (thus, α-restrictive vs. α-nonrestrictive). Being restrictive or α- restrictive (respectively nonrestrictive or α-nonrestrictive) allows the modifier to appear in the post-head (respectively pre-head) position. In section 2, we recall the standard (purely extensional) definitions of (non)restrictivity. We then show that these definitions cannot distinguish between restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers in a number of contexts, e.g. in non-partitive indefinites. In section 2.3, we introduce modal definitions of (non)restrictivity that solve the problem. Section 3 identifies the contexts in which evaluative adjectives can appear in post-nominal position and explains why, on the basis of the definitions of (α)-(non)restrictivity built in previous sections. The analysis proposed is compared with two previous accounts of the nonrestrictive bias of evaluative predicates.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2014.05.002}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Martin2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {adjectives, modifiers, modal, relevance, bias}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @InCollection{Murata2015, author = {Daisuke Bekki and Elin McCready}, booktitle = {New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence JSAI-isAI 2014}, publisher = {Springer Berlin Heidelberg}, title = {CI via DTS}, year = {2015}, editor = {Tsuyoshi Murata and Koji Mineshima and Daisuke Bekki}, abstract = {It has been observed that conventionally implicated content interacts with at-issue content in a number of different ways. This paper focuses on the existence of anaphoric links between content of these two types, something disallowed by the system of Potts (2005), the original locus of work on these issues. The problem of characterizing this interaction has been considered by a number of authors. This paper proposes a new system for understanding it in the framework of Dependent Type Semantics. It is shown that the resulting system provides a good characterization of how “cross-dimensional” anaphoric links can be supported from a proof-theoretic perspective.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-662-48119-6}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bekki2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {conventional implicature, implicature, anaphoric link, anaphora, factual presuppositions, left context, underspecified term, at-issue, projection}, } @Article{Carlson2014, author = {Katy Carlson}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Predicting contrast in sentences with and without focus marking}, year = {2014}, month = {oct}, pages = {78--91}, volume = {150}, abstract = {How do we know when a contrast is coming? This study explores the prediction of parallel contrastive phrases, especially NPs, in sentences with and without overt focus marking. A written sentence-completion questionnaire with clauses followed by the conjunction “but” compared unmarked initial clauses to ones with the focus marker “only” on the subject or object. Both conditions with “only” elicited more contrasts overall than the condition without focus marking, and many of the contrasts were with the focus-marked NP. While the baseline (no-only) condition had full clauses for half of the completions, subject focus increased clausal completions and object focus increased negative ellipsis completions (“not” + NP structures), both changes in syntax which make a contrast with the marked NP easy. The production of negative ellipsis sentences primarily in the object-focus condition suggests that the object bias of these sentences in comprehension could relate to their being used more frequently with this meaning. Finally, the overall pattern of results shows that overt marking of contrastive focus increases continuations with contrasts, and the conjunction “but” does not reliably predict explicitly-stated contrasts within a sentence without overt focus marking.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2014.07.008}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Carlson2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Contrast, Focus, Ellipsis, Conjunctions, Information structure, only, but, contrastive focus}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Dillon2014, author = {Brian Dillon and Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Language, Cognition and Neuroscience}, title = {Pushed aside: parentheticals, memory and processing}, year = {2014}, month = {dec}, number = {4}, pages = {483--498}, volume = {29}, abstract = {In the current work, we test the hypothesis that ‘at-issue’ and ‘not-at-issue’ contents are processed semi-independently. In a written rating study comparing restrictive relative clauses and parentheticals in interrogatives and declaratives, we observe a significantly larger length penalty for restrictive relative clauses than for parentheticals. This difference cannot be attributed to differences in how listeners allocate attention across a sentence; a second study confirms that readers are equally sensitive to agreement violations in at-issue and not-at-issue contents. A third rating experiment shows that the results do not depend on the restrictive relative clause intervening on the subject-verb dependency. A final experiment shows that the observed effects obtain with definite determiners and demonstratives alike. Taken jointly, the results suggest that the parenthetical structures are processed independently of their embedding utterance, which in turn suggests that syntactic memory may be more differentiated than is typically assumed.}, doi = {10.1080/01690965.2013.866684}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Dillon2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {experimental, at-issue, at issue, interrogatives, declaratives, attention, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Informa}, } @InProceedings{Moradlou2014, author = {Sara Moradlou and Jonathan Ginzburg}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SemDial 2014 (DialWatt)}, title = {Learning to Understand Questions}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Our aim in this paper is to characterise the learning process by means of which children get to understand questions. In contrast to the acquisition of production of questions, an area which has a long history, the emergence of question comprehension is largely uncharted territory. We limit our attention in this paper to wh–interrogatives, since generally there is overt evidence for their understanding before other types of questions such as polar questions. The general idea we follow is that the child learns to understand questions interactively, as there is a long period of “training” during which the carer asks questions and answers them himself. Since the answers can be understood by the child, given sufficient exposure the child deduces an association between the pre-answer utterance and a question. Nonetheless, the process as we describe it here assumes a number of very strong priors. In particular, we will be assuming for some stages of the process that the child is attuned to a very simple erotetic logic—a logic which given certain assumptions allows one to deduce questions. We provide evidence for our model based on classifying interactions between a child and her parents in the multimodal Providence corpus from CHILDES.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Moradlou2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {learning, children, psycholinguistics, corpus, experimental}, url = {https://sites.google.com/site/jonathanginzburgswebsite/publications/semdial14-mg.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1}, } @InProceedings{Ginzburg2014a, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Robin Cooper and Tim Fernando}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the EACL 2014 Workshop on Type Theory and Natural Language Semantics (TTNLS)}, title = {Propositions, Questions, and Adjectives: a rich type theoretic approach}, year = {2014}, pages = {89-96}, abstract = {We consider how to develop types corresponding to propositions and questions. Starting with the conception of Propositions as Types, we consider two empirical challenges for this doctrine. The first relates to the putative need for a single type encompassing questions and propositions in order to deal with Boolean operations. The second relates to adjectival modification of question and propositional entities. We partly defuse the Boolean challenge by showing that the data actually argue against a single type covering questions and propositions. We show that by analyzing both propositions and questions as records within Type Theory with Records (TTR), we can define Boolean operations over these distinct semantic types. We account for the adjectival challenge by embedding the record types defined to deal with Boolean operations within a theory of semantic frames formulated within TTR.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ginzburg2014a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {semantics of questions, KoS, type theory, integrated approach, adjectives, questions, interrogatives}, url = {http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W/W14/W14-1411.pdf}, } @InProceedings{Mayol2014, author = {Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society [CLS46]}, title = {Evaluative adverbs in questions: a comparison between French and Catalan}, year = {2014}, number = {2}, pages = {143-158}, volume = {46}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Mayol2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {French, Catalan, adverbs, cross-linguistic, non-English, declaratives, presupposed content}, } @InProceedings{RojasEsponda2014a, author = {Tania Rojas-Esponda}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung}, title = {A QUD account of German doch}, year = {2014}, pages = {359-376}, volume = {18}, abstract = {This paper proposes an analysis of the unfocused and focused discourse particle uses of doch in terms of questions under discussion. The particle doch is analyzed as signaling that a question under discussion was previously closed (i.e. answered or invalidated). Unfocused doch is used to re-answer this previously closed QUD in the same way as before; focused doch is used to re-answer this previously closed QUD in a new way. This account works for both contrastive and non-contrastive uses of doch. Even though, unlike most previous accounts, the analysis is not built directly on the notion of contrast, the relevant intuitions can be recovered from the account via highlighting. The formalism further allows us to distinguish two distinct flavors of contrast, where they arise. One type of contrast arises through propositional contrast between the sentence containing doch and a highlighted alternative. The other type of contrast arises through the switching of the QUD-answer (focused doch).}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/RojasEsponada2014a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {question under discussion, doch, discourse particle, highlighting, proposal, focus, alternatives}, url = {https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/322}, } @Article{Cummins2015, author = {Chris Cummins and Hannah Rohde}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Evoking Context with Contrastive Stress: Effects on Pragmatic Enrichment}, year = {2015}, volume = {6}, abstract = {Although it is widely acknowledged that context influences a variety of pragmatic phenomena, it is not clear how best to articulate this notion of context and thereby explain the nature of its influence. In this paper, we target contextual alternatives that are evoked via focus placement and test how the same contextual manipulation can influence three different phenomena that involve pragmatic enrichment: scalar implicature, presupposition, and coreference. We argue that focus placement influences these three phenomena indirectly by providing the listener with information about the likely question under discussion (QUD) that a particular utterance answers (Roberts, 1996/2012). In three listening experiments, we find that the predicted interpretations are indeed made more available when focus placement is added to the final element (to the scalar adjective, to an entity embedded under the negated presupposition trigger, and to the predicate of a pronoun). These findings bring together several distinct strands of work on the effect of focus placement on interpretation all in the domain of pragmatic enrichment. Together they advance our empirical understanding of the relation between focus placement and QUD and highlight commonalities between implicature, presupposition, and coreference.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01779}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Cummins2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Projection and Presupposition, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Projection}, keywords = {question under discussion (QUD), scalar implicature, scalars, presupposition projection, coreference, focus placement, reference, experimental, psycholinguistics}, } @InCollection{Beyssade2015, author = {Claire Beyssade and Barbara Hemforth and Jean-Marie Marandin and Cristel Portes}, booktitle = {Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {Prosodic Realizations of Information Focus in French}, year = {2015}, editor = {Lyn Frazier and Edward Gibson}, pages = {39--61}, volume = {46}, abstract = {In this chapter, we provide empirical evidence on the prosodic marking of information focus (IF) in French. We report results from an elicitation experiment and two perception experiments. Based on these experiments, we propose that phrases that resolve a question are set off by two types of intonational markers in French: they host the nuclear pitch accent (NPA) on their right edge and/or they are intonationally highlighted by an initial rise (IR). These intonational markers are very often realized conjointly but can also be applied separately thus leading to considerable variation in our elicitation data. We will propose that some of the variation can be explained by differences in the function of NPA and IR: NPA placement is sensitive to the informational/illocutionary partitioning of the content of utterances, while IRs are sensitive to different types of semantic or pragmatic salience. We also suggest that “question/answer” pairs provide a criterion to identify the IF only if the answer is congruent. Answers may, however, contribute to implicit questions resulting in different prosodic realizations.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-12961-7_3}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Beyssade2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {information focus, focus, experimental, psycholinguistics, prosody, French, non-English, cross-linguistic, initial rise}, } @Article{GarciaCarpintero2015, author = {Manuel Garc{\'{i}}a-Carpintero}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Contexts as Shared Commitments}, year = {2015}, month = {dec}, volume = {6}, abstract = {Contemporary semantics assumes two influential notions of context: one coming from Kaplan (1989), on which contexts are sets of predetermined parameters, and another originating in Stalnaker (1978), on which contexts are sets of propositions that are “common ground.” The latter is deservedly more popular, given its flexibility in accounting for context-dependent aspects of language beyond manifest indexicals, such as epistemic modals, predicates of taste, and so on and so forth; in fact, properly dealing with demonstratives (perhaps ultimately all indexicals) requires that further flexibility. Even if we acknowledge Lewis (1980)'s point that, in a sense, Kaplanian contexts already include common ground contexts, it is better to be clear and explicit about what contexts constitutively are. Now, Stalnaker (1978, 2002, 2014) defines context-as-common-ground as a set of propositions, but recent work shows that this is not an accurate conception. The paper explains why, and provides an alternative. The main reason is that several phenomena (presuppositional treatments of pejoratives and predicates of taste, forces other than assertion) require that the common ground includes non-doxastic attitudes such as appraisals, emotions, etc. Hence the common ground should not be taken to include merely contents (propositions), but those together with attitudes concerning them: shared commitments, as I will defend.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01932}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/GarciaCarpintero2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {The Language Game, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {context, presupposition, accommodation, meaning normativity, rules, experimental, common ground}, } @InCollection{Gundel2015, author = {Gundel, Jeanette K. and Hedberg, Nancy}, booktitle = {Information Structuring of Spoken Language from a Cross-linguistic Perspective}, publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton}, title = {Reference and Cognitive Status: Scalar Inference and Typology}, year = {2015}, editor = {M. M. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest and Robert D. Van Valin}, comment = {[Summary taken from intro]: In this paper, we will be concerned with referential givenness/newness, specifically within the Givenness Hierarchy theory proposed in Gundel, Hedberg and Zacharski (1993 and subsequent work), which attempts to explain the distribution and interpretation of different nominal expressions, and the fact that such forms succeed in picking out a speaker’s intended interpretation even though the conceptual information they encode rarely, if ever, determines a unique referent. We begin by briefly summarizing the Givenness Hierarchy theory. We then correct some misconceptions and misinterpretations that have appeared in the literature on the predictions of the theory. Finally, we discuss some cross-linguistic and typological facts about the ways in which languages can differ and ways they appear to be alike with respect to encoding cognitive statuses on the Givenness Hierarchy.}, doi = {10.1515/9783110368758-003}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {information structure, givenness, reference, relational, nominal expressions, scalars, cross-linguistic, pscyholinguistics}, } @InProceedings{Hawkins2015, author = {Robert X. D. Hawkins and Andreas Stuhlmuller and Judith Degen and Noah D. Goodman}, booktitle = {CogSci}, title = {Why do you ask? Good questions provoke informative answers}, year = {2015}, abstract = {What makes a question useful? What makes an answer appropriate? In this paper, we formulate a family of increasingly sophisticated models of question-answer behavior within the Rational Speech Act framework. We compare these models based on three different pieces of evidence: first, we demonstrate how our answerer models capture a classic effect in psycholinguistics showing that an answerer’s level of informativeness varies with the inferred questioner goal, while keeping the question constant. Second, we jointly test the questioner and answerer components of our model based on empirical evidence from a question-answer reasoning game. Third, we examine a special case of this game to further distinguish among the questioner models. We find that sophisticated pragmatic reasoning is needed to account for some of the data. People can use questions to provide cues to the answerer about their interest, and can select answers that are informative about inferred interests.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Mood and Speech Acts, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {language understanding, pragmatics, Bayesian models, questions, answers, experimental, psycholinguistics, speech acts, probabilistic}, url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.706.6698&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @InCollection{Goodman2015, author = {Noah D. Goodman and Daniel Lassiter}, booktitle = {The handbook of contemporary semantic theory}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, title = {Probabilistic Semantics and Pragmatics: Uncertainty in Language and Thought}, year = {2015}, editor = {Shalom Lappin and Chris Fox}, abstract = {This chapter illustrates the use of probabilistic techniques in natural language pragmatics and semantics with a concrete formal model. This model shows that a probabilistic framework for natural language is possible and productive. The chapter provides background on probabilistic modeling and stochastic lambda calculus, and introduce a running example scenario: the game of tug-of-war. It describes a formal fragment of English suitable for the running scenario. Using this fragment the chapter illustrates the emergence of non-monotonic effects in interpretation and the interaction of ambiguity with background knowledge. The chapter then describes pragmatic interpretation of meaning as probabilistic reasoning about an informative speaker, who reasons about a literal listener. It discusses the role of semantic indices in this framework and shows that binding these indices at the pragmatic level allows us to deal with several issues in context-sensitivity of meaning, such as the interpretation of scalar adjectives.}, doi = {10.1002/9781118882139.ch21}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Goodman2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {Computational Linguistics, Natural Language Processing, psycholinguistics, belief, bayesian, knowledge, probability, monotonic, monotonicity, non-monotonic, implicature}, } @InProceedings{Herbstritt2015, author = {Herbstritt, Michele}, booktitle = {Proceedings of ESSLLI}, title = {Experimental investigations of probability expressions: a first step in the (probably) right direction}, year = {2015}, pages = {77--88}, abstract = {This paper is concerned with the semantics of probability expressions such as probably and likely. According to a recent theory proposed by [6], the meaning of a sentence such as probably ϕ is sensitive to its context of utterance, and in particular to the set of ϕ’s contextually salient alternative outcomes. We report the results of three experiments specifically designed to investigate this context-sensitivity. On the basis of our results, we discuss possible directions for both experimental and theoretical future work.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {experimental, probability, alternatives, meaning, lexical meaning}, url = {http://esslli-stus-2015.phil.hhu.de/esslli-stus-2015-proceedings.pdf#page=83}, } @Article{Degen2015, author = {Judith Degen and Michael K. Tanenhaus}, journal = {Cognitive Science}, title = {Processing Scalar Implicature: A Constraint-Based Approach}, year = {2015}, month = {sep}, number = {4}, pages = {667--710}, volume = {39}, abstract = {Three experiments investigated the processing of the implicature associated with some using a “gumball paradigm.” On each trial, participants saw an image of a gumball machine with an upper chamber with 13 gumballs and an empty lower chamber. Gumballs then dropped to the lower chamber and participants evaluated statements, such as “You got some of the gumballs.” Experiment 1 established that some is less natural for reference to small sets (1, 2, and 3 of the 13 gumballs) and unpartitioned sets (all 13 gumballs) compared to intermediate sets (6–8). Partitive some of was less natural than simple some when used with the unpartitioned set. In Experiment 2, including exact number descriptions lowered naturalness ratings for some with small sets but not for intermediate size sets and the unpartitioned set. In Experiment 3, the naturalness ratings from Experiment 2 predicted response times. The results are interpreted as evidence for a Constraint-Based account of scalar implicature processing and against both two-stage, Literal-First models and pragmatic Default models.}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12171}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Degen2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {scalars, scalar implicature, experimental, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Wiley}, } @InProceedings{Riester2015, author = {Arndt Riester}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Information Structure ofAustronesian Languages}, title = {Analyzing questions under discussion and information structure in a Balinese narrative}, year = {2015}, abstract = {I argue against the skepticism recently expressed by Mati\'{c} and Wedgwood (2013) regarding the possibility of defining a cross-linguistic category of focus. I sketch an interpretation-based and cross-linguistically applicable method of information-structural analysis, which makes use of Questions under Discussion. The method is demonstrated on a Balinese narrative text.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Riester2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {focus, Balinese, non-English, cross-linguistic, annotation, linguistic universals, narrative, Question under Discussion}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10108/84506}, } @InProceedings{Viesel2015, author = {Viesel, Yvonne}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 20th Amsterdam Colloquium}, title = {Discourse structure and syntactic embedding : the German discourse particle 'ja'}, year = {2015}, editor = {Brochhagen, Thomas}, pages = {418--427}, abstract = {German discourse particles (DiPs) do not add truth-conditionally relevant meaning but are elements of speaker attitude and indicate a relation between the information in their scope (p) and another piece of information (q) in the context. The DiP ‘ja’ (literally ‘yes’) was claimed to be felicitous with a proposition p that the speaker believes common to both speaker and hearer, or immediately verifiable. However, formalizations modeling this into the use conditions of ‘ja’ fall short on the DiP's discourse function, which is to indicate that p is not used to address the current Question under Discussion but stands in a relation to q (pRq), where q is the information that the speaker makes another context update, pRq is intuitively explanatory, and p is not necessarily known to anyone but the speaker. Regarding prerequisite grammatical properties of the DiP's host constructions, data show that ‘ja’ is not restricted to assertive, root-like environments and defies predictions about not being able to appear in the scope of descriptive operators. Instead the data suggest that the DiP's licitness in surprising positions depends on information-structural factors.}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {discourse particles, German, non-English, cross-linguistic}, url = {http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/mVkOTk2N/AC2015-proceedings.pdf}, } @PhdThesis{Hyska2015, author = {Megan Alexandra Hyska}, school = {University of Texas at Austin}, title = {Discourse-level information structure and the challenge of metadiscursives}, year = {2015}, abstract = {In Information Structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics (2012), Craige Roberts offers a modeling apparatus designed for use in giving a unified analysis of diverse pragmatic phenomena. As part of her account, Roberts offers precise conditions on what an utterance must be like in order for it to count as felicitous in any particular context. A key condition is that, in order to be felicitous, an utterance must count as an answer to what Roberts calls “the question under discussion.” I demonstrate that this account generates some false predictions regarding the class of utterances I will call “metadiscursives,” as well as that of epistemic reports. I will then consider several possible alterations to Roberts’ view that would preserve the spirit of her project and render the account invulnerable to my objections.}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {epistemic reports, metadiscursives, metacommunication, philosophical, pragmatics, information structure}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/2152/46665}, } @Article{Riester2015a, author = {Arndt Riester and Jörn Piontek}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Anarchy in the {NP}. When new nouns get deaccented and given nouns don't}, year = {2015}, month = {oct}, pages = {230--253}, volume = {165}, abstract = {We investigate a semantic–pragmatic hypothesis (relative givenness, Wagner, 2006) on an annotated corpus of German speech data. We show that nominal deaccentuation in an [A N] (adjective–noun) combination neither requires the givenness of N nor the availability of a different [A′ N] sequence in the overt discourse context but results from the fact that a referentially distinct alternative is either explicitly or implicitly under discussion. If no such alternative is under discussion, given nouns typically receive main prominence.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2015.03.006}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Riester2015a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {Adjective, Corpus pragmatics, Deaccentuation, Givenness, Information structure, Question under Discussion, experimental, German, non-English, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Miranda2015, author = {Miranda, W{\^a}nia and Silva, Fernanda Rosa}, journal = {Revista Virtual de Estudos da Linguagem-Revel}, title = {Formal Similarities and Distinctions between the Contrastive Markers Mas (But), J\'{a} (already), and Agora (now) in Brazilian Portuguese}, year = {2015}, number = {9}, pages = {120--138}, volume = {13}, abstract = {This paper investigates the semantic and pragmatic characteristics of the connectives mas, já and agora in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), which mark contrast in this language. More specifically, this research aims to answer the following questions: (i) what is the semantic-pragmatic contribution of those connectives?; (ii) are there any syntactic or phonological differences among them?; (iii) might they be used in the same contexts?}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, Brazilian Portuguese, contrasts, contrastive markers, discourse structure, formal semantics, formal pragmatics}, url = {http://www.revel.inf.br/files/729d5bf91a8d7794a57b881a3555ada1.pdf}, } @Article{ScienceDirect2015, author = {Muffy Siegel}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {In your Dreams: Flouting Quality II}, year = {2015}, volume = {87}, abstract = {Responses like in your dreams or on some other planet have a prominent reading (SDR) that strongly denies a Given proposition p. Since speakers have no evidence about the truth of p in inaccessible places like other peoples’ dreams, an SDR speaker provides an answer (‘p in your dreams’) to the Question Under Discussion (‘?p’) that is relatively weak in the conversational context. Assuming the SDR speaker's competence, such a weak response predictably gives rise to a conversational implicature that p is false, and focus-marking makes this negative implicature more salient. This article gives a unified pragmatic account of the previously unstudied syntactic/semantic and discourse-function properties that distinguish SDRs from other utterances with similar negative implicatures and focus: the peculiar strength of their denials, their obligatory focus-marking, their resistance to clefting, only, but, definite reference and embedding, and the displacement, by the denial implicature they engender, of their propositional content. This leaves the propositional content to contribute only Relevance implicatures. It is argued that SDRs speakers’ flouting of the second, evidence part of Grice's Quality Maxim is responsible for all these properties, even though such Quality II flouting is unusual because evidenceless claims are predominantly also irrelevant ones.}, booktitle = {Journal of Pragmatics}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2015.07.008}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Siegel2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {Quality Maxim; Epistemic inaccessibility; Denial; Conversational implicature; Relevance maxim; Focus, epistemic, implicatures}, } @Article{Botteri2015, author = {Botteri, Daniele}, journal = {Research in Generative Grammar}, title = {Ellipsis in Italian split questions}, year = {2015}, pages = {35-54}, volume = {37}, abstract = {The goal of this paper is to investigate the syntax of split questions in Italian. Split questions are interrogative structures formed by two parts: a wh-part which corresponds to a standard wh-question and a tag which constitutes a possible answer for that wh-question. Building on previous work by Arregi (2010) I propose that these structures are actually formed by two distinct interrogatives, one of which undergoes ellipsis. This proposal has implications which go beyond the domain of split questions. First, it contributes to a better understanding of ellipsis phenomena. Second, it allows us to deepen our knowledge of the interrogative system in different varieties. Third, it enables us to reconsider some aspects of the interaction between interrogative structures and focus fronting.}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Italian, non-English, cross-linguistic, Split questions, Ellipsis, Focus fronting, Fragments, Question-answer congruence}, publisher = {Venice: Center for Language Sciences}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/11707/5270}, } @PhdThesis{RojasEsponada2015, author = {Tania Rojas-Esponada}, school = {Stanford University}, title = {Patterns and Symmetries for Discourse Particles}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Discourse particles provide important signals in conversation, by helping speakers and hearers coordinate on the course of an interaction. Therefore, a precise understanding of discourse particles will provide new insights into the pragmatics of conversation. In this thesis, I will present a framework based on questions under discussion that allows us to capture the key information-theoretic structures in conversation that seem to affect the use of discourse particles: the presence or absence of presuppositions, the issues guiding a conversation, and how interlocutors move between these issues. I present two case studies of German discourse particles that highlight central aspects of the QUD framework: überhaupt and doch. These raise a challenge found in particle systems in many languages: lexicalized focus. Many languages possess particles that can occur with or without focus, and the meanings associated with the unfocused and focused variants are often very different. Since intonation can have discourse-managing functions similar to that of discourse particles, the effect of having or lacking focus marking directly on a particle is different from the effect of focus on regular content words. I will identify patterns that allow us to systematically distinguish the meanings of focused and unfocused particles in a focused/unfocused pair. This serves as a stepping stone towards understanding the interplay of grammar, intonation, and interaction.}, groups = {Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {discourse particles, German, non-English, cross-linguistic, intonation, focus}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/patterns-symmetries-discourse-particles/docview/2459631050/se-2?accountid=9783}, } @InProceedings{Sawada2015, author = {Osamu Sawada}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 15th Texas Linguistics Society Conference}, title = {The degree of the speaker’s negative attitude in a goal-shifting comparison}, year = {2015}, editor = {Christopher Brown and Qianping Gu and Cornelia Loos and Jason Mielens and Grace Neveu}, abstract = {The Japanese comparative expression sore-yori ‘than it’ can be used for shifting the goal of a conversation. What is interesting about goal-shifting via sore-yori is that, unlike ordinary goal-shifting with expressions like tokorode ‘by the way,’ using sore-yori often signals the speaker’s negative attitude toward the addressee. In this paper, I will investigate the meaning and use of goal-shifting comparison and consider the mechanism by which the speaker’s emotion is expressed. I will claim that the meaning of the pragmatic sore-yori conventionally implicates that the at-issue utterance is preferable to the previous utterance (cf. metalinguistic comparison (e.g. (Giannakidou & Yoon 2011))) and that the meaning of goal-shifting is derived if the goal associated with the at-issue utterance is considered irrelevant to the goal associated with the previous utterance. Moreover, I will argue that the speaker’s negative attitude is shown by the competition between the speaker’s goal and the hearer’s goal, and a strong negativity emerges if the goals are assumed to be not shared. I will also compare sore-yori to sonna koto-yori ‘than such a thing’ and show that sonna koto-yori directly expresses a strong negative attitude toward the previous utterance. This paper shows that shifting the goal (without accomplishing the previous goal) is negative/offensive in nature, and a speaker expresses various degrees of negative emotion toward a hearer in different ways, i.e., by indirect evaluation (via contrast) or direct evaluation.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Sawada2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, goals, attitudes, emotion}, } @Article{MouraMenuzzi2015, author = {S\'{e}rgio de Moura Menuzzi and Maria Cristina Figueiredo Silva and Jenny Doetjes}, journal = {Journal of Portuguese Linguistics}, title = {Subject Bare Singulars in Brazilian Portuguese and Information Structure}, year = {2015}, volume = {14}, abstract = {This paper contributes to the debate on the semantics of bare singular nouns (BSNs) in Brazilian Portuguese by looking at the restrictions on their use as subjects. After a reassessment of the literature (e.g., Schmitt & Munn 1999, Müller 2000, Pires et al. 2010), we propose the following descriptive picture: BSN subjects are unconstrained in generic sentences, and somehow constrained with kind predicates and in episodic sentences. The literature has suggested that the constraints in episodic sentences have to do with information structure (e.g., Pires de Oliveira & Mariano 2010, Pires de Oliveira 2012). We submit this suggestion to scrutiny and demonstrate it is not information structure itself that is crucial. Episodic sentences with BSN subjects are utterances about kinds (under an “incompletely involved reading”, cf. Landman 1989) and must be ‘contextually relevant’ (cf. Roberts 1996). We then investigate BSN subjects of generic sentences, argued to be necessarily topics, which would support their analysis as unselective bound indefinites (Müller 2002a, 2004). We show that BSN subjects of generic sentences are not necessarily topics; moreover, they can actually have “incompletely involved kind readings”. We conclude that our results provide support to a kind-denoting analysis of BSNs in Brazilian Portuguese, as proposed by Pires de Oliveira & Rothstein (2011).}, doi = {10.5334/jpl.56}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Menuzzi2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Brazilian Portuguese, Portuguese, non-English, cross-linguistic, relevance, singulars, kinds}, } @InProceedings{Hunter2017, author = {Julie Hunter and M\'{a}rta Abrus\'{a}n}, booktitle = {New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence}, title = {Rhetorical Structure and QUDs}, year = {2017}, editor = {Mihoko Otake and Setsuya Kurahashi and Yuiko Ota and Ken Satoh and Daisuke Bekki}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, abstract = {We consider two hypotheses about how rhetorical structure and QUD structure might come together to provide a more general pragmatic theory. Taking SDRT ([2]) and some basic principles from [18]’s QUD framework as starting points, we first consider the possibility that rhetorical relations can be modelled as QUDs, and vice versa. We ultimately reject this hypothesis in favor of the possibility that QUDs correspond to topics that bind together the members of complex discourse units.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-50953-2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Hunter2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry}, keywords = {discourse relation, discourse structure, elaboration relation, rhetorical structure, SDRT}, } @Article{Anderbois2015, author = {Scott Anderbois and Adrian Brasoveanu and Robert Henderson}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {At-issue Proposals and Appositive Impositions in Discourse}, year = {2015}, number = {1}, pages = {93-138}, volume = {32}, abstract = {Potts (2005) and many subsequent works have argued that the semantic content of appositive (non-restrictive) relative clauses, e.g., the underlined material in John, who nearly killed a woman with his car, visited her in the hospital, must be in some way separate from the content of the rest of the sentence, i.e., from at-issue content. At the same time, there is mounting evidence from various anaphoric processes that the two kinds of content must be integrated into a single, incrementally evolving semantic representation. The challenge is how to reconcile this informational separation with these pervasive anaphoric connections. We propose a dynamic semantic account that accomplishes this by taking appositive and at-issue content to involve two different kinds of updates to the Context Set (CS). Treating the context set as a distinguished propositional variable, pcs, we argue that appositives directly impose their content on the CS by eliminating possible values assigned to pcs. In contrast, we treat at-issue assertions as introducing a new propositional dref and proposing that pcs be updated with its content, subject to addressee's response. In addition to capturing the behavior of appositives in discourse, we show that the account can be extended to capture the projection of appositive content past various sentential operators.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/fft014}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Anderbois2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {appositives, at-issueness, at issue, anaphora, dynamic semantics, projection}, } @InProceedings{Ott2015, author = {Ott, Dennis and Onea, Edgar}, booktitle = {Proceedings of NELS}, title = {On the form and meaning of appositives}, year = {2015}, pages = {203--212}, volume = {45}, abstract = {[Summary from Introduction] First, we show that NAPs come in two basic types: specificational and predicational. We then argue that NAPs of either type are elliptical root clauses. The internal syntax of NAPs is thus equivalent to other ellipsis fragments, such as short answers or the tag in split questions (Merchant 2004, Arregi 2010). Concerning their external syntax, we argue that NAPs bear no syntactic relation to their host clauses; rather, they are interpolated into their hosts only in expression in discourse, where they function as answers to potential questions. That is, NAPs are not structurally related to their hosts (pace Potts 2005, De Vries 2007, O’Connor 2008, Heringa 2012), but rhetorically in discourse.}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {appositives, potential questions, rhetorical relationships, meaning, ellipsis}, url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edgar-Onea/publication/321304042_On_the_form_and_meaning_of_appositives/links/5a1b028da6fdcc50adec7d90/On-the-form-and-meaning-of-appositives.pdf}, } @Unpublished{, author = {Judith Tonhauser and Lisa Matthewson}, title = {Empirical evidence in research on meaning}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Empirical evidence is at the heart of research on natural language meaning. Surprisingly, however, discussions of what constitutes evidence in research on meaning are almost non-existent. The goal of this paper is to open the discussion by advancing a proposal about the nature of empirical evidence in research on meaning. Our proposal is based primarily on insights we and our colleagues have gained in research on under-studied languages and in quantitative research using offline measures, but we intend the proposal to cover research on natural language meaning more broadly, including research on wellstudied languages that the researcher may even control natively. Our proposal has three parts. First, we argue that a complete piece of data in research on meaning consists of a linguistic expression, a context in which the expression is uttered, a response by a native speaker to a task involving the expression in that context, and information about the native speakers that provided the responses. Incomplete pieces of data fail to satisfy our three proposed objectives that data be stable, replicable and transparent. Second, we argue that some response tasks, namely acceptability and implication judgment tasks, are better suited than others (e.g., paraphrase and translation tasks) for yielding stable, replicable and transparent pieces of data. Finally, we argue that empirical evidence for a hypothesis about meaning consists of one positive piece of data, or two pieces in minimal pair form, plus a linking hypothesis about how the piece(s) of data provide support for the meaning hypothesis. We show that different types of minimal pairs provide evidence for different types of meaning hypotheses.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {empirical, meaning, cross-linguistic, data}, url = {https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.730.2636&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @Article{Gast2015, author = {Volker Gast and Christoph Rzymski}, journal = {Linguistik Online}, title = {Towards a corpus-based analysis of evaluative scales associated with even}, year = {2015}, month = {aug}, number = {2}, volume = {71}, abstract = {Scalar focus operators like even, only, etc. interact with scales, i. e., ordered sets of alternatives that are referenced by focus structure. The scaling dimensions interacting with focus operators have been argued to be semantic (e. g. entailment relations, probability) in earlier work, but it has been shown that purely semantic analyses are too restrictive, and that the specific scale that a given operator interacts with is often pragmatic, in the sense of being a function of the context. If that is true, the question arises what exactly determines the (types of) scales interacting with focus operators. The present study addresses this question by investigating the distributional behaviour of the additive scalar particle even relative to scales whose focus alternatives are ordered in terms of evaluative attitudes (positive, negative). Our hypothesis is that such evaluative attitudinal scales are at least partially functions of the lexical material in the sentential environment. This hypothesis is tested by determining correlations between sentence-level attitudes and lexically encoded attitudes in the relevant sentences. We use data from the Europarl corpus, a corpus of scripted and highly elaborated political speech, which is rich in argumentative discourse and thus lends itself to the study of attitudes in context. Our results show that there are in fact significant correlations between (manual) sentence-level evaluations and lexical evaluations (determined through machine learning) in the textual environment of the relevant operators. We conclude with an outlook on possible extensions of the method applied in the present study by identifying attitudinal patterns beyond the sentence, showing that positively and negatively connotated instances of even differ in terms of their argumentative function, with positive even often marking the climax and endpoint of an argument, while negative even often occurs in qualifying insertions like concessive parentheses. While we regard our results as valid, some refinements and extensions of the method are pointed out as necessary steps towards the establishment of an empirical sentence semantics, in the domain of scalar additive operators as well as more generally speaking.}, doi = {10.13092/lo.71.1782}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Gast2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {corpus, experimental, cross-linguistic, relevance, meaning, scales, even, scalars, alternatives, attitudes, lexical meaning}, publisher = {University of Bern}, } @Article{Syrett2015, author = {Syrett, Kristen and Koev, Todor}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Experimental evidence for the truth conditional contribution and shifting information status of appositives}, year = {2015}, number = {3}, pages = {525--577}, volume = {32}, abstract = {Appositive constructions (My friend Sophie, (who is) a classical violinist, performed a piece by Mozart) have stood at the center of debates concerning the range of possible meanings, and more specifically the status of not-at-issue entailments. However, it remains an open question what precisely their semantic and pragmatic contribution is to the sentence in which they appear. Here, we address this question head-on experimentally. We first investigate the information status of appositives and find that while nominal appositives (e.g. a classical violinist) and sentence-medial appositive relative clauses (e.g. who is a classical violinist) are largely not at issue, sentence-final appositive relative clauses can become at issue, as witnessed in their becoming the target of a direct rejection and being associated with subsequent questions. We then investigate the truth conditional contribution of appositives to sentences in which they appear, and find that whenever an appositive is false, participants judge the entire sentence False. Reaction times complement truth value ratings to demonstrate that this decision is largely automatic. We discuss possible reasons for the difference among appositive types and sentential positions, and propose that the pattern of results we observe and the strong similarity with conjunction can best be accounted for in a unidimensional semantics which treats appositives as dynamic conjuncts but which also relates linguistic form to the timing of making assertions in discourse.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffu007}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {appositives, experimental, entailments, at issue, at issueness, not at issue}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, } @Article{Malamud2015, author = {Malamud, Sophia A and Stephenson, Tamina}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Three ways to avoid commitments: Declarative force modifiers in the conversational scoreboard}, year = {2015}, number = {2}, pages = {275--311}, volume = {32}, abstract = {We discuss three English markers that modify the force of declarative utterances: reverse-polarity tags (Tom's here, isn't he?), same-polarity tags (Tom's here, is he?), and rising intonation (Tom's here?). The three are similar in that they seem to render the assertion expressed by the attached declarative tentative in some way. The differences among them are brought out especially clearly in dialogues with taste predicates (tasty, attractive) and vague scalar predicates applied to borderline cases (red for an orange-red object). These differences have consequences for the correct model of conversation, common ground, and speech acts. Our proposal involves a conversational ‘scoreboard’ that allows speakers to make strong or tentative commitments, propose changes or raise expectations about the Common Ground, propose issues to be resolved, and hazard guesses about other participants' beliefs. This model allows for distinctions among speech acts that are subtle and fine-grained enough to account for the behavior of these three markers.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffu002}, groups = {The Language Game, Mood and Speech Acts, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {scoreboard, common ground, speech acts, intonation}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, } @InProceedings{Katzir2012, author = {Roni Katzir and Raj Singh}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 19}, title = {Economy of structure and information: Oddness, questions, and answers}, year = {2012}, abstract = {We examine two conflicting perspectives on oddness: Magri (2009, 2011)’s theory, which derives oddness from blind inferences that clash with common knowledge, and Spector (2014)’s theory that derives oddness from trivial alternatives. Building on these works, we offer a third alternative, one that relies on a discourse condition that says that a good assertion is one that provides a good answer to a good question. A remaining difficulty is the persistence of oddness when the relevant sentences are embedded in environments that are predicted to satisfy the proposed appropriateness conditions.}, doi = {10.18148/sub/2015.v19i0.236}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Katzir2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Implicature}, keywords = {Hurford’s constraint; questions; oddness; scalar implicature; exhaustivity; redundancy; economy; presupposition, scalars}, } @InProceedings{Smith2015, author = {E. Allyn Smith and Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol}, booktitle = {Context 2015: Modeling and Using Context}, title = {Cross-Linguistic Experimental Evidence Distinguishing the Role of Context in Disputes over Taste and Possibility}, year = {2015}, editor = {Henning Christiansen and Isidora Stojanovic and George A. Papadopoulos}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, abstract = {One might think that Sam’s utterance in (1) is a subjective one, essentially expressing that he personally finds the cake tasty, in which case one would not expect significant meaning differences between (1) and a similar utterance where the subjectivity is made explicit, such as (3).}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-25591-0}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/AllynSmith2015.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {common ground, spanish speaker, polarity particle, faultless disagreement, gradable predicate, at-issue, at issueness, relevance, experimental, cross-linguistic, Spanish, polarity, implicature, psycholinguistics, philosophical}, } @Article{Singh2016, author = {Raj Singh and Ken Wexler and Andrea Astle-Rahim and Deepthi Kamawar and Danny Fox}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Children interpret disjunction as conjunction: Consequences for theories of implicature and child development}, year = {2016}, month = {oct}, number = {4}, pages = {305--352}, volume = {24}, abstract = {We present evidence that preschool children oftentimes understand disjunctive sentences as if they were conjunctive. The result holds for matrix disjunctions as well as disjunctions embedded under every. At the same time, there is evidence in the literature that children understand or as inclusive disjunction in downward-entailing contexts. We propose to explain this seemingly conflicting pattern of results by assuming that the child knows the inclusive disjunction semantics of or, and that the conjunctive inference is a scalar implicature. We make two assumptions about implicature computation in the child: (i) that children access only a proper subset of the adult alternatives (specifically, they do not access the lexicon when generating alternatives), and (ii) that children possess the adult capacity to strengthen sentences with implicatures. As a consequence, children are expected to sometimes not compute any implicatures at all, but in other cases they are expected to compute an implicature that is different from the adult implicature. We argue that the child’s conjunctive strengthening of disjunctive sentences realizes the latter possibility: the adult infers that the conjunction is false but the child infers that the conjunction is true. This behaviour is predicted when our assumptions about child development are coupled with the assumption that a covert exhaustive operator is responsible for strengthening in both the child and the adult. Specifically, children’s conjunctive strengthening is predicted to follow from the same mechanism used by adults to compute conjunctive free choice implicatures in response to disjunctive permission sentences (recursive exhaustification). We furthermore argue that this parallel between the child and the adult extends to disambiguation preferences. In particular, we present evidence that children prefer to strengthen disjunctions to conjunctions, in matrix and embedded positions (under every); this result mirrors previous findings that adults prefer to compute free choice, at the root and under every. We propose a disambiguation strategy that explains the preference for conjunctive strengthening – by both the child and the adult – even though there is no general preference for exhaustification. Specifically, we propose that the preference for a conjunctive strengthening follows from a pragmatic preference for a complete answer to the Question Under Discussion.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-016-9126-3}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Singh2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {implicature, exhaustivity, alternatives, free choice, child development, learning, interpretation strategies, ambiguity, experiment}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Ippolito2016, author = {Michela Ippolito}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {How similar is similar enough?}, year = {2016}, month = {mar}, number = {6}, volume = {9}, abstract = {I investigate the issue of the context-dependence of counterfactual conditionals and how the context constrains similarity in selecting the right set of worlds necessary to arrive at the correct truth-conditions. I propose that similarity is constrained by what I call Consistency and Non-Triviality. Assuming a model of the discourse along the lines proposed by Roberts (2012) and Büring (2003), according to which conversational moves are answers to often implicit questions under discussion, the idea behind Non-Triviality is that a counterfactual statement answers a conditional question under discussion and, therefore, is required to make a non-trivial assertion. I show that non-accidental generalizations which have often been taken to play an important role in the interpretation of counterfactuals, are crucial in selecting which conditional question is under discussion, and I propose a formal mechanism to identify the relevant question under discussion.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.9.6}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ippolito2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {counterfactuals; similarity; possible worlds; question under discussion; context-dependence; discourse tree; triviality}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @InCollection{Tian2016, author = {Ye Tian and Richard Breheny}, booktitle = {Language, Cognition, and Mind}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {Dynamic Pragmatic View of Negation Processing}, year = {2016}, month = {jul}, pages = {21--43}, abstract = {Many psycholinguistic studies have found that processing negative sentences is difficult, and often involves the representation of the positive argument. Current rejection accounts suggest that processing the positive argument is the mandatory first step of negation processing, and the difficulty of negation comes from the extra step of embedding. We argue for a dynamic pragmatic view, suggesting that even when processing a sentence without context, comprehenders retrieve contextual information such as its Question Under Discussion (QUD), using linguistic cues. Without supporting context, negation acts as a cue for retrieving and accommodating the most prominent QUD, where the truth of the positive counterpart is at issue. QUD accommodation happens incrementally and automatically, which triggers the representation of the positive argument and contributes to the extra processing cost related to negation.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-17464-8_2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tian2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, dynamic semantics, sentence processing, negations, question under discussion, pragmatics, semantics, cognition, processing cost, processing}, } @Article{Tian2016a, author = {Ye Tian and Heather Ferguson and Richard Breheny}, journal = {Language, Cognition and Neuroscience}, title = {Processing negation without context {\textendash} why and when we represent the positive argument}, year = {2016}, month = {apr}, number = {5}, pages = {683--698}, volume = {31}, abstract = {When processing negative sentences without context, participants often represent states of the positive arguments. Why and when does this occur? Using visual world eye-tracking, participants listened to positive and negative sentences in simple or cleft forms (e.g., [It is] Matt [who] hasn’t shut his dad’s window), while looking at scenes containing a target and a competitor (matches or mismatches the implied shape of the final noun). Results show that in the simple but not the cleft condition, there is a difference between negatives and positives: shortly after the verb, there is more looks to the competitor in the simple negatives than the positives. This suggests that the representation of the positive is not a mandatory first step of negation processing (as per rejection accounts). Rather results support the Question Under Discussion (QUD) accommodation account wherein both sentence content and contextual source of relevance are targets of incremental sentence processing.}, doi = {10.1080/23273798.2016.1140214}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tian2016a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {negation, question under discussion, context, incremental processing, visual world eye-tracking, psycholinguistics, experimental}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @Article{Clifton2016, author = {Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Journal of Memory and Language}, title = {Accommodation to an unlikely episodic state}, year = {2016}, month = {jan}, pages = {20--34}, volume = {86}, abstract = {Mini-discourses like (ia) seem slightly odd compared to their counterparts containing a conjunction (ib). One possibility is that or in Speaker A’s utterance in (ia) raises the potential Question Under Discussion (QUD) whether it was John or Bill who left and Speaker B’s reply fails to address this QUD. A different possibility is that the epistemic state of the speaker of (ia) is somewhat unlikely or uneven: the speaker knows that someone left, and that it was John or Bill, but doesn’t know which one. The results of four acceptability judgment studies confirmed that (ia) is less good or coherent than (ib) (Experiment 1), but not due to failure to address the QUD implicitly introduced by the disjunction because the penalty for disjunction persisted even in the presence of a different overt QUD (Experiment 2) and even when there was no reply to Speaker A (Experiment 3). The hypothesis that accommodating an unusual epistemic state might underlie the lower acceptability of disjunction was supported by the fact that the disjunction penalty is larger in past tense discourses than in future discourses, where partial knowledge of events is the norm (Experiment 4). The results of an eye tracking study revealed a penalty for disjunction relative to conjunction that was significantly smaller when a lead in (I wonder if it was …) explicitly introduced the disjunction. This interaction (connective X lead in) appeared in early measures on the disjunctive phrase itself, suggesting that the input is related to an inferred epistemic state of the speaker in a rapid and ongoing fashion.}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2015.10.004}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clifton2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {processing costs, conjunction, epistemic state, experimental, accommodation}, publisher = {Elsevier {BV}}, } @InProceedings{Romoli2016, author = {Jacopo Romoli and Raffaella Folli and Christina Sevdali}, booktitle = {West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics}, title = {Testing the QUD approach: Children’s comprehension of scopally ambiguous questions}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Children and adults have been reported to differ in their interpretation of scopally ambiguous sen- tences such as Every horse didn’t jump over the fence (Musolino 1998; Gualmini 2004; Gualmini et al. 2008; Musolino & Lidz 2006; see also Lidz & Musolino 2002; Musolino et al. 2000; Musolino & Lidz 2006; Kra ̈mer 2000; Moscati & Crain 2014; Moscati et al. 2016, among many others). A recent approach in the literature treats this difference as fully pragmatic in nature. In particular, Gualmini et al. (2008) have proposed an explanation based on what they call the Question-Answer Requirement (QAR), which locates the source of the difference in the understood Question Under Discussion (QUD) in the context. The main idea behind the QAR is that any sentence is to be understood as an answer to a QUD. As a consequence, in the case of scopally ambiguous sentences, a given reading of the sentence is accessible (to adults and children) only if it constitutes a possible answer to the contextual QUD. Children and adults are then claimed to differ only in how they handle and accommodate QUDs. In particular, if the reading that would answer the salient QUD is false in the context, adults, but not children, are able to accommodate a new QUD in order to access the true interpretation of the ambiguous sentence.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Romoli2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {learning, children, scope, ambiguity, experimental, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/publications/testing-the-qud-approach-childrens-comprehension-of-scopally-ambi-3}, } @Article{Clifton2016a, author = {Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Language and Speech}, title = {Focus in Corrective Exchanges: Effects of Pitch Accent and Syntactic Form}, year = {2016}, abstract = {A dialog consisting of an utterance by one speaker and another speaker’s correction of its content seems intuitively to be made more acceptable when the new information is pitch accented or otherwise focused, and when the utterance and correction have the same syntactic form. Three acceptability judgment studies, one written and two auditory, investigated the interaction of focus (manipulated by sentence position and, in Experiments 2 and 3, pitch accent) and syntactic parallelism. Experiment 1 indicated that syntactic parallelism interacted with position of the new (contrastive) term: nonparallel forms were relatively acceptable when the new term appeared in object position, a position that commonly contains new information (a ‘default focus’ position). Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that presence of a pitch accent and placement in a default focus position had additive effects on acceptability. Surprisingly, spoken dialogs in which the new term appeared in object position were acceptable even when given information carried the most prominent pitch accent. The present studies, and earlier work, suggest that corrected information can be focused either by prosody or position even in spoken English–a language often thought to express focus through pitch accent, not syntactic position.}, doi = {10.1177/0023830915623578}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clifton2016a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {Parallelism, corrective focus, default focus, corrections, prosody, experimental}, } @Article{Soares2016, author = {Eduardo Correa Soares}, journal = {Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences}, title = {Yes-No Answers, Partial Pro-drop Languages and Machine Translation}, year = {2016}, issn = {1877-0428}, note = {International Conference; Meaning in Translation: Illusion of Precision, MTIP2016, 11-13 May 2016, Riga, Latvia}, pages = {135-142}, volume = {231}, abstract = {This paper addresses the automatic translations of verbal answers to yes-no questions from partial pro-drop languages (Brazilian Portuguese and Russian) into a non-pro-drop language (English). The outputs provided by standard statistical machine translations are mostly grammatically inaccurate or semantic-pragmatically inadequate. This paper proposes a question under discussion based annotation to improve the statistical correspondence. The results show the accuracy of the outputs was significantly increased as regards fidelity, adequacy and grammaticality.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.09.082}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {Verbal answers, statistical machine translation, discourse structure, partial pro-drop languages, experimental}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042816311934}, } @InProceedings{Kehler2016, author = {Andrew Kehler}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {On QUD-based licensing of strict and sloppy ambiguities}, year = {2016}, abstract = {According to standard theories of VP-ellipsis, possible readings are determined by constraints (syntactic, semantic, discoursal) that apply jointly to the antecedent and ellipsis clauses. Drawing on insights from a number of previous authors, I present two arguments for a model in which VP-ellipsis meanings are crucially dependent on the operative (and often implicitly resolved) question-under-discussion (QUD; Roberts 1998/2012), specifically requiring that the meaning of an ellipsis clause be a member of the QUD's alternative set.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v25i0.3071}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Kehler2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Ellipsis, Questions-Under-Discussion}, } @Book{Onea2016, author = {Edgar Onea}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In Potential Questions at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface Edgar Onea proposes a novel component for question under discussion based discourse pragmatic theories thereby combining such theories with new ideas from inquisitive semantics. He shows how potential questions account for an entire range of grammatical phenomena. These phenomena include the semantics of indefinite determiners, the meaning contribution of nominal appositives, specificational constructions and non restrictive relative clauses.}, keywords = {potential questions}, } @Article{Goodman2016, author = {Noah D. Goodman and Michael C. Frank}, journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, title = {Pragmatic Language Interpretation as Probabilistic Inference}, year = {2016}, month = {nov}, number = {11}, pages = {818--829}, volume = {20}, abstract = {Understanding language requires more than the use of fixed conventions and more than decoding combinatorial structure. Instead, comprehenders make exquisitely sensitive inferences about what utterances mean given their knowledge of the speaker, language, and context. Building on developments in game theory and probabilistic modeling, we describe the rational speech act (RSA) framework for pragmatic reasoning. RSA models provide a principled way to formalize inferences about meaning in context; they have been used to make successful quantitative predictions about human behavior in a variety of different tasks and situations, and they explain why complex phenomena, such as hyperbole and vagueness, occur. More generally, they provide a computational framework for integrating linguistic structure, world knowledge, and context in pragmatic language understanding.}, doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2016.08.005}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Goodman2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {rational speech act, rsa, game theory, games, computational, psycholinguistics, probability}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Cummins2016, author = {Chris Cummins}, journal = {Topoi}, title = {Using Triggers Without Projecting Presuppositions}, year = {2016}, month = {nov}, number = {1}, pages = {123--131}, volume = {35}, abstract = {Presuppositions are capable of projecting from under the scope of operators such as negation, but do not obligatorily do so. This creates a potential difficulty for the hearer of presupposition-bearing utterances, especially given the fact that speaker can use presupposition to convey entirely new information. In this paper, I discuss the potential role of context in resolving this tension, and in particular, I argue that the inferences that are drawn about the current discourse purpose may be materially relevant to the interpretation of potential presuppositions. I also consider some of the implications of this for recent experimental work on presupposition and projection.}, doi = {10.1007/s11245-014-9275-2}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Cummins2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Accomodation, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {presupposition, projection, accommodation, context, QUD}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media {LLC}}, } @MastersThesis{Nisidis2016, author = {Nisidis, Nikolas}, school = {Universiteit van Amsterdam}, title = {A decompositional analysis of discourse relations}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Current approaches to discourse coherence hypothesize a number of discourse relations which are used to link sentential units to one another. These relations, also called “coherence” or “rhetorical” relations, are defined either semantically in terms of their truth-conditional content or pragmatically in terms of speaker intention. Our enterprise consists in analyzing the constituting features of discourse relations and, more specifically, in investigating the inferences involved when a speaker or a hearer links two parts of a text. The framework we use to carry out our analysis is based on two main assumptions: agents reason in a Bayesian fashion and discourse is characterized by some sense of topicality. For that reason, we use a version of Update Semantics and combine it with Causal Probabilities along with Argumentation and Questions Under Discussion. Causal Probabilities allow us to model causal and identity inferences the interlocutors make as well as probabilistic inferences having to do with modalities, whereas Questions Under Discussion provide an elegant way to model topicality. We analyze the 32 discourse relations of Rhetorical Structure Theory due to the latter’s longevity as a discourse structure theory and its application in a variety of linguistic fields. The main result of our analysis is that disycourse relations can be reduced to specific inferences and there is no need to hypothesize any primitive relations constituting these relations. Given the nature of the inferences, it is also possible that a Bayesian interpreter be able to automatically assign a discourse relation just by answering certain questions pertinent to discourse structure.}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {coherence relations, rhetorical raltions, update semantics, probability}, url = {https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/974}, } @InProceedings{Bledin2016, author = {Justin Bledin and Kyle Rawlins}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {Epistemic resistance moves}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This paper introduces and analyzes a new kind of non-acceptance, non-disagreeing move: resistance. We focus in particular on attention-targeted resistance facilitated by epistemic possibility claims. In this response type, we suggest, an agent draws attention to some subsidiary issue that they think might cause an interlocutor to withdraw a previous commitment. We develop a granularity model of attention where drawing attention in discourse can refine the space of possibilities under consideration and consequently lead to changes in view.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bledin2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {discourse, resistance, rejection, disagreement, epistemic modals, attention, epistemic}, } @Article{Harris2016, author = {Jesse A. Harris}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {Processing let alone coordination in silent reading}, year = {2016}, month = {jan}, pages = {70--94}, volume = {169}, abstract = {Processing research on coordination indicates that simpler conjuncts are preferred over more complex ones, and that positing ellipsis structure in the second conjunct is taxing to process when a simpler non-ellipsis structure exists. The present study investigates let alone coordination, which is argued to require clausal ellipsis in the second conjunct. It is proposed that the processor always projects a clausal structure for the second conjunct for the ellipsis, obviating a general preference for a less complex conjunct. Experiment 1 consists of several sentence-completion questionnaires testing whether a DP or VP conjunct is preferred in let alone structures as in John doesn’t like Mary, let alone (Sue | love her). The results found a bias towards VP remnants that was weakly affected by syntactic placement of the focus particle even, as well as by prior context. Experiment 2 examined the effect of remnant type on eye movements during silent reading, revealing only distinct processing patterns, rather than major processing penalties, for different remnant types, and a general facilitation when even was present to signal upcoming scalar contrast.}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2015.10.008}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Harris2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, experimental, sentence processing, ellipsis, coordination, eye movements, focus particles}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @Article{Bill2016, author = {Cory Bill and Jacopo Romoli and Florian Schwarz and Stephen Crain}, journal = {Topoi}, title = {Scalar Implicatures Versus Presuppositions: The View from Acquisition}, year = {2016}, month = {nov}, number = {1}, pages = {57--71}, volume = {35}, doi = {10.1007/s11245-014-9276-1}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bill2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {presuppositions, scalar implicatures, pragmatics, child language acquisition, children, psycholinguistics, experimental}, publisher = {Springer}, } @InProceedings{Tonhauser2016, author = {Judith Tonhauser}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {Prosodic cues to presupposition projection}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In English utterances with factive predicates, the content of the clausal complement of the predicate may project, i.e., taken to be a commitment of the speaker, even when the factive predicate is embedded under an entailment canceling operator (e.g., Kiparsky & Kiparsky 1971; Karttunen 1971). Based on impressionistic judgments, Beaver (2010) and Simons, Beaver, Roberts & Tonhauser (to appear) suggested that whether the content of the complement of an utterance with a factive predicate projects depends on the information structure of the utterance and, since information structure is prosodically marked, on the prosodic realization of the utterance. This paper describes the results of three perception experiments designed to explore the influence of the prosodic realization of an utterance with a factive predicate on the projection of the content of the complement. The results of the experiments suggest that the prosodic realization of such utterances provides a cue to the projectivity of the content of the complement. These findings provide empirical support for the question-based analysis of projection advanced in Simons et al. to appear.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v26i0.3788}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tonhauser2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {presuppositions, factive predicates, prosody, Questions Under Discussion, experimental, projection}, } @Article{Abbott2016, author = {Barbara Abbott}, journal = {Topoi}, title = {An Information Packaging Approach to Presuppositions and Conventional Implicatures}, year = {2016}, month = {jan}, number = {1}, pages = {9--21}, volume = {35}, abstract = {Within the relevant semantics and pragmatics literature the terms ‘‘presupposition’’ and ‘‘conventional implicature’’ are used in a variety of different, but frequently overlapping, ways. The overlaps are perhaps not surprising, given that the two categories of conveyed meaning share the property of remaining constant in the scope of other operators—the property (Tonhauser et al. in Language 89:66–109, 2013) usefully characterize as PROJECTIVITY. One of my purposes in this paper will be to try to clarify these different usages. In addition to that we will explore two additional properties which are shared by some of these projective contents—STRONG CONTEXTUAL FELICITY (Tonhauser et al. in Language 89:66–109, 2013), and NEUTRALIZABILITY (Abbott in Drawing the boundaries of meaning: Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn. John Benjamins, Philadelphia, 2006). The idea is to try to explain all three properties by taking into account information packaging.}, doi = {10.1007/s11245-014-9285-0}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Abbott2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {information structure, presupposition, conventional implicature, projection, strong contextual felicity, neutralization}, publisher = {Springer}, } @InProceedings{Reading3928, author = {Kordula {De Kuthy} and Ramon Ziai and Detmar Meurers}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'16)}, title = {Focus Annotation of Task-based Data: A Comparison of Expert and Crowd-Sourced Annotation in a Reading and Comprehension Corpus}, year = {2016}, pages = {3928--3935}, abstract = {While the formal pragmatic concepts in information structure, such as the focus of an utterance, are precisely defined in theoretical linguistics and potentially very useful in conceptual and practical terms, it has turned out to be difficult to reliably annotate such notions in corpus data (Ritz et al., 2008; Calhoun et al., 2010). We present a large-scale focus annotation effort designed to overcome this problem. Our annotation study is based on the tasked-based corpus CREG (Ott et al., 2012), which consists of answers to explicitly given reading comprehension questions. We compare focus annotation by trained annotators with a crowd-sourcing setup making use of untrained native speakers. Given the task context and an annotation process incrementally making the question form and answer type explicit, the trained annotators reach substantial agreement for focus annotation. Interestingly, the crowd-sourcing setup also supports high-quality annotation – for specific subtypes of data. Finally, we turn to the question whether the relevance of focus annotation can be extrinsically evaluated. We show that automatic short-answer assessment significantly improves for focus annotated data. The focus annotated CREG corpus is freely available and constitutes the largest such resource for German.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/DeKuthy2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches, Focus}, keywords = {information structure, focus, crowd sourcing, learner corpora, short-answer assessment, corpus, experimental, German, cross-linguistic}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/L16-1621}, } @InProceedings{Jayez2016, author = {Jacques Jayez and Rob Reinecke}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {Presuppositions and salience An and experimental approach}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We present an EEG-based experimental investigation on additive discourse continuations of factive sentences according to a pattern: "Paul knows that Peter takes the bus. Louis too takes/knows . . ." . We want to determine whether reference to the main content (with "knows") or to the presupposition (with "takes") elicits a different brain response. We conclude from the data that there is no trace of electrical waveforms usually associated with deviation from a norm or reprocessing, although there is an observable moderate contrast in the 250-400 ms time window at frontal sites, which is in need of controlled replication to be properly interpreted.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v26i0.3943}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Jayex2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {presupposition, salience, at issue content, experimental linguistics, psycholinguistics}, } @Article{Ginzburg2016, author = {Jonathan Ginzburg and Poesio, Massimo}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Grammar Is a System That Characterizes Talk in Interaction}, year = {2016}, volume = {7}, abstract = {Much of contemporary mainstream formal grammar theory is unable to provide analyses for language as it occurs in actual spoken interaction. Its analyses are developed for a cleaned up version of language which omits the disfluencies, non-sentential utterances, gestures, and many other phenomena that are ubiquitous in spoken language. Using evidence from linguistics, conversation analysis, multimodal communication, psychology, language acquisition, and neuroscience, we show these aspects of language use are rule governed in much the same way as phenomena captured by conventional grammars. Furthermore, we argue that over the past few years some of the tools required to provide a precise characterizations of such phenomena have begun to emerge in theoretical and computational linguistics; hence, there is no reason for treating them as “second class citizens” other than pre-theoretical assumptions about what should fall under the purview of grammar. Finally, we suggest that grammar formalisms covering such phenomena would provide a better foundation not just for linguistic analysis of face-to-face interaction, but also for sister disciplines, such as research on spoken dialogue systems and/or psychological work on language acquisition.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01938}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ginzburg2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Clarification Requests}, keywords = {interaction and the competence/performance distinction, semantics of dialogue, non-sentential utterances, self-repair and other-repair, quotation, gestures and multimodal grammar, clarification requests, psycholinguistics}, } @Article{Skordos2016, author = {Dimitrios Skordos and Anna Papafragou}, journal = {Cognition}, title = {Children's derivation of scalar implicatures: Alternatives and relevance}, year = {2016}, month = {aug}, pages = {6--18}, volume = {153}, abstract = {Utterances such as “Megan ate some of the cupcakes” are often interpreted as “Megan ate some but not all of the cupcakes”. Such an interpretation is thought to arise from a pragmatic inference called scalar implicature (SI). Preschoolers typically fail to spontaneously generate SIs without the assistance of training or context that make the stronger alternative salient. However, the exact role of alternatives in generating SIs remains contested. Specifically, it is not clear whether children have difficulty with spontaneously generating possible informationally stronger scalemates, or with considering how alternatives might be relevant. We present three studies with English-speaking 5-year-olds and adults designed to address these questions. We show that (a) the accessibility of the stronger alternative is important for children’s SI generation (Experiment 1); (b) the explicit presence of the stronger alternative leads children to generate SIs only when the stronger scalar term can easily be seen as relevant (Experiment 2); and (c) in contexts that establish relevant alternatives, the explicit presence of the stronger alternative is not necessary (Experiment 3). We conclude that children’s considerations of lexical alternatives during SI-computation include an important role for conversational relevance. We also show that this more nuanced approach to the role of lexical alternatives in pragmatic inference unifies previously unconnected findings about children’s early pragmatic development and bears on major accounts proposed to date for children’s problems with SIs.}, doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2016.04.006}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Skordos2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, children, learning, scalar implicature, scalars, relevant alternatives, pragmatic inference, pragmatic development, experimental}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @InProceedings{Qing2016, author = {Qing, Ciyang and Goodman, Noah D and Lassiter, Daniel}, booktitle = {CogSci}, title = {A rational speech-act model of projective content.}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Certain content of a linguistic construction can project when the construction is embedded in entailment-canceling environments. For example, the conclusion that John smoked in the past from the utterance John stopped smoking still holds for John didn’t stop smoking, in which the original utterance is embedded under negation. There are two main approaches to account for projection phenomena. The semantic approach adds restrictions of the common ground to the conventional meaning. The pragmatic approach tries to derive projection from general conversational principles. In this paper we build a probabilistic model of language understanding in which the listener jointly infers the world state and what common ground the speaker has assumed. We take change-of-state verbs as an example and model its projective content under negation. Under certain assumptions, the model predicts the projective behavior and its interaction with the question under discussion (QUD), without any special semantic treatment of projective content.}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {projection, probability, presupposition, Bayesian pragmatics, rational speech act, rsa}, url = {https://cogsci.mindmodeling.org/2016/papers/0200/index.html}, } @InProceedings{Bade2016, author = {Nadine Bade and — University and of Tübingen and Sonja Tiemann and — University and of Tübingen}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung}, title = {Obligatory Triggers under Negation}, year = {2016}, pages = {109-126}, volume = {20}, abstract = {In this paper, we present two experimental studies which test the different predictions of two theories for the obligatory occurrence of the presupposition triggers ”again” and ”too” (German ”auch” and ”wieder”) under negation. One theory assumes that ”again” and ”too” are inserted to avoid a mandatory exhaustivity implicature that contradicts the context. A second theory assumes that the insertion of ”again” and ”too” follows from a principle Maximize Presupposition (Heim 1991). We provide experimental evidence that shows that both triggers are not obligatory under negation. This supports an approach which works with obligatory exhaustivity implicatures and speaks against an analysis using Maximize Presupposition.}, doi = {10.18148/sub/2016.v20i0.207}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bade2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {presupposition, implicatures, negation, maximization, cross-linguistic, German, experimental}, } @InProceedings{Woods2016, author = {Rebecca Woods}, booktitle = {Proceedings of WCCFL 33}, title = {Embedded Inverted Questions as Embedded Illocutionary Acts}, year = {2016}, abstract = {[Taken from Intro]: Embedded inverted questions (EIQs) are a fairly well studied phenomenon in English dialects and have previously been analysed as evidence for direct CP recursion in Germanic languages. In this paper, their properties as speech reports will be further investigated and the CP recursion analysis will be updated, showing that the structure of EIQs has implications for our understanding of clausal selection and the possibility of embedded speech acts in natural language. Specifically, further evidence will be provided that not all cases of clausal complementation involve selection and evidence of embedded illocutionary force in English will be presented. The paper is structured as follows; the key data on EIQs will be presented along with new observations on their meaning and use. Secondly, an analysis of the embedded clause itself will be presented which proposes that illocutionary force independent of the matrix force is available in EIQs. Thirdly, a proposal for the linking of the EIQ and the matrix clause will be made which accounts for both the embedded characteristics of the EIQ and its incompatibility with selection by the matrix verb. It will be proposed that the embedded clause refers to an utterance in a previous discourse and is identified as the content of the true complement to the matrix verb, namely a null nominal. The paper then concludes with directions for future research.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Woods2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts}, keywords = {speech acts, embedded questions}, } @Article{AnderBois2016, author = {AnderBois, Scott}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Semantics and pragmatics of (not-)at-issueness in {Yucatec} {Maya} attitude reports}, year = {2016}, month = {4}, number = {19}, pages = {1--55}, volume = {9}, abstract = {English attitude reports like “x thinks that p” can be used in two different types of contexts: ones where the Question Under Discussion (QUD) concerns whether or not p is true and ones where the QUD concerns x’s mental state itself. Yucatec Maya (YM) has two different morphosyntactic forms differing superficially in the presence or absence of the morpheme -e’, which serves as a topic marker elsewhere in the language. This paper argues that despite these two forms being truth-conditionally equivalent, their use is consistently correlated with which sort of QUD is present in the context. To account for these facts, I develop a particular conception of the relationships between QUDs, relevance, at-issueness, and assertion, building on the account of Simons et al. (2011). Given this theory, I propose a semantics where -e’ encodes that the attitudinal predication is parenthetical — that is, not part of the at-issue proposal (similar to English sentences like “It’s raining, I think”) and instead contributes to what I dub the basis of the proposal. I show that this semantics, together with plausible general pragmatic reasoning, provides an account of the meaning of the two attitude constructions in YM and their distribution in discourse.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.9.19}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {assertion, at-issueness, Question Under Discussion, topic, Yucatec Maya, cross-linguistic, attitudes}, } @Article{Benz2017, author = {Anton Benz and Katja Jasinskaja}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {Questions Under Discussion: From Sentence to Discourse}, year = {2017}, number = {3}, pages = {177-186}, volume = {54}, comment = {Introduction to the 2017 Special Issue of Discourse Processes on the QUD.}, doi = {10.1080/0163853X.2017.1316038}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1316038}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals, Psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Routledge}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1316038}, } @Article{Cummins2017, author = {Chris Cummins}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {Contextual Causes of Implicature Failure}, year = {2017}, number = {3}, pages = {207-218}, volume = {54}, abstract = {Theoretical and empirical research on quantity implicature has concurred that pragmatically strengthened, richer readings are not available when they are not relevant to the discourse purpose. However, this claim relies on an appeal to a notion of “relevance” that has proved difficult to make precise. In this article I discuss and contrast two potential contributory factors to relevance: adherence to the Question Under Discussion, and form-based priming effects. The former can be considered to operate at a relatively high level of analysis, from the speaker's perspective, and influences the semantic content that the speaker should be attempting to convey, whereas the latter is assumed to reflect low-level psychological preferences and influences the form of words that the speaker should use. I argue that pragmatics, and specifically implicature, constitutes a useful testbed for distinguishing these effects—the availability of an implicature can be used as an indicator that a particular stronger alternative would also have been an acceptable utterance, whereas its unavailability suggests that the stronger alternative would not necessarily have been acceptable. I discuss recent experimental data from this perspective and argue that both Question Under Discussion and priming effects are customarily at play. I conclude by exploring the implications of this for our view of pragmatics and its interfaces.}, doi = {10.1080/0163853X.2016.1142331}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2016.1142331}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {relevance, quantity implicature, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Routledge}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2016.1142331}, } @Article{Kehler2017, author = {Andrew Kehler and Hannah Rohde}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {Evaluating an Expectation-Driven Question-Under-Discussion Model of Discourse Interpretation}, year = {2017}, number = {3}, pages = {219-238}, volume = {54}, abstract = {According to Question-Under-Discussion (QUD) models of discourse interpretation, clauses cohere with the preceding context by virtue of providing answers to (usually implicit) questions that are situated within a speaker's goal-driven strategy of inquiry. In this article we present four experiments that examine the predictions of a QUD model of interpretation when cast in terms of an integrated, expectation-driven model of discourse processing. The results of these studies together support the predictions of the model, demonstrating that contextual cues affect comprehenders' expectations about ensuing QUDs (Experiment 1), QUD expectations in turn influence the interpretation of discourse-dependent linguistic expressions (Experiment 2), and the biases associated with those expressions in turn influence the anticipation of QUDs (Experiments 3a and b).}, doi = {10.1080/0163853X.2016.1169069}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2016.1169069}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {coherence, experimental, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Routledge}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2016.1169069}, } @Article{Jasinskaja2017, author = {Katja Jasinskaja and Fabienne Salfner and Constantin Freitag}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {Discourse-Level Implicature: A Case for QUD}, year = {2017}, number = {3}, pages = {239-258}, volume = {54}, abstract = {This article argues that multisentence discourses give rise to Gricean quantity implicatures that go beyond the mere sum of the implicatures of the sentences they consist of. We formulate two theories of discourse-level implicature: the null theory, which only has a mechanism for sentence-level implicature and does not rely on any specific notion of discourse structure, and a theory that assumes that discourse is hierarchically structured by Questions Under Discussion (QUD) and that QUDs can guide the derivation of quantity implicatures at all levels of discourse structure. In two experiments using the inference task paradigm and focusing on sequences of sentences with contrastive topic, the QUD-based theory is shown to make more accurate predictions than the null theory. This finding provides additional motivation for the QUD-based approach to discourse structure.}, doi = {10.1080/0163853X.2016.1150672}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2016.1150672}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, quantity implicature, quantity, experimental}, publisher = {Routledge}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2016.1150672}, } @InProceedings{DiBacco2017, author = {Federica {Di Bacco} and Lyn Tieu and Vincenzo Moscati and Raffaella Folli and Christina Sevdali and Jacopo Romoli}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 34th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics}, title = {Testing the QUD Approach: Children’s Comprehension of Scopally Ambiguous Questions}, year = {2017}, pages = {177-186}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/DiBacco2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {QAR, children, learning, psycholinguistics, scope, ambiguity, experimental}, url = {http://lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/34/paper3310.pdf}, } @Article{Airenti2017, author = {Airenti, Gabriella and Plebe, Alessio}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Editorial Context in Communication: a Cognitive view}, year = {2017}, issn = {1664-1078}, pages = {115}, volume = {8}, comment = {Provides an editorial and overview of the Research Topic Context in Communication: A Cognitve View, from Frontiers in Psychology.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00115}, groups = {Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, context, cognition}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00115}, } @Article{Lassiter2015, author = {Daniel Lassiter and Noah D. Goodman}, journal = {Synthese}, title = {Adjectival vagueness in a Bayesian model of interpretation}, year = {2015}, month = {jun}, number = {10}, pages = {3801--3836}, volume = {194}, abstract = {We derive a probabilistic account of the vagueness and context-sensitivity of scalar adjectives from a Bayesian approach to communication and interpretation. We describe an iterated-reasoning architecture for pragmatic interpretation and illustrate it with a simple scalar implicature example. We then show how to enrich the apparatus to handle pragmatic reasoning about the values of free variables, explore its predictions about the interpretation of scalar adjectives, and show how this model implements Edgington’s (Analysis 2:193–204,1992, Keefe and Smith (eds.) Vagueness: a reader, 1997) account of the sorites paradox, with variations. The Bayesian approach has a number of explanatory virtues: in particular, it does not require any special-purpose machinery for handling vagueness, and it is integrated with a promising new approach to pragmatics and other areas of cognitive science.}, doi = {10.1007/s11229-015-0786-1}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Lassiter2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {vagueness, probability, cognitive science, psycholinguistics, sorites paradox, bayesian pragmatics, adjectives, philosophical}, publisher = {Springer}, } @Article{Roberts2017, author = {Craige Roberts}, journal = {Analytic Philosophy}, title = {Linguistic Convention and the Architecture of Interpretation}, year = {2017}, number = {4}, pages = {418-439}, volume = {58}, doi = {10.1111/phib.12113}, groups = {An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory, Psycholinguistics, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {implicatures, Gricean maxims, convention, psycholinguistics, relevance, anaphora resolution}, } @Unpublished{Hawkins2019, author = {Robert Hawkins and Noah Goodman}, note = {In the PsyArxiv Preprints}, title = {Why do you ask? The informational dynamics of questions and answers}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Asking questions is one of our most efficient and reliable means of learning about the world. Yet we do not often pose these questions to an impartial oracle; we ask cooperative social partners, in dialogue. In this paper, we aim to reconcile formal models of optimal question asking and answering with classic effects of social context. We begin from the observation that question-answer dialogue is motivated by a two-sided asymmetry in beliefs: questioners have a private goal but lack goal-relevant information about the world, and answerers have private information but lack knowledge about the questioner's goal. We formalize this problem in a computational framework and derive pragmatic questioner and answerer behavior from recursive social reasoning. Critically, we predict that pragmatic answerers go beyond the literal meaning of the question to be informative with respect to inferred goals, and that pragmatic questioners may therefore select questions to more unambiguously signal their goals. We evaluate our pragmatic models against asocial models in two ways. First, we present computational simulations accounting for three classic answerer effects in psycholinguistics. We then introduce the Hidden Goal paradigm for experimentally eliciting questioner and answerer behavior in scenarios where there is uncertainty about the questioner's goal. We report data from three experiments in this paradigm and show how our core computational framework can be composed with more sophisticated question semantics, hierarchical goal spaces, and a persistent state over which extended dialogue can unfold. We find that social inference is needed to account for critical aspects of the data.}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {questions and answers, semantics and pragmatics, social reasoning, social learning, language, computational modeling, active learning, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://psyarxiv.com/j2cp6}, } @PhdThesis{Wilson2017, author = {Wilson, Elspeth Amabel}, school = {University of Cambridge}, title = {Children’s development of Quantity, Relevance and Manner implicature understanding and the role of the speaker’s epistemic state}, year = {2017}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.17152}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition and Processing, Implicature, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {pragmatics, implicature, language development, epistemic state, experimental pragmatics, perspective-taking, experimental, psycholinguistics, learning}, } @Article{Dillon2017, author = {Brian Dillon and Charles Clifton and Shayne Sloggett and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Journal of Memory and Language}, title = {Appositives and their aftermath: Interference depends on at-issue vs. not-at-issue status}, year = {2017}, month = {oct}, pages = {93--109}, volume = {96}, abstract = {Much research has explored the degree to which not-at-issue content is interpreted independently of at-issue content, or the main assertion of a sentence (AnderBois, Brasoveanu, & Henderson, 2011; Harris & Potts, 2009; Potts, 2005; Schlenker, 2010; Tonhauser, 2011; a.o.). Building on this work, psycholinguistic research has explored the hypothesis that not-at-issue content, such as appositive relative clauses, is treated distinctly from at-issue content in online processing (Dillon, Clifton, & Frazier, 2014; Syrett & Koev, 2015). In the present paper, we explore the way in which appositive relative clauses interact with their host sentences in the course of incremental sentence comprehension. In an offline acceptability judgment, we find that appositive relative clauses contribute significantly less processing difficulty when they intervene between a filler and its gap than do superficially similar restrictive relative clauses. Results from two eye-tracking-while-reading studies suggests that recently processed restrictive relative clauses interfere to a greater degree with processes of integrating the filler at its gap site than do appositive relative clauses. Our findings suggest that the degree of interference observed during sentence processing may depend on the discourse status of potentially interfering constituents. We propose that this arises because the syntactic form of not-at-issue content is rendered relatively unavailable once it has been processed.}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2017.04.008}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Dillon2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, Sentence comprehension, Working memory, Appositive relative clauses, Filler-gap processing, At-issueness, appositives}, publisher = {Elsevier}, } @PhdThesis{Soares2017, author = {Eduardo Correa Soares}, school = {Universit\'{e} Sorbonne Paris Cit\'{e}}, title = {Anaphors in discourse : anaphoric subjects in {B}razilian {P}ortuguese}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The present dissertation is concerned with the use and interpretation of null and pronominal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese. This investigation examines these phenomena in an attempt to disentangle the semantic and discursive factors that can be relevant for choice between these anaphoric expressions in Brazilian Portuguese and the way in which this choice is articulated with the general theory of anaphora resolution. The starting point of this dissertation was the research looking into null and overt subjects from the perspective of Generative Grammar, specially the Parametric Theory. Throughout the present work, however, the analyses proposed in this perspective were shown not to account for the data at stake. The generalization that poor verbal morphology is directly related to the absence or reduced frequency of null subjects, for example, is challenged through experimental data and an investigation of the relative frequency of null subjects across discourse persons in corpora. An alternative explanation presented in the previous literature, namely the importance of the antecedents’ features of Animacy and Specificity, seems to better account for the attested distribution. However, this explanation is not sufficient for understanding the choice between null and overt subjects in Brazilian Portuguese, since the number of animate and specific null subjects is still relatively higher than in languages with obligatory expression of subjects. Therefore, it is argued that discourse factors seem to play a crucial role in the use of null and overt subjects in Brazilian Portuguese. The main factors identified here are Obviousness and Contrast. The first is a standard feature in the literature about anaphora resolution (expressed by a variety of terms, such as Salience, Familiarity, Accessibility, etc.), which is part of the reverse mapping hypothesis according to which the more obvious the subject is, the less explicit the co-referential form is allowed to be. The second factor, Contrast, is the main finding of the present dissertation: as is the case for other levels of linguistic analyses and other phenomena in language, the choice of anaphoric expression in Brazilian Portuguese seems to be driven by efficiency. In the present case, this means that, when the backgrounded information and the asserted (focused) in- formation in an utterance contrast the most, it is more likely that a null subject will be used. The design of a grammar that deals with these multiple features is sketched, specifically, a multi-layered scalar probabilistic grammar is proposed, whose semantic and discourse constraints act in parallel through a probabilistic mapping. It is, thus, shown that null subjects are likely in discursive co- reference, since in these contexts their antecedents are more obvious and the focused information contrasts the most with the background. An apparent counter-example to the proposal sketched here is analyzed: the generic interpretation of null subjects. However, it is shown that the same semantic constraints cross-linguistically applied to other generic constructions can produce generic null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese, given the failure to be grounded predicted by the approach proposed here. Finally, on-line evidence for the analysis of the use and interpretation of null and pronominal subjects is provided. The results found in three eye-tracking while reading experiments provide striking evidence in favor of the proposal put forward here, according to which null and overt subjects and their interpretation can be accounted for in terms of constraints on interpretation rather than licensing.}, groups = {Anaphora Resolution, Experimental Approaches, Cross-Linguistic, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, Brazilian Portuguese, pronouns, anaphora, probability, pro-drop parameter, anaphora resolution, semantic features, discourse structure, corpus analysis, psycholinguistic experiments, experimental, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01984623}, } @PhdThesis{Shirref2017, author = {Patrick Shirref}, school = {University of Michigan}, title = {What We Can Do with Words:Essays on the Relationship Between Linguistic andNon-Linguistic Theorizing}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The essays that make up my dissertation share a methodological approach that aims to explore the philosophical implications of linguists' accounts of ordinary language use. In particular, all of them focus on epistemic natural language and the implications that linguists' accounts of such language has for epistemology. The first essay focuses on the debate about the norms that govern assertion and shows the ways in which research on natural language evidentiality has direct bearing. This essay uses existing cross-linguistic data about assertions in Quechua and Cheyenne to argue that assertions and the norms that govern them are more complex than allowed for in extant views. What makes Quechua and Cheyenne important is that they allow speakers to assert sentences the content of which they do not believe, or even believe to be false, as long as the sentence contains the right evidential marker. This is a problem for the current theories as they all take belief in the proposition being expressed as a minimal requirement for a speaker to felicitously assert. Given the data, I argue that we should see evidential markers as modifying the norm that is in place governing felicity of the current content. I go on to present three implementations of a context-sensitive norm and argue that only the ones that are evidence-based or completely contextual can properly capture the entire set of linguistic data. In the second essay I argue that epistemic uses of 'should' can be modelling using the standard Kratzerian modal canon. In Kratzer's system, modals induce quantification over some partially ordered, restricted class of worlds. The relevant partially ordered, restricted class of worlds is generally fixed by two ingredients: a modal base and an ordering source. Modelling epistemic uses of 'should' requires us to rethink and expand what has traditionally been thought of as making up an epistemic modal base. Traditionally it has been thought that epistemic modal bases just include information about probabilities but this thought needs to be updated in order to bring epistemic 'should' into the fold. I argue that there are good theoretical reasons for having as uniform a semantics as possible then show that the context-sensitive semantic model that I develop meets all empirical demands. I end the essay by arguing that this updated way of thinking about epistemic modals bases has implications for epistemology. The final essay outlines the broad type of methodological approach mentioned above that guides the research throughout the dissertation. In it, I argue that the results of linguistics' theorizing about semantics, especially within the epistemic domain, ought to be seen as an accurate guide to reality. Looking to the way that language evolves over time and what it takes for information to become encoded into language is what drives this result. Buttressing the evolutionary explanation with results from the Condorcet Jury Theorem gives us more reason to believe that language is an accurate, albeit defeasible, guide to reality. If these results hold, they not only have broad implications for how we ought to be conducting our epistemological theorizing but our philosophical theorizing in general.}, groups = {Philosophical Applications, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, at-issue, Quechua, Cheyenne, epistemic, philosophical}, url = {https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/140955}, } @PhdThesis{Crone2017, author = {Crone, Philip}, school = {Stanford University}, title = {Redundancy and Awareness in Discourse}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Rational speakers should not be redundant. This is a view on language use that is both widely held and intuitively compelling. It is also wrong. This dissertation shows that speakers routinely produce redundant utterances and explores the reasons why they do so. In particular, it focuses on rational motivations for redundancy as they relate to a speaker's desire to raise a listener's awareness of or draw a listener's attention to some issue. At a high level, this dissertation demonstrates that the models standardly assumed by linguists for modelling discourse are insufficient to make sense of the full range of functions that language use serves. These models typically make the idealizing assumptions that all speakers and listeners have perfect memories, are fully rational, and are logically omniscient. The arguments in the following pages show the necessity of thinking of linguistic discourse in a more nuanced way. This more elaborate model of discourse recognizes that speakers are well aware of the cognitive limitations of their interlocutors, but also that they have well-developed strategies to deal with such limitations.}, keywords = {redundancy, attention, rationality, cognitive limitations, cognition, psycholinguistics, Rational speakers, Redundancy, Compelling language, Listener's attention, Language use}, url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/redundancy-awareness-discourse/docview/2510298878/se-2?accountid=978}, } @Article{HautliJanisz2017, author = {Annette Hautli-Janisz and Mennatallah El-Assady}, journal = {Argument and Computation}, title = {Rhetorical strategies in German argumentative dialogs}, year = {2017}, pages = {153-174}, volume = {8}, abstract = {An important factor of argument mining in dialog or multilog data is the framing with which interlocutors put forth their arguments. By using rhetorical devices such as hedging or reference to the Common Ground, speakers relate themselves to their interlocutors, their arguments, and the ongoing discourse. Capitalizing on theoretical linguistic insights into the semantics and pragmatics of discourse particles in German, we propose a categorization of rhetorical information that is highly relevant in natural transcribed speech. In order to shed light on the rhetorical strategies of different interlocutors in large amounts of real mediation data, we use a method from Visual Analytics which allows for an exploration of the rhetorical patterns via an interactive visual interface. With this innovative combination of theoretical linguistics, argument mining and information visualization, we offer a novel way of analyzing framing strategies in large amounts of multi-party argumentative discourse in German.}, doi = {10.3233/AAC-170022}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Hautli-Janisz2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {rhetorical packaging, discourse particles, argument mining, information visualization, multi-party discourse, cross-linguistic, German}, } @InCollection{Clark2017, author = {Brady Clark}, booktitle = {Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics}, title = {Pragmatics and Intonation}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Intonation impacts pragmatic meaning. A range of empirical evidence shows that the pragmatic functions of intonation are specifiable. The dimensions of meaning impacted by intonation include at-issue meanings (for example, what is asserted in an assertion), presuppositions, conversational implicatures, and conventional implicatures. Certain linguistic expressions (such as the English exclusive only) are dependent on intonation, and some of these dependencies impact at-issue meaning. Intonation can also trigger certain presuppositions, in particular a certain type of anaphoric presupposition associated with the discourse context. There is also a robust interaction between intonation and implicature. The intonational prominence associated with focus can trigger certain scalar, existence, and exhaustive conversational implicatures. Finally, certain intonational contours (for example, the rise-fall-rise contour) appear to define conventional implicatures.}, doi = {10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.208}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clark2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Focus, Projection}, keywords = {at-issue, focus, implicature, information structure, intonation, pragmatics, presupposition}, } @InProceedings{Lacerda2017, author = {Renato Lacerda}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 41st annual Boston University Conference on Language Development}, title = {Information Structure in Child English: Contrastive Topicalization and the Dative Alternation}, year = {2017}, editor = {Maria LaMendola and Jennifer Scott}, pages = {387-400}, abstract = {This paper investigates the interface between syntax and discourse in first language acquisition and reports the results of an elicited production experiment designed to assess how four-to-five-year-old children acquiring English make use of the so-called dative alternation in contexts of contrastive topicalization. A number of authors (Gropen et al. 1989; Krifka 2003; Bresnan et al. 2007; Rappaport Hovav and Levin 2008, a.o.) have shown that the dative alternation, illustrated in (1), is not free, but rather it is subject to semantic and pragmatic conditions. In the specific case of the verb give, which is the prototypical verb of the dative alternation, the (near-)identical semantics of the two alternating constructions allows for the role of Information Structure to be highlighted.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Lacerda2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {contrastive topic, children, learning, experimental}, url = {http://www.lingref.com/bucld/41/BUCLD41-31.pdf}, } @InCollection{Stevens2017, author = {Jon Scott Stevens}, booktitle = {Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics}, title = {Pragmatics of Focus}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Generally speaking, ‘focus’ refers to the portion of an utterance which is especially informative or important within the context, and which is marked as such via some linguistic means. It can be difficult to provide a single precise definition, as the term is used somewhat differently for different languages and in different research traditions. Most often, it refers to the linguistic marking of (i) contrast, (ii) question-answering status, (iii) exhaustivity, or (iv) discourse unexpectability. An illustration of each of these possibilities is given below. In English, the focus-marked elements (indicated below with brackets) are realized with additional prosodic prominence in the form of a strong pitch accent (indicated by capital letters). (i) An [AMERICAN] farmer met a [CANADIAN] farmer… (ii) Q: Who called last night? A: [BILL] called last night. (iii) Only [an ELEPHANT] could have made those tracks. (iv) I can’t believe it: The Ohioans are fighting [OHIOANS] ! The underlying intuition common to all these instantiations is that a focus represents the minimal information needed to convey an important semantic distinction. Focus can be signaled prosodically (e.g., in the form of a strong pitch accent), syntactically (e.g., by moving focused phrases to a special position in the sentence), or morphologically (e.g., by appending a special affix to focused elements), with different crosslinguistic focus marking strategies often carrying slightly different restrictions on their use. Example (i) evokes a set of two contrasting alternatives, {‘American farmer,’ ‘Canadian farmer’}, and the meaning ‘farmer’ is common to both members of the set. That is, within this evoked set of alternatives, ‘farmer’ is redundant, and it is the nationality of the farmers which differentiates the two people. Example (ii) exhibits a similar property. One of the standard theories of question semantics represents questions as sets of possible appropriate answers. For (ii), this would be a set of propositions like {‘Bill called last night, ‘Sue called last night,’ etc.}. As with (i), there is an evoked set of meanings whose members share some overlapping semantic material. Within this set, the verb phrase meaning ‘called last night’ is redundant, and it is the identity of the subject that serves to differentiate the true answer. Example (iii) demonstrates a relationship between focus and certain words like only. The sentence means something like ‘of all the animals who might have made these tracks, it must be an elephant.’ As with (i) and (ii), this involves a set of alternatives: the set of possible track makers. That the sentence serves to single out a unique member of this set as being the true track maker makes the subject an elephant a natural focus of the sentence. Finally, in (iv), we see that focus on ‘Ohioans’ is being used to contrast the semantic content of the sentence with some preconception, namely that Ohioans are unlikely fighters of Ohioans. Examples (iii) and (iv) point to more specific uses of focus in different languages. In Hungarian, so-called identificational focus, which is marked syntactically, requires an exhaustive interpretation, as if a silent only were present. And in some Chadic languages, a meaning of “discourse unexpectability,” as in (iv), is required to mark focus via syntactic or morphological means.}, doi = {10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.207}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {focus, contrastive focus, prosody, information structure, question under discussion, givenness}, } @InProceedings{Biezma2017, author = {Mar\'{i}a Biezma and Kyle Rawlins}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT}, title = {Rhetorical questions: Severing questioning from asking}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Rhetorical questions (RhQs) are puzzling for theoretical accounts of questions: while they have an interrogative form, they seem to provide the same information as a parallel assertion. We propose that solving this puzzle requires a deeper understanding of the dynamics of interrogative utterances, and in particular we argue for a dynamics parallel to what has recently been proposed for assertions and imperatives: uttering an interrogative is a proposal to update the context, in this case the QUD, and its acceptance leads to the final inquisitive update. We argue that RhQs are interrogatives triggering the presupposition that the context entails the answer, so if accepted as a QUD, they would be immediately answered. This, in combination with the dynamics we develop, allows us to explain both the similarities with assertions as well as the differences in their discourse function.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v27i0.4155}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Biezma2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Mood and Speech Acts, Projection}, keywords = {questions, rhetorical questions, dynamics, update semantics, speech acts, presupposition}, } @InProceedings{Savinelli2017, author = {Savinelli, KJ and Scontras, Gregory and Pearl, Lisa}, booktitle = {CogSci}, title = {Modeling scope ambiguity resolution as pragmatic inference: Formalizing differences in child and adult behavior.}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Investigations of scope ambiguity resolution suggest that child behavior differs from adult behavior, with children struggling to access inverse scope interpretations. For example, children often fail to accept Every horse didn’t succeed to mean not all the horses succeeded. Current accounts of children’s scope behavior involve both pragmatic and processing factors. Inspired by these accounts, we use the Rational Speech Act framework to articulate a formal model that yields a more precise, explanatory, and predictive description of the observed developmental behavior.}, groups = {Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {Rational Speech Act model, pragmatics, processing, language acquisition, ambiguity resolution, scope, psycholinguistics, children, rsa}, url = {https://cogsci.mindmodeling.org/2017/papers/0579/index.html}, } @InProceedings{Stevens2017a, author = {Stevens, Jon and de Marneffe, Marie-Catherine and Speer, Shari R and Tonhauser, Judith}, booktitle = {CogSci}, title = {Rational use of prosody predicts projection in manner adverb utterances.}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Speakers can be taken to be committed to utterance content even when that content is contributed in the scope of an entailment-canceling operator, like negation (e.g., Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet, 1990). We develop a probabilistic model of this phenomenon, called ‘projection’, that relies on the prosodic realization of utterances. We synthesize existing theoretical claims about prosody, information structure and projection into a model that assumes a rational speaker (Frank & Goodman, 2012) who produces utterances with prosodic melodies that can signal which utterance content she is committed to. Predictions of the probabilistic model are compared to the responses of an experiment designed to test the effect of prosody on projection in manner adverb utterances. Key behaviors of the model are borne out empirically, and the quantitative fit is surprisingly good given that the model has only one free parameter. Our findings lend support to analyses of projection that are sensitive to the information structure of utterances (e.g., Simons, Beaver, Roberts, & Tonhauser, 2017).}, groups = {Projection and Presupposition, Experimental Approaches, Projection}, keywords = {Projection, prosody, information structure, probabilistic pragmatics, rational speech acts, manner adverbs, experimental}, url = {https://cogsci.mindmodeling.org/2017/papers/0221/index.html}, } @Article{Lewis2017, author = {Shevaun Lewis and Valentine Hacquard and Jeffrey Lidz}, journal = {Language Learning and Development}, title = {"Think" Pragmatically: Children's Interpretation of Belief Reports}, year = {2017}, month = {mar}, number = {4}, pages = {395--417}, volume = {13}, abstract = {Children under 4 years of age often evaluate belief reports based on reality instead of beliefs. They tend to reject sentences like, “John thinks that giraffes have stripes” on the grounds that giraffes do not have stripes. Previous accounts have proposed that such judgments reflect immature Theory of Mind or immature syntactic/semantic representations. We argue that the difficulty is actually pragmatic. Adults frequently use belief reports to provide information about reality (e.g., “I think the stove is still hot”). Young children have difficulty determining when the main point is reality (the stove situation) vs. mental states (John’s ideas about giraffes). We show that if the context emphasizes beliefs, children are more able to evaluate belief reports appropriately (Experiment 1). The pattern of children’s truth value judgments demonstrates that they understand the literal meaning of think sentences, despite their pragmatic difficulty grasping the speaker’s intention (Experiment 2).}, doi = {10.1080/15475441.2017.1296768}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Lewis2017.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {experimental, children, learning, belief, epistemic}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @Article{Clifton2018, author = {Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {Context Effects in Discourse: The Question Under Discussion}, year = {2018}, month = {jun}, number = {2}, pages = {105--112}, volume = {55}, abstract = {Linguistic analyses of the Question Under Discussion (QUD) provide an interesting extension to Tony Sanford’s work on discourse coherence (e.g., Sanford & Emmott, 2012). The QUD approach claims that discourse is organized by a series of overt and covert questions and answers to, or comments on, them. In a coherent discourse, material that addresses the current QUD receives focus, and its processing is facilitated. After a brief review of the existing literature showing that the QUD affects discourse processing, we describe several lines of our own published research on the QUD and briefly present two new experiments. We first review the effects of overt questions on sentence comprehension, arguing that sentences that are thematically and syntactically congruent with the bias of an overt preceding question are processed faster than ones that require a syntactic and thematic shift. We present new evidence suggesting that assertions that address the focused element of a preceding question are likely to receive an exhaustive interpretation. Turning to covert questions, we review evidence that modals and other indications of the uncertain possibility of some event introduce a QUD about the occurrence of that event, biasing and facilitating comprehension of sentences that address such a QUD. Finally, we present new evidence suggesting that although sentential assertions in a discourse are likely to be taken to address an implicit QUD introduced by the antecedent of a conditional, elliptical assertions still tend to find their antecedents in a phrase whose structure is readily available. Thus, although satisfying the requirements of the current QUD is one factor that affects discourse comprehension, it is actually just one of many.}, doi = {10.1080/0163853x.2017.1330029}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clifton2018 - Context Effects in Discourse_ the Question under Discussion.pdf:PDF;:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Yang2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {discourse coherence, coherence relations, rhetorical relations, discourse processing, psycholinguistics, experimental}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @Article{Yang2018, author = {Xiao Yang and Utako Minai and Robert Fiorentino}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Context-Sensitivity and Individual Differences in the Derivation of Scalar Implicature}, year = {2018}, month = {sep}, volume = {9}, abstract = {The derivation of scalar implicatures for the quantifier some has been widely studied to investigate the computation of pragmatically enriched meanings. For example, the sentence “I found some books” carries the semantic interpretation that at least one book was found, but its interpretation is often enriched to include the implicature that not all the books were found. The implicature is argued to be more likely to arise when it is relevant for addressing a question under discussion (QUD) in the context, e.g., when “I found some books” is uttered in response to “Did you find all the books?” as opposed to “Did you find any books?”. However, most experimental studies have not examined the influence of context on some, instead testing some sentences in isolation. Moreover, no study to our knowledge has examined individual differences in the ability to utilize context in interpreting some, whereas individual variation in deriving implicatures for some sentences in isolation is widely attested, with alternative proposals attributing this variation to individual differences in cognitive resources (e.g., working memory) or personality-based pragmatic abilities (e.g., as assessed by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient). The current study examined how context influences the interpretation of some in a story-sentence matching task, where participants rated some statements (“I cut some steaks”) uttered by one character, in response to another character’s question (QUD) that established the implicature as relevant (“Did you cut all the steaks?”) or irrelevant (“Did you cut any steaks?”). We also examined to what extent individuals’ sensitivity to QUD is modulated by individual differences via a battery of measures assessing cognitive resources, personality-based pragmatic abilities, and language abilities (which have been argued to modulate comprehension in other domains). Our results demonstrate that QUD affects the interpretation of some, and reveal that individual differences in sensitivity to QUD are modulated by both cognitive resources and personality-based pragmatic abilities. While previous studies have argued alternatively for cognitive resources or personality-based pragmatic abilities as important for deriving implicatures for some in isolation, we argue that arriving at a context-sensitive interpretation for some depends on both cognitive and personality-based properties of the individual.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01720}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Yang2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Implicature}, keywords = {scalar implicatures, scalar, some, quantifiers, cognition, psycholinguistics, personality}, publisher = {Frontiers Media {SA}}, } @Article{Moulton2018, author = {Moulton, Keir and Chan, Queenie and Cheng, Tanie and Han, Chung-hye and Kim, Kyeong-min and Nickel-Thompson, Sophie}, journal = {Linguistic Inquiry}, title = {Focus on Cataphora: Experiments in Context}, year = {2018}, number = {1}, pages = {151-168}, volume = {49}, abstract = {Since Chomsky 1976, it has been claimed that focus on a referring expression blocks coreference in a cataphoric dependency (*Hisi mother loves JOHNi vs. Hisi mother LOVES Johni ). In three auditory experiments and a written questionnaire, we show that this fact does not hold when a referent is unambiguously established in the discourse (cf. Williams 1997, Bianchi 2009) but does hold otherwise, validating suggestions in Rochemont 1978, Horvath 1981, and Rooth 1985. The perceived effect of prosody, we argue, building on Williams’s original insight and deliberate experimental manipulation of Rochemont’s and Horvath’s examples, is due to the fact that deaccenting the R-expression allows hearers to accommodate a salient referent via a “question under discussion” (Roberts 1996/2012, Rooth 1996), to which the pronoun can refer in ambiguous or impoverished contexts. This heuristic is not available in the focus cases, and we show that participants’ interpretation of the pronoun is ambivalent here.}, doi = {10.1162/LING_a_00269}, groups = {Focus, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {cataphora, focus, deaccenting, question under discussion, experimental, prosody}, } @InCollection{Tian2019, author = {Ye Tian and Richard Breheny}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Negation}, year = {2019}, editor = {Chris Cummins and Napoleon Katsos}, abstract = {Negation has long been of interest to logicians and philosophers, and relatively recently to psycholinguists and pragmatists. In terms of the processing of negation, psycholinguistics studies have shown two effects that call for an explanation: the first is the asymmetry between its frequent use in natural language and its apparent processing costs, often reported in psycholinguistics studies; the second is the finding that, in early stages of processing, negation seems to be ignored and attention seems to be focused on its positive argument. In terms of pragmatic functions, it has been shown that despite its simple semantic meaning, negation interacts with context to produce rich pragmatic effects. Both negation processing and its pragmatic functions present puzzles that cannot be explained by its semantic function.}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198791768.013.29}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tian2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Accomodation, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {negation, QUD, verification, context, accommodation, plausible denial, psycholinguistics, experimental}, } @InCollection{Latrouite2018, author = {Latrouite, Anja and Riester, Arndt}, booktitle = {Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages}, title = {The Role Of Information Structure For Morphosyntactic Choices In Tagalog}, year = {2018}, editor = {Sonja Riesberg and Asako Shiohara and Atsuko Utsumi}, abstract = {In this paper we investigate the influence of two information structure (IS) related aspects on the choice of voice form and sentence structure by Tagalog speakers. The first is the information status of argument referents. Tagalog is a multiple voice language, so almost every semantic argument in a sentence can be turned into the privileged syntactic argument (or subject) and be rendered salient. Information status of the undergoer has been argued to play an important role in voice and subject selection. The second IS-related aspect is the inherent structure of a discourse as determined by the implicit questions under discussion (QUDs) that are answered with each subsequent sentence in a text. The default sentence in Tagalog starts with a verb. Inversion constructions, i.e. sentences that start with an argument phrase instead of a verb, are described as motivated by information structure considerations such as focus-background or contrastive-topic-focus packaging. Based on a novel QUD approach, we will work out the discourse structure and at-issue contents of five short texts and show the important role of implicit QUDs and parallelisms on the choice of voice and constituent order.}, copyright = {Creative Commons Attribution 4.0}, doi = {10.5281/ZENODO.1402549}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Latrouite22018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Contrastive Topic and Strategies of Inquiry, Rhetorical Relations}, keywords = {Tagalog, non-English, cross-linguistic, focus, contrastive topic, at-issueness, at issueness, not at issue, constituent order}, language = {en}, } @InCollection{Skordos2019, author = {Dimitrios Skordos and David Barner}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Language Comprehension, Inference, and Alternatives}, year = {2019}, editor = {Chris Cummins and Napoleon Katsos}, abstract = {This chapter discusses the importance of pragmatic inference involving alternatives for language comprehension, reviewing the problem of restricting the inferential hypothesis space. It presents a brief overview of theoretical and empirical work on adults and then turns to developmental evidence from two characteristic case studies: scalar implicature and quantifier spreading, where children struggle when interpreting sentences including quantifiers. The authors argue that in both cases, children’s problems are closely linked to difficulties in reducing the inferential hypothesis space, while matching what is said to what is meant. Children are argued to misidentify the Question Under Discussion (QUD), which leads them to consider irrelevant alternatives and make non-adult-like inferences. When relevant alternatives are made salient and the QUD is appropriately identified, children make inferences in an adult-like manner.}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198791768.013.1}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Skordos2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {inference, alternatives, language comprehension, QUD, scalar implicature, quantifier spreading, scalars, children, learning}, } @InCollection{Breheny2019, author = {Richard Breheny}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Scalar Implicatures}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This chapter reviews recent experimental research into questions about how language and other functions of the mind are integrated when humans communicate. It posits a Gricean system that serves this purpose and discusses how recent developmental and ethological research provides evidence for such a system’s existence. Subsequently it focuses on the much-studied phenomenon of scalar implicature. It first considers the phenomenon of scalar implicature in the broader context of pragmatic effects. A short review of theoretical debates as to the status of various sub-types of scalar phenomenon is followed by sections that discuss experimental research relevant to different interfaces in the Gricean system when it comes to scalars.}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198791768.013.4}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Breheny2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Implicature}, keywords = {scalar implicature, numerals, Grammatical Theory (GT) of scalars, embedded scalars, cost of implicatures, timecourse of implicatures, sclars, experimental, psycholinguistics, cost}, } @PhdThesis{DiBacco2018, author = {Federica {Di Bacco}}, school = {Ulster University}, title = {Ambiguous questions and perfectible conditionals: the perspective from language acquisition}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This thesis investigates two phenomena - scope ambiguity resolution and conditional perfection, from the point of view of language acquisition. An empirical study was conducted to determine how scopally ambiguous sentences and perfectible conditionals are interpreted by children and adults, and if there are any differences between the two groups. In relation to the first, two experiments conducted on children’s and adults’ interpretation of scopally ambiguous declarative sentences and questions have shown that children are adult-like in their ability to access inverse scope. This is in contrast with the view that sees children as unable to obtain inverse scope, and it is instead compatible with the QUD approach. I propose an extension of the QUD approach to include questions. In the case of conditionals, two experiments were conducted to test the theory that conditional perfection is a scalar implicature: if it is so, children should obtain this inference less often than adults. However, the results show that both children and adults obtain a conjunctive-like reading for these kind of statements. This reading is widely reported in children, and one theory attributes it to their inability to construct the meaning of a conditional in their mind. The conjunctive-like reading is less frequent in adults, but it is possible that pragmatic factors have been reported for the high rate of occurrence observed in this study, as adults’ interpretation of conditionals is reported to be influenced by the task. I also sketch another explanation of the results, based on the idea that both the conjunctive inference and conditional perfection can be derived as scalar implicatures.}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Implicature, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {QUD, Question under discussion, conditional perfection, scope, children, experimental, scalar implicature, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/ambiguous-questions-and-perfectible-conditionals}, } @Unpublished{Westera2018, author = {Matthijs Westera}, title = {A pragmatic approach to Hurford disjunctions}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Hurford disjunctions are disjunctions where one disjunct entails another. Some of these are fine while others seem infelicitous. The predominant approach to this phenomenon relies on Hurford’s Constraint, which states that such disjunctions are generally bad, together with grammatical exhaustification, which can rescue some of them by exhaustifying the weaker disjunct to break the entailment. This paper explores an alternative, based on a non-grammatical, pragmatic approach to exhaustivity. Instead of adopting Hurford’s Constraint it takes the felicitous examples as basic, and aims to explain the infelicitous ones by means of a frequently made assumption about the pragmatics of disjunction. A detailed comparison shows that the two approaches divide the empirical landscape in sometimes surprisingly different ways. Moreover, it shows that several theoretical choices in the field are deeply connected: whether or not to assume the general validity of Hurford’s constraint, whether to adopt a pragmatic or grammatical approach to exhaustivity, and which type of semantics to use as the backbone.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Westera2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Exhaustivity in Questions, Psycholinguistics, Implicature}, keywords = {disjunction, Hurford’s Constraint, exhaustivity, relevance, redundancy, Alter- native Semantics}, url = {http://mwestera.humanities.uva.nl/downloads/Westera2018-ms-Hurford.pdf}, } @Article{Frazier2018, author = {Lyn Frazier and Brian Dillon and Charles Clifton, Jr.}, journal = {Language and Speech}, title = {Together They Stand: Interpreting Not-At-Issue Content}, year = {2018}, note = {PMID: 28655288}, number = {2}, pages = {199-226}, volume = {61}, abstract = {Potts unified the account of appositives, parentheticals, expressives, and honorifics as 'Not- At-Issue’ (NAI) content, treating them as a natural class semantically in behaving like root (unembedded) structures, typically expressing speaker commitments, and being interpreted independently of At-Issue content. We propose that NAI content expresses a complete speech act distinct from the speech act of the containing utterance. The speech act hypothesis leads us to expect the semantic properties Potts established. We present experimental confirmation of two intuitive observations made by Potts: first that speech act adverbs should be acceptable as NAI content, supporting the speech act hypothesis; and second, that when two speech acts are expressed as successive sentences, the comprehender assumes they are related by some discourse coherence relation, whereas an NAI speech act need not bear a restrictive discourse coherence relation to its containing utterance, though overall sentences containing relevant content are rated more acceptable than those that do not. The speech act hypothesis accounts for these effects, and further accounts for why judgments of syntactic complexity or evaluations of whether or not a statement is true interact with the at-issue status of the material being judged or evaluated.}, doi = {10.1177/0023830917714608}, eprint = {https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830917714608}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {Not-At-Issue content, speech acts, discourse integration, naturalness judgments, appositive relative clauses, parentheticals, appositives, experimental}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830917714608}, } @Article{Barbet2018, author = {C{\'{e}}cile Barbet and Guillaume Thierry}, journal = {Cognition}, title = {When some triggers a scalar inference out of the blue. An electrophysiological study of a Stroop-like conflict elicited by single words}, year = {2018}, month = {aug}, pages = {58--68}, volume = {177}, abstract = {Some studies in experimental pragmatics have concluded that scalar inferences (e.g., ‘some X are Y’ implicates ‘not all X are Y’) are context-dependent pragmatic computations delayed relative to semantic computations. However, it remains unclear whether strong contextual support is necessary to trigger such inferences. Here we tested if the scalar inference ‘not all’ triggered by some can be evoked in a maximally neutral context. We investigated event-related potential (ERP) amplitude modulations elicited by Stroop-like conflicts in participants instructed to indicate whether strings of letters were printed with all their letters in upper case or otherwise. In a randomized stream of non-words and distractor words, the words all, some and case were either presented in capitals or they featured at least one lower case letter. As expected, we found a significant conflict-related N450 modulation when comparing e.g., ‘aLl’ with ‘ALL’. Surprisingly, despite the fact that most responses from the same participants in a sentence-picture verification task were literal, we also found a similar modulation when comparing ‘SOME’ with e.g., ‘SoMe’, even though SOME could only elicit such a Stroop conflict when construed pragmatically. No such modulation was found for e.g., ‘CasE’ vs. ‘CASE’ (neutral contrast). These results suggest that some can appear incongruent with the concept of ‘all’ even when contextual support is minimal. Furthermore, there was no significant correlation between N450 effect magnitude (‘SOME’ minus e.g., ‘sOMe’) and pragmatic response rate recorded in the sentence-picture verification task. Overall, this study shows for the first time that the pragmatic meaning of some can be accessed in a maximally neutral context, and thus, that the scalar inference ‘not all’ triggered by some should be construed as context-sensitive rather than context-dependent, that is, more or less salient and relevant depending on the context rather than entirely contingent upon it.}, doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.013}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Barbet2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Implicature}, keywords = {Experimental semantics and pragmatics, Non-literal meaning, Context-dependency, Stroop, Event-related brain potentials, N450 effect, psycholinguistics, scalar inference, some, implicature, scalar implicatures}, publisher = {Elsevier {BV}}, } @InProceedings{Gor2019, author = {Vera Gor and Kristen Syrett}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 54th Annual Meeting of the Chicago LinguisticSociety (CLS 54)}, title = {Beyond Principle C: (Not)-at-issueness and plausibility influence acceptability of coconstrual}, year = {2019}, address = {Chicago, IL}, editor = {Eszter Ronai and Laura Stigliano and Yenan Sun}, publisher = {Chicago Linguistic Society}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, Psycholinguistic approaches, binding, coconstrual, pragmatics, syntax, processing, at-issue, not-at-issue, at issueness, not at issue}, url = {http://vgor.mycpanel.princeton.edu/CLS2018_proceedings.pdf}, } @Article{Aravind2018, author = {Athulya Aravind and Martin Hackl and Ken Wexler}, journal = {Language Acquisition}, title = {Syntactic and Pragmatic Factors in Children's Comprehension of Cleft Constructions}, year = {2018}, month = may, number = {3}, pages = {284--314}, volume = {25}, abstract = {We present a series of experiments investigating English-speaking children’s comprehension of it-clefts and wh-pseudoclefts. Previous developmental work has found children to have asymmetric difficulties interpreting object clefts. We show that these difficulties disappear when clefts are presented in felicitous contexts, where children behave adultlike both in their evaluation of the truth of cleft sentences and in their response-time patterns. When the pragmatic requirements on cleft use were not satisfied, children succeeded only on some types of clefts. However, they did not uniformly show difficulties with infelicitous object clefts; rather, success correlated with the amenability of the structure to a word-order-based parsing strategy. We argue that children fail to build an adultlike representation for infelicitous clefts across the board, but pressures to carry out the task lead them to adopt interpretive means outside of what is licensed in adult grammar.}, doi = {10.1080/10489223.2017.1316725}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Aravind2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {experimental, children, developmental, learning}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @InCollection{Glanzberg2018, author = {Glanzberg, Michael}, booktitle = {Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {About Convention and Grammar}, year = {2018}, editor = {Gerhard Preyer}, pages = {230--260}, volume = {2018}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Philosophical Applications, Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, philosophical, convention, meaning, information structure}, } @Article{Tonhauser2018, author = {Judith Tonhauser and David I Beaver and Judith Degen}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {How Projective is Projective Content? Gradience in Projectivity and At-issueness}, year = {2018}, number = {3}, pages = {495-542}, volume = {35}, abstract = {Projective content is utterance content that a speaker may be taken to be committed to even when the expression associated with the content occurs embedded under an entailment-canceling operator (e.g., Chierchia & McConnell-Ginet, 1990). It has long been observed that projective content varies in how projective it is (e.g., Karttunen, 1971; Simons, 2001; Abusch, 2010), though preliminary experimental research has been able to confirm only some of the intuitions about projection variability (e.g., Smith & Hall, 2011; Xue & Onea, 2011). Given the sparse empirical evidence for projection variability, the first goal of this paper was to investigate projection variability for projective content associated with 19 expressions of American English. The second goal was to explore the hypothesis, called the Gradient Projection Principle, that content projects to the extent that it is not at-issue. The findings of two pairs of experiments provide robust empirical evidence for projection variability and for the Gradient Projection Principle. We show that many analyses of projection cannot account for the observed projection variability and discuss the implications of our finding that projective content varies in its at-issueness for an empirically adequate analysis of projection.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffy007}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Tonhauser2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {projection, at-issueness, at issue, not-at-issueness, not at issue, experimental}, } @InCollection{Suranyi2018, author = {Bal{\'{a}}zs Sur{\'{a}}nyi}, booktitle = {Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {Focus in Focus}, year = {2018}, pages = {243--262}, abstract = {Pars pro toto (PPT) focus movements pose an apparent challenge to algorithms that map specific syntactic positions to particular information structural functions. PPT focus movements bring a phrase into a syntactic configuration that is canonically associated with focus interpretation, yet a distinct constituent, one that properly contains the fronted phrase in the original structure, is assigned focus interpretation. The present paper demonstrates that this mismatch is only apparent in Hungarian, a language that is generally considered discourse configurational with respect to focus. In particular, it is argued that pars pro toto focus fronting in Hungarian concurrently involves both broad focus on a constituent that originally contains the fronted phrase and narrow focus associated with the phrase undergoing movement. The proposed nested focus analysis thus upholds the viability of syntactic configuration based approaches to information structure in discourse-configurational languages. It is also shown based on a careful examination of the interpretation of the construction that the exhaustivity of focus and the existential inference associated with its background, two interpretive properties that are often taken to go hand in hand, are in fact dissociable from each other.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-90710-9_16}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Suranyi2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Focus projection, Nested focus, Information structure, Exhaustivity, Non-decomposable idiom, Hungarian, cross-linguistic, focus}, } @InCollection{Riester2018, author = {Riester, Arndt and Brunetti, Lisa and De Kuthy, Kordula}, booktitle = {Information structure in lesser-described languages. Studies in prosody and syntax}, publisher = {John Benjamins}, title = {Annotation guidelines for Questions under Discussion and information structure}, year = {2018}, pages = {403--443}, abstract = {We present a detailed manual for a pragmatic, i.e. meaning-based, method for the information-structural analysis of naturally attested data, which is built on the idea that for any assertion contained in a text (or transcript of spoken discourse) there is an implicit Question under Discussion (QUD) that determines which parts of the assertion are focused or backgrounded (and which ones are non-at-issue, i.e. not part of the assertion at all). We formulate a number of constraints, which allow the analyst/annotator to derive QUDs from the previous or upcoming discourse context, and demonstrate the method using corpus examples (of French, German, and English). Since we avoid making reference to language-specific morphosyntactic or prosodic properties, we claim that our method is also cross-linguistically applicable beyond our example languages.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {information structure, annotation, naturalistic data, discourse structure, non-at-issue, cross-linguistic, corpus, experimental}, url = {https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01794160/document}, } @InProceedings{DeKuthy2018, author = {De Kuthy, Kordula and Reiter, Nils and Riester, Arndt}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018)}, title = {QUD-based annotation of discourse structure and information structure: Tool and evaluation}, year = {2018}, abstract = {We discuss and evaluate a new annotation scheme and discourse-analytic method, the QUD-tree framework. We present an annotation study, in which the framework, based on the concept of Questions under Discussion, is applied to English and German interview data, using TreeAnno, an annotation tool specially developed for this new kind of discourse annotation. The results of an inter-annotator agreement study show that the new annotation method allows for reasonable agreement with regard to discourse structure and good agreement with regard to the annotation of information structure, which covers focus, background, contrastive topic and non-at-issue material.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Hoek2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {discourse structure, information structure, annotation, inter-annotator agreement, Question under Discussion, experimental, cross-linguistic, focus, contrastive topic}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/L18-1304.pdf}, } @Article{Hoek2018, author = {Hoek, Daniel}, journal = {The Philosophical Review}, title = {{Conversational Exculpature}}, year = {2018}, issn = {0031-8108}, month = {04}, number = {2}, pages = {151-196}, volume = {127}, abstract = {{Conversational exculpature is a pragmatic process whereby information is subtracted from, rather than added to, what the speaker literally says. This pragmatic content subtraction explains why we can say “Rob is six feet tall” without implying that Rob is between 5 ′11.99″ and 6 ′0.01″ tall, and why we can say “Ellen has a hat like the one Sherlock Holmes always wears” without implying Holmes exists or has a hat. This article presents a simple formalism for understanding this pragmatic mechanism, specifying how, in context, the result of such subtractions is determined. And it shows how the resulting theory of conversational exculpature accounts for a varied range of linguistic phenomena. A distinctive feature of the approach is the crucial role played by the question under discussion in determining the result of a given exculpature.}}, doi = {10.1215/00318108-4326594}, eprint = {https://read.dukeupress.edu/the-philosophical-review/article-pdf/127/2/151/525221/151hoek.pdf}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {philosophical, implicature, formal pragmatics, loose talk, metaphor, logical subtraction, QUD, fictionalism}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-4326594}, } @InCollection{Riester2018a, author = {Riester, Arndt and Shiohara, Asako}, booktitle = {Studies in Diversity Linguistics}, publisher = {Language Science Press}, title = {Information structure in Sumbawa: A QUD analysis.}, year = {2018}, number = {21}, abstract = {This paper describes the constituent ordering and other basic morphosyntactic properties of Sumbawa and their relation to information structure. Our study is based on conversational corpus data and makes use of a novel method of information-structural discourse analysis, which is based on the reconstruction of implicit questions under discussion (QUDs).}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {Sumbawa, cross-linguistic, non-English, information structure, corpus, experimental}, url = {https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/28281/1001681.pdf?sequence=1#page=293}, } @Article{Koev2018, author = {Todor Koev}, journal = {Language and Linguistics Compass}, title = {Notions of at-issueness}, year = {2018}, month = {dec}, number = {12}, volume = {12}, abstract = {Upon hearing the sentence Messi, who once scored a goal with his hand, won the Ballon d'Or, the addressee is likely to interpret the main clause as conveying the “main point” and view the appositive relative clause as contributing secondary information. The intuition that some part of the utterance conveys the main point has recently been discussed in formal semantics and pragmatics under the label of “at-issueness.” However, this label has been used in a variety of ways, and there is often little clarity as to what is meant by it. This survey tries to clear things up by identifying and spelling out three specific notions of at-issueness, i.e. Q(uestion)-at-issueness, P(roposal)-at-issueness, and C(oherence)-at-issueness. After looking into what they say about similar kinds of data, I conclude that while these notions appear to capture facets of the same broad intuition, they are truly distinct. The paper also discusses potential connections of at-issueness to projection and commitment strength.}, doi = {10.1111/lnc3.12306}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Koev2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Projection}, keywords = {at issueness, at-issueness, not-at-issueness, projection}, publisher = {Wiley}, } @Article{Kotek2018, author = {Kotek, Hadas and Barros, Matthew}, journal = {Linguistic Inquiry}, title = {Multiple Sluicing, Scope, and Superiority: Consequences for Ellipsis Identity}, year = {2018}, number = {4}, pages = {781-812}, volume = {49}, abstract = {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.}, doi = {10.1162/ling_a_00289}, groups = {Ellipsis, Cross-Linguistic, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {sluicing, ellipsis licensing, pair-list readings, scope, parallelism, Russian, cross-linguistic, scalar implicatures, implicatures}, } @InProceedings{Hinterwimmer2018, author = {Stefan Hinterwimmer and Cornelia Ebert}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung}, title = {A Comparison of fei and aber}, year = {2018}, volume = {22}, abstract = {This paper compares the modal particle fei (Schlieben-Lange, 1979; Thoma, 2009) with the modal particle/sentence adverb aber (not to be confused with the conjunction aber, ‘but’). Intuitively, both items express some form of contrast and correction. We will show that both are special among discourse particles in the following sense: They make a contribution that is interpreted at a level distinct from the level where at-issue content (Potts, 2005) is interpreted, as is standard for modal particles (see Gutzmann, 2015 and the references therein). But more interestingly, they exclusively relate to propositions that have not entered the Common Ground via being the at-issue content of an assertion made by the addressee.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Hinterwimmer2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {cross-linguistic, modals, discourse particles, meaning, at issueness, not-at-issueness, not at issueness}, url = {https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/101}, } @PhdThesis{Dulcinati2018, author = {Dulcinati, Giulio}, school = {UCL (University College London)}, title = {Cooperation and pragmatic inferences}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This thesis investigates the role of cooperation for pragmatic inferences. The notion of cooperation that is proposed as relevant for discussing the relationship between cooperation and communication is that of joint action. Different theories of communication are reviewed together with the different roles that they assign to cooperation in the context of communication. The study of communication in non-cooperative contexts is used as a way to inform the role of cooperation in communication. Different predictions are derived from Grice’s (1989) account and Sperber and Wilson’s accounts (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995; Sperber et al. 2010) regarding what happens to implicatures in non-cooperative contexts. A series of experimental studies investigates communication in non-cooperative contexts and tests the prediction derived from Grice’s account that hearers will not derive implicatures from the utterances of uncooperative speakers. Overall, the results of these studies are not in support of Grice’s prediction. They instead support the view that because of a dissociation between comprehension and epistemic acceptance of communicated content (Sperber et al., 2010; Mazzarella, 2015a) uncooperative contexts do not affect the inference of implicatures but only the acceptance of their content. Lastly, this thesis touches on the topic of the source of relevance for an utterance, which is treated as a theory neutral notion corresponding to what different theories formalise as the Question Under Discussion (Roberts, 1996/2012) or the shared purpose of interlocutors (Grice, 1989). The results of an experimental study on this topic suggest that the exhaustivity of an utterance as an answer to the possible QUDs in a context affects the choice of which QUDs the utterance will be taken to be addressing. Ultimately, this thesis provides initial experimental evidence on how cooperation (or lack thereof) affects pragmatic inferences and puts forward a novel experimental approach to this line of research.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Dulcinati2018 - Cooperation and Pragmatic Inferences.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Implicature}, keywords = {cooperation, implicatures, experimental, exhaustivity, QUD}, url = {https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10053950}, } @Article{Antomo2018, author = {Mailin Antomo and Susanne Müller and Katharina Paul and Markus Paluch and Maik Thalmann}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {When children aren't more logical than adults: An empirical investigation of lying by falsely implicating}, year = {2018}, month = {dec}, pages = {135--148}, volume = {138}, abstract = {Studies on whether lying, as opposed to merely deceiving, is possible with untruthful implicatures have found conflicting evidence. Here, we present two experiments in which we investigated whether untruthful implicatures are judged as lies and the alleged difference between untruthful generalized and particularized conversational implicatures. Furthermore, we investigated untruthful implicatures in language acquisition. Our results show first that false implicatures are categorized as lies, but also that participants differentiate between false asserted content and false implicatures. Second, there is no contrast between PCIs and GCIs in either truthful or untruthful usage. Third, our results reveal an overall similar performance across all three tested age groups (5–6 years, 8–9 years, adults), showing that inferred content is accessible earlier than originally thought. We argue that these results are due to the child-oriented material as well as the high relevance of the implicatures in our experiment, and that previous findings in conflict with our own are caused by children's pragmatic tolerance.}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2018.09.010}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Antomo2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {experimental, children, learning, lying, Untruthful implicatures, GCIs and PCIs, Implicatures in language acquisition, implicatures}, publisher = {Elsevier {BV}}, } @Article{DeVeaughGeiss2018, author = {De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P and T{\"o}nnis, Swantje and Onea, Edgar and Zimmermann, Malte}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {That’s not quite it: An experimental investigation of (non-) exhaustivity in clefts}, year = {2018}, pages = {3}, volume = {11}, abstract = {We present a novel empirical study on German directly comparing the exhaustivity inference in es-clefts to exhaustivity inferences in definite pseudoclefts, exclusives, and plain intonational focus constructions. We employ mouse-driven verification/falsification tasks in an incremental information-retrieval paradigm across two experiments in order to assess the strength of exhaustivity in the four sentence types. The results are compatible with a parallel analysis of clefts and definite pseudoclefts, in line with previous claims in the literature (Percus 1997, Büring & Križ 2013). In striking contrast with such proposals, in which the exhaustivity inference is conventionally coded in the cleft-structure in terms of maximality/homogeneity, our study found that the exhaustivity inference is not systematic or robust in es-clefts nor in definite pseudoclefts: Whereas some speakers treat both constructions as exhaustive, others treat both constructions as non-exhaustive. In order to account for this unexpected finding, we argue that the exhaustivity inference in both clefts and definite pseudoclefts — specifically those with the compound definite derjenige — is pragmatically derived from the anaphoric existence presupposition that is common to both constructions.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.11.3}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental study, exhaustivity, es-clefts, definite pseudoclefts, anaphoric existence presupposition, experimental, German, cross-linguistic, intonation, anaphora}, } @Article{Kissel2018, author = {Teresa Kouri Kissel}, journal = {Australasian Journal of Philosophy}, title = {Logical Pluralism from a Pragmatic Perspective}, year = {2018}, month = {nov}, number = {3}, pages = {578--591}, volume = {96}, abstract = {This paper presents a new view of logical pluralism. This pluralism takes into account how the logical connectives shift, depending on the context in which they occur. Using the Question-Under-Discussion Framework as formulated by Craige Roberts, I identify the contextual factor that is responsible for this shift. I then provide an account of the meanings of the logical connectives which can accommodate this factor. Finally, I suggest that this new pluralism has a certain Carnapian flavour. Questions about the meanings of the connectives or the best logic outside of a specified context are not legitimate questions.}, doi = {10.1080/00048402.2017.1399151}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/KouriKissel.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {logical pluralism, questions under discussion, connectives, Carnap, polysemy, philosophical, logic}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @InProceedings{Grubic2018, author = {Mira Grubic}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung}, title = {Two strategies of reopening QUDs: Evidence from German auch and noch}, year = {2018}, volume = {21}, abstract = {This paper argues for a domain restriction account for wh-words in questions using resource situations, in parallel with the domain restriction of quantifiers proposed in Kratzer (2011). It is argued that under a situation semantic account assuming resource situations, the different behaviour of additive particles can be explained: Under a question under discussion account, additive particles like too and also are used when a (possibly covert) question is ‘reopened’ in order to add a further true answer (Beaver and Clark 2008, i.a.). This paper suggests that there are two ways in which a question can be re-addressed: it can either be reopened with (i) a different resource situation or (ii) with a different topic situation. This can explain the different behaviour of the additive particles auch and noch in German.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Grubic2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {situation semantics, questions, additive particles, additives, cross-linguistic, German, domain restriction}, url = {https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/152}, } @InProceedings{Westera2019, author = {Westera, Matthijs and Rohde, Hannah}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium}, title = {Asking between the lines: Elicitation of evoked questions in text}, year = {2019}, abstract = {We introduce a novel, scalable method aimed at annotating potential and actual Questions Under Discussion (QUDs) in naturalistic discourse. It consists of asking naive participants first what questions a certain portion of the discourse evokes for them and subsequently which of those end up being answered as the discourse proceeds. This paper outlines the method and design decisions that went into it and on characterizing highlevel properties of the resulting data. We highlight ways in which the data gathered via our method could inform our understanding of QUD-driven phenomena and QUD models themselves. We also provide access to a visualization tool for viewing the evoked questions we gathered using this method (N=4765 from 111 crowdsourced annotators).}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {annotation, experimental, QUDs}, url = {https://archive.illc.uva.nl/AC/AC2019/uploaded_files/inlineitem/Westera_and_Rohde_Asking_between_the_lines_elicitat.pdf}, } @InCollection{Marneffe2019, author = {{Marie-Catherine} de Marneffe and Judith Tonhauser}, booktitle = {Questions in Discourse}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Inferring Meaning from Indirect Answers to Polar Questions: the Contribution of the Rise-Fall-Rise Contour}, year = {2019}, pages = {132-163}, abstract = {Polar questions can be given direct answers (e.g., Do you want to eat? – No) and indirect answers (e.g., Do you want to eat? – I’m not hungry). Listeners infer positive or negative responses from indirect answers to polar questions with varying degrees of confidence (e.g., Clark 1979, Hirschberg 1985, Green & Carberry 1992, 1994, de Marneffe et al. 2009). For spoken language, the prosodic realization of the indirect answer has been speculated to provide a cue to the intended meaning of the indirect answer (Green & Carberry 1999, fn. 34). This paper presents an experiment designed to identify whether and how the prosodic realization of an indirect answer to a polar question influences the response that listeners infer from the indirect answer. The experiment explored American English listeners’ interpretations of indirect answers with scalar adjectives (e.g., She’s attractive) realized with a neutral contour (H* L-L%) or the rise-fall-rise contour (L*+H L-H%) in response to polar questions with semantically stronger adjectives (e.g., Is your sister beautiful?). Listeners inferred significantly more negative responses to the polar questions when the indirect answer was realized with the rise-fall-rise contour than with the neutral contour. These findings show that the prosodic realization of an indirect answer can provide a cue to the speaker’s intended meaning. The paper also discusses implications of our findings for scalar implicature generation and the meaning of the rise-fall-rise contour.}, doi = {10.1163/9789004378322_006}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Implicature}, keywords = {polarity, indirect answers, prosody, scalar implicature, implicatures, psycholinguistics, cognition, scalars}, } @InCollection{Clifton2019, author = {Clifton, Charles and Dillon, Brian and Staub, Adrian}, booktitle = {Grammatical Approaches to Language Processing: Essays in Honor of Lyn Frazier}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {Lyn Frazier's Contributions to Psycholinguistics: An Appreciation}, year = {2019}, address = {Cham}, editor = {Carlson, Katy and Clifton, Jr., Charles and Fodor, Janet Dean}, isbn = {978-3-030-01563-3}, pages = {1--10}, abstract = {The authors of this introductory chapter express their gratitude for the many contributions Lyn Frazier has made to the field of psycholinguistics and to her students, colleagues, and friends. Her introduction of garden-path theory gave new life to the study of sentence comprehension and shaped research on the topic for many years. Throughout her career, she has provided stimulating, often controversial, analyses of how ellipses are processed and of the roles semantics and prosody play in understanding language. Her lively curiosity has led her to explore many other topics in psycholinguistics, including effects of discourse structure and of not-at-issue content, among others. The chapter concludes with an appreciation of the impact she has had as a mentor, colleague, and collaborator, as well as a few remembrances of Lyn's particular style as a scientist.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-01563-3_1}, groups = {Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, discourse structure, not-at-issueness, not at issueness, at issueness, at-issueness}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01563-3_1}, } @InCollection{Degen2019, author = {Judith Degen and Michael K. Tanenhaus}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Experimental Semantics and Pragmatics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Constraint-Based Pragmatic Processing}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Processing language requires integrating information from multiple sources, including context, world knowledge, and the linguistic signal itself. How is this information integrated? A range of positions on the issue is possible, spanned by two extreme positions: extreme informational privilege—certain types of information are processed earlier in online processing and weighted most heavily in the resulting utterance interpretation; and extreme parallelism—all information is processed in parallel and weighted equally in the resulting interpretation. In reviewing the current empirical landscape on scalar implicature processing, the chapter argues for a constraint-based approach to pragmatic processing, which is closer in spirit to the parallelism account than the informational privilege account. The approach is also extended to other pragmatic phenomena.}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198791768.013.8}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Implicature}, keywords = {constraint-based approaches, scalar implicature, online processing, context, QUD, common ground, alternatives, probabilistic pragmatics, perspective-taking, lexical precedents, scalar implicatures, implicatures, scalars, processing, psycholinguistics}, } @InCollection{Wilson2020, author = {Elspeth Wilson and Napoleon Katsos}, booktitle = {Developmental and Clinical Pragmatics}, publisher = {de Gruyter Mouton}, title = {Acquiring implicatures}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Children begin to acquire the ability to make inferences based on expectations of speaker co-operativity – implicatures – from the fourth year of life, but gaining adultlike proficiency in more complex communicative situations seems to take several more years. In this chapter we review what is known about children’s developing ability to derive quantity, relevance and manner implicatures, and identify some key ingredients of this development: acquiring knowledge about communication, the world, and vocabulary and grammar; learning the inferencing process itself; and developing social cognition. We suggest that integrating these skills and types of knowledge in conversation is a key challenge faced by children, and outline directions for future research.}, doi = {10.1515/9783110431056-007}, groups = {Implicature, Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {learning, implicature, informativeness, relevance, manner, Theory of Mind, pragmatic inferencing, pragmatic development, psycholinguistics, children}, } @Article{Yan2019, author = {Mengzhu Yan and Sasha Calhoun}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Priming Effects of Focus in Mandarin Chinese}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Psycholinguistic research has long established that focus-marked words have a processing advantage over other words in an utterance, e.g., they are recognized more quickly and remembered better. More recently, studies have shown that listeners infer contextual alternatives to a focused word in a spoken utterance, when marked with a contrastive accent, even when the alternatives are not explicitly mentioned in the discourse. This has been shown by strengthened priming of contextual alternatives to the word, but not other non-contrastive semantic associates, when it is contrastively accented, e.g., after hearing “The customer opened the window," salesman is strongly primed, but not product. This is consistent with Rooth's (1992) theory that focus-marking signals the presence of alternatives to the focus. However, almost all of the research carried out in this area has been on Germanic languages. Further, most of this work has looked only at one kind of focus-marking, by contrastive accenting (prosody). This paper reports on a cross-modal lexical priming study in Mandarin Chinese, looking at whether focus-marking heightens activation, i.e., priming, of words and their alternatives. Two kinds of focus-marking were investigated: prosodic and syntactic. Prosodic prominence is an important means of focus-marking in Chinese, however, it is realized through pitch range expansion, rather than accenting. The results showed that focused words, as well as their alternatives, were primed when the subject prime word carried contrastive prosodic prominence. Syntactic focus-marking, however, did not enhance priming of focused words or their alternatives. Non-contrastive semantic associates were not primed with either kind of focus-marking. These results extend previous findings on focus and alternative priming for the first time to Chinese. They also suggest that the processing advantages of focus, including priming alternatives, are particularly related to prosodic prominence, at least in Chinese and Germanic languages. This research sheds light on what linguistic mechanisms listeners use to identify important information, generate alternatives, and understand implicature necessary for successful communication.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01985}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Yan2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {alternatives, contrast, focus, prosody, syntax, Mandarin Chinese, cross-linguistic, psycholinguistics, implicatures}, } @Article{Espinal2019, author = {M.Teresa Espinal and Susagna Tubau}, journal = {Annual Review of Linguistics}, title = {Response Systems: The Syntax and Semantics of Fragment Answers and Response Particles}, year = {2019}, pages = {261-287}, volume = {5}, abstract = {This article critically reviews the main research issues raised in the study of response systems in natural languages by addressing the syntax and semantics of fragment answers and yes/no response particles. Fragment answers include replies that do not have a sentential form, whereas response particles consist solely of an affirmative or a negative adverb. While the main research question in the syntax of fragments and response particles has been whether these contain more syntactic structure than what is actually pronounced, the key issues in the study of their semantics are question–answer congruence, the anaphoric potential of response particles, and the meaning of fragments in relation to positive and negative questions. In connection to these issues, this review suggests some interesting avenues for further research: (a) providing an analysis of particles other than yes/no, (b) choosing between echoic versus nonechoic forms as answers to polar questions, and (c) deciding whether some non-lexically-based or nonverbal responses are systematically used in combination with polar particles to express (dis)agreement.}, doi = {10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011718-012613}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Espinal2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {answers, fragments, response particles, syntax, semantics, anaphora, polarity, negatives}, } @Article{Solt2019, author = {Stephanie Solt and Brandon Waldon}, journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics}, title = {Numerals under negation: Empirical findings}, year = {2019}, month = {oct}, number = {1}, pages = {113}, volume = {4}, abstract = {Despite a vast literature on the semantics and pragmatics of cardinal numerals, it has gone largely unnoticed that they exhibit a variety of polarity sensitivity, in that they require contextual support to occur felicitously in the scope of sentential negation. We present the results of a corpus analysis and two experiments that demonstrate that negated cardinals are acceptable when the negated value has been asserted or otherwise explicitly mentioned in the preceding discourse context, but unacceptable when such a value is neither mentioned nor inferable from that context. In this, bare cardinals exhibit both similarities to and differences from other types of numerical expressions. We propose an account of our findings based on the notion of convexity of linguistic meanings (G\"{a}rdenfors 2004) and discuss the implications for the semantics of numerical expressions more generally.}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.736}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Solt2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {corpus, experimental, numerals, polarity, Negation, numeral, approximation, discourse, convexity}, publisher = {Open Library of the Humanities}, } @InCollection{Schafer2019, author = {Amy J. Schafer and Amber Camp and Hannah Rohde and Theres Grüter}, booktitle = {Grammatical Approaches to Language Processing}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {Contrastive Prosody and the Subsequent Mention of Alternatives During Discourse Processing}, year = {2019}, pages = {29--44}, abstract = {Linguistic research has long viewed prosody as an important indicator of information structure in intonationally rich languages like English. Correspondingly, numerous psycholinguistic studies have shown significant effects of prosody, particularly with respect to the immediate processing of a prosodically prominent phrase. Although co-reference resolution is known to be influenced by information structure, it has been less clear whether prosodic prominence can affect decisions about next mention in a discourse, and if so, how. We present results from an open-ended story continuation task, conducted as part of a series of experiments that examine how prosody influences the anticipation and resolution of co-reference. Overall results from the project suggest that prosodic prominence can increase or decrease reference to a saliently pitch-accented phrase, depending on additional circumstances of the referential decision. We argue that an adequate account of prosody’s role in co-reference requires consideration of how the processing system interfaces with multiple levels of linguistic representation.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-01563-3_3}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Schafer2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {prosody, alternatives, psycholinguistics, experimental}, } @InCollection{Schwarz2019, author = {Florian Schwarz}, booktitle = {Grammatical Approaches to Language Processing}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {Definites, Domain Restriction, and Discourse Structure in Online Processing}, year = {2019}, pages = {187--208}, abstract = {Definite descriptions are commonly assumed to involve a uniqueness requirement, which is crucially constrained by contextual domain restriction. Theoretical proposals differ with regards to whether a variable for domain restriction should be represented in the linguistic representation or not, and if so, whether it should be seen as contributing a property or a situation. From the perspective of actual language use and comprehension, a key question is just how contextual information is integrated for purposes of domain restriction. Two visual world eye tracking studies addressing these issues are presented. They look at participants’ eye movements as they visually inspect an array of colored shapes and listen to descriptions thereof. For example, ‘The circle is black’ is evaluated relative to a display that contains two circles in different colors and positions. This is preceded by a context sentence that helps to set up a domain that narrows the referential choice to varying degrees, e.g. by containing ‘on the top.’ Various measures are used to assess to what extent the circle that happens to be at the top is taken to be the referent of the definite description, both in real time online while the sentence unfolds and in terms of ultimate response behavior. The results suggest that people are very much sensitive to the subtle contextual clues, and in particular that the discourse status of the key prepositional phrase in the discourse context is crucial. This has implications for theoretical perspectives on domain restriction, based on their capability to incorporate the role of discourse structure.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-01563-3_10}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Schwarz2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {definites, domain restriction, processing, psycholinguistics, experimental}, } @Book{Heusinger2019, author = {Klaus von Heusinger and V.Edgar Onea Gaspar and Malte Zimmermann}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Questions in Discourse: Volume 1: Semantics}, year = {2019}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, isbn = {978-90-04-37830-8}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004378308}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, url = {https://brill.com/view/title/38728}, } @InCollection{Onea2019, author = {Edgar Onea and Malte Zimmermann}, booktitle = {Questions in Discourse}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Questions in Discourse: an Overview}, year = {2019}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, isbn = {9789004378308}, pages = {5 - 117}, abstract = {Recently, questions have become a very prominent topic at the semantics-pragmatics interface. A wide range of papers on the semantics and pragmatics of natural language as well as discourse structure have been published that – in some way or another – use or presuppose important assumptions about questions. With this background, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the recent literature concerning the semantics and pragmatics of questions. In particular, the paper provides a short introduction to the formal semantic analysis of questions and it gives an overview and critical evaluation of the main topics of current research on questions at the semantics-pragmatics interface. The central purpose of this overview is to make it easier for readers to access current research on the semantics and pragmatics of question, information structure and discourse structure, projection and at-issueness as well as the semantics and pragmatics of discourse particles, and to situate these within the current state-of-the-art in question research. We expect this overview to be of particular use to scholars new to the field, but because of its wide coverage of empirical phenomena and analytical tools, the overview should provide useful for experts in the field as well.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004378308_003}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {semantics, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://brill.com/view/book/9789004378308/BP000002.xml}, } @Book{Zimmermann2019, author = {Malte Zimmermann and Klaus von Heusinger and V.Edgar Onea Gaspar}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Questions in Discourse: Volume 2: Pragmatics}, year = {2019}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, isbn = {978-90-04-37832-2}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004378322}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {pragmatics, questions}, url = {https://brill.com/view/title/38729}, } @Article{Rosemeyer2019, author = {Malte Rosemeyer}, journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics}, title = {Brazilian Portuguese in-situ wh-interrogatives between rhetoric and change}, year = {2019}, month = {jul}, number = {1}, pages = {80}, volume = {4}, abstract = {Previous studies of the historical development of partial interrogatives have postulated a change from contexts in which the proposition of the interrogative has been explicitly mentioned in the previous discourse, to contexts in which the proposition is discourse-new. The present paper explores whether the historical increase in the usage frequency of Brazilian Portuguese in-situ wh-interrogatives represents the same process. Using data from a large corpus of BP theater texts dated between the 19th and 21st century, several discourse functions of InSituWh are identified, the most frequent of which are cataphorical questions, which serve to either open up a question unrelated to the current question under discussion, or raise further questions about the current question under discussion, and rhetorical questions, which question the validity or relevance of a previously mentioned proposition. Rhetorical questions typically do not trigger a response by the interlocutor and are used with psychological verbs and morphologically simple interrogative pronouns. A statistical analysis of the diachronic distribution of InSituWh in the data reveals an increase in the usage frequency of InSituWh especially in contexts in which the proposition is discourse-new. However, the results also indicate that this increase is not due to a grammatical change of InSituWh but rather reflects a consolidation of the rhetorical question function of InSituWh within the genre of theater plays.}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.900}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Rosemeyer2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {wh-interrogative, question, in-situ wh, language change, Portuguese, corpus linguistics, rhetorical relations, experimental, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {Open Library of the Humanities}, } @InCollection{Riester2019, author = {Arndt Riester}, booktitle = {Questions in Discourse}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Constructing QUD Trees}, year = {2019}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, isbn = {9789004378322}, pages = {164 - 193}, abstract = {We discuss and combine representation formats for discourse structure, in particular ‘d-trees’ from QUD theory and SDRT graphs. QUD trees are derived from SDRT graphs, while changes must apply to QUD theory in order to allow for representations of naturalistic data. We discuss whether QUD s can replace discourse relations. We apply a new method for the identification of implicit Questions under Discussion (QUD s) to examples from an interview, and we address the status of non-at-issue content within our framework.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004378322_007}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {at issue, SDRT, dynamic semantics, discourse relations, not-at-issueness, discourse structure, information structure, QUD, annotation, non-at issue}, url = {https://brill.com/view/book/9789004378322/BP000006.xml}, } @InCollection{Westera2019, author = {Matthijs Westera}, booktitle = {Secondary Content}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Rise-Fall-Rise as a Marker of Secondary QUD s}, year = {2019}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, isbn = {9789004393127}, pages = {376 - 404}, abstract = {In the literature, English rise-fall-rise (RFR) intonation is known both as a marker of secondary information and as a marker of topics. This paper aims to make plausible that these two uses can be derived from a common core, which in turn can be derived from a recent theory of intonational meaning more generally, according to which rises and falls indicate (non-)compliance with the maxims (Westera 2013, 2014, 2017). The core meaning of RFR, I propose, is that the main question under discussion (Qud) is not compliantly addressed, while some secondary Qud is. Several more concrete predictions are derived from this core meaning, pertaining to secondary information, topic marking, exhaustivity, and discourse strategies. The resulting account is shown to generate certain ingredients of existing accounts, while also doing some things differently in ways that may be empirically accurate. If the proposed account is on the right track, it provides an important new intonational window on Quds.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004393127_015}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {intonation, tones, maxims, morphology, syntax, cooperation, implicature}, url = {https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004393127/BP000014.xml}, } @Article{Bledin2019, author = {Justin Bledin and Kyle Rawlins}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {What ifs}, year = {2019}, month = {nov}, number = {14}, pages = {1--55}, volume = {12}, abstract = {We develop a dynamic account of what if questions on which they re-pose questions inside local contexts introduced by their if-clauses subject to the felicity constraint that the resulting context is inquisitive. While this analysis is directly motivated by cases where a what if questioner challenges another speaker’s attempt to answer a current question under discussion (QUD) by seeming to re-ask this question over a more restricted contextual domain, it can also explain the flexibility of what if since other uses trigger accommodation with new QUDs to ensure that the post-suppositional inquisitivity condition is met. While QUD accommodation is a complex phenomenon that isn’t specific to just what if constructions, the pragmatic flexibility of what if furnishes a nice range of examples for investigating such repair. In the latter part of the paper, we focus on practical what if questions which trigger accommodation with QUDs that subserve the real-world domain goals of the speakers. We offer a systematic working theory of this accommodation within a formal model of discourse that involves goal stacks populated with both questions and decision problems tethered together by relevance. The larger contribution of this paper is to add to the understanding of how discourse felicity and update conditions at the level of speech acts can be encoded in natural languages.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.12.14}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bledin2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Accomodation, Mood and Speech Acts, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {accommodation, pragmatics, conditionals, discourse, speech acts, questions, suppositions}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @Article{Barros2019, author = {Matthew Barros and Hadas Kotek}, journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics}, title = {Ellipsis licensing and redundancy reduction: A focus-based approach}, year = {2019}, number = {1}, volume = {4}, abstract = {The focus of this paper is the characterization of the identity condition on sluicing. While the formulation of this condition remains an open issue, recent work suggests that sluices are anaphoric to an implicit question or issue that the antecedent raises in the discourse (Q-equivalence approaches, Ginzburg & Sag 2000; AnderBois 2011; 2014; 2016; Barros 2014; Weir 2014; Kotek & Barros 2018). We highlight several challenges to Q-equivalence accounts, and argue instead for a return to focus-based accounts (Rooth 1992a; Romero 1998; Fox 2000; Merchant 2001). Under such an approach, antecedents are importantly not responsible for raising any particular issue/question themselves, a point we show to be a critical challenge to Q-equivalence accounts. We propose instead that sluicing is possible provided that the antecedent and sluice have the same focus-theoretic propositional content. We show that this account is similar to, but improves upon, Merchant’s (2001) influential e-GIVENness account. We extend this account to cases of VP ellipsis, and moreover argue in support of the idea that the theory of ellipsis licensing should be integrated into a more general theory of redundancy reduction. In other words, that the semantic condition on identity in ellipsis is the same as the semantic condition on deaccenting (Rooth 1992a; Tancredi 1992). We propose a generalized condition on redundancy reduction, which may replace Schwarzschild’s (1999) GIVENness condition.}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.811}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Barros2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Focus, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {Sluicing, identity conditions, semantics, focus, question under discussion, inquisitiveness, inquisitive semantics, anaphora to issues, ellipsis}, publisher = {Open Library of the Humanities}, } @Article{Alatawi2019, author = {Haifa Alatawi}, journal = {International Review of Pragmatics}, title = {Empirical evidence on scalar implicature processing at the behavioural and neural levels: A review}, year = {2019}, number = {1}, pages = {1 - 21}, volume = {11}, abstract = {The Default hypothesis on implicature processing suggests that a rapid, automatic mechanism is used to process utterances such as “some of his family are attending the wedding” to infer that “not all of them are attending”, an inference subject to cancellation if additional contextual information is provided (e.g. “actually, they are all attending”). In contrast, the Relevance hypothesis suggests that only context-dependent inferences are computed and this process is cognitively effortful. This article reviews findings on behavioural and neural processing of scalar implicatures to clarify the cognitive effort involved.}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/18773109-201810011}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Implicature}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, scalar implicature, relevance, scalars}, publisher = {Brill}, url = {https://brill.com/view/journals/irp/11/1/article-p1_1.xml}, } @InProceedings{Kroll2019, author = {Margaret Kroll and Amanda Rysling}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 29}, title = {The search for truth: Appositives weigh in}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The semantic and pragmatic contribution of appositives to their containing sentence is a subject of continuing debate. While unidimensional semantic accounts propose that appositives contribute their truth conditions to their containing sentence, multidimensional accounts predict that they do not. In three experiments, we directly compared judgments of the truth of sentences containing appositives and sentences containing conjunctions. Our findings contribute both a methodological and a theoretical point. First, we show that no conclusions about the truth-conditional contributions of appositives can be drawn from experimental work without further investigation of how participants provide truth value judgments for complex sentences. Second, we show that while appositives appear to contribute truth values to their containing sentences, participants are highly sensitive to task features when they compute the truth value of sentences with appositives and also, crucially, with conjunctions. Specifically, we show that both sentences containing appositives and those containing conjunctions can be judged true even when the appositive or one conjunct is patently false. We conclude that it is unlikely that these results reflect semantic judgments, and suggest that they reflect truth only at the speech-act level.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v29i0.4607}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Kroll2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {semantics, experimental pragmatics, truth judgments, appositives}, } @InCollection{Grubic2019, author = {Mira Grubic}, booktitle = {Secondary Content}, publisher = {Brill}, title = {Additives and Accommodation}, year = {2019}, address = {Leiden, The Netherlands}, isbn = {9789004393127}, pages = {168 - 199}, abstract = {This chapter discusses the presupposition of German auch (“too”). While secondary meanings associated with other triggers can often be informative, additive particles require their presupposition to be salient at the time of utterance. According to one account, additives require a parallel proposition to be salient (e.g. Beaver & Zeevat 2007). Another account suggests that only another individual needs to be salient, while the remainder of the presupposition can be accommodated (e.g. Heim 1992). In this chapter, an experiment comparing these two accounts is presented and discussed. It is argued that the second account is better suited to explain the results.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004393127_008}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Accomodation, Experimental Approaches, Projection and Presupposition}, keywords = {German, non-English, cross-linguistic, additieves, accommodation, presupposition, experimental}, url = {https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004393127/BP000007.xml}, } @InProceedings{Lorson2019, author = {Lorson, Alexandra and Cummins, Chris and Rohde, Hannah}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 23rd workshop on the semantics and pragmatics of dialogue. London: SemDial}, title = {When objecting to presupposed content comes easily}, year = {2019}, pages = {60}, volume = {54}, abstract = {New content can be introduced into dialogue via presupposition as well as by assertion, but on traditional accounts presupposed information is expected to be less addressable in the subsequent dialogue. An alternative approach is to argue that addressability is more closely connected to whether content is at-issue with respect to the current Question Under Discussion. This paper investigates which of these factors is dominant. We report the results of a dialogue-based experiment designed to test whether and how false at-issue content is responded to in an ongoing discourse, and whether this is affected by its status as asserted or presupposed. Our findings suggest that when material is at-issue it can be challenged directly, independently of whether it is presupposed or asserted. However, relevant information introduced by a presupposition was found to be more likely to escape the participants’ attention.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics, Projection and Presupposition, Projection}, keywords = {presupposition, objection, at issue, experimental, attention}, url = {http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~hrohde/papers/LorsonCumminsRohde.2019.pdf}, } @Article{Champollion2019, author = {Lucas Champollion and Dylan Bumford and Robert Henderson}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Donkeys under discussion}, year = {2019}, month = {nov}, number = {1}, pages = {1--50}, volume = {12}, abstract = {Donkey sentences have existential and universal readings, but they are not often perceived as ambiguous. We extend the pragmatic theory of non-maximality in plural definites by Križ (2016) to explain how hearers use Questions under Discussion to fix the interpretation of donkey sentences in context. We propose that the denotations of such sentences involve truth-value gaps — in certain scenarios the sentences are neither true nor false — and demonstrate that Križ’s pragmatic theory fills these gaps to generate the standard judgments of the literature. Building on Muskens’s (1996) Compositional Discourse Representation Theory and on ideas from supervaluation semantics, we define a general schema for dynamic quantification that delivers the required truth-value gaps. Given the independently motivated pragmatic theory of Križ 2016, we argue that mixed readings of donkey sentences require neither plural information states, contra Brasoveanu 2008, 2010, nor error states, contra Champollion 2016, nor singular donkey pronouns with plural referents, contra Krifka 1996, Yoon 1996. We also show that the pragmatic account improves over alternatives like Kanazawa 1994 that attribute the readings of donkey sentences to the monotonicity properties of the embedding quantifier.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.12.1}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Champollion2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals}, keywords = {donkey sentences; dynamic semantics; homogeneity; non-maximality; Question under Discussion; semantics/pragmatics interface; trivalence; truth-value gaps; weak/strong (existential/universal) ambiguity}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @InProceedings{Meertens2019, author = {Erlinde Meertens and Sophie Egger and Maribel Romero}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung}, title = {Multiple accent in alternative questions}, year = {2019}, number = {2}, volume = {23}, abstract = {Alternative Questions (AltQs) are typically characterized by two prosodic cues: a final falling boundary tone and a pitch accent on each disjunct. Recent accounts in the literature have taken the final fall as the central surface cue for AltQ interpretation or have assigned a vacuous semantic contribution to the multiple accent on the disjuncts. Based on data from English and Turkish, we argue that both cues are equally important and require modelling in a unified account of AltQs. Combining ingredients from the literature (Roberts, 1996; Biezma, 2009; Westera, 2017), we propose that, essentially, the multiple accent shapes the Question under Discussion (QUD) and that the final fall, or the lack thereof, indicates restrictions on the content of the QUD via (un)satisfaction of Attention Maxims.}, doi = {10.18148/sub/2019.v23i2.605}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Meertens2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing, Psycholinguistics, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {alternatives, prosody, pitch, cross-linguistic, Turkish, non-English, maxims, attention, psycholinguistics}, } @Article{Xu2019, author = {Hongzhi Xu}, journal = {Lingua}, title = {The experiential aspect of Mandarin Chinese (-guo): Semantics and pragmatics}, year = {2019}, volume = {229}, abstract = {The study of the Chinese experiential aspect expressed by -guo is an important research topic in both Chinese theoretical linguistics and the semantics-pragmatics interface more broadly. Previous studies propose that the semantics of -guo has the property of what is called repeatability, and/or discontinuity. In this article, I show that previous theories do not adequately explain the distributional pattern of -guo. The semantics of -guo therefore remains unclear. Based on a comprehensive observation of the experiential aspect marker -guo, I propose that (1) -guo semantically is an existential quantifier indicating a non-empty set of a type of eventuality in a certain time frame which is presupposed to be before a reference time, and with this new proposal, the so-called perfective -guo described by previous studies can be explained in the same framework, and thus the two -guos can be unified; (2) the discontinuity property can be accounted for from a pragmatic perspective under the notion of Question Under Discussion (Roberts, 1996).}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2019.102714}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Xu2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Chinese aspect; -guo; Experiential marker; Semantics-pragmatics interface; Quantifiers, cross-linguistic, Chinese, existential quantifier}, } @Article{Delogu2020, author = {Francesca Delogu and Torsten Jachmann and Maria Staudte and Francesco Vespignani and Nicola Molinaro}, journal = {Discourse Processes}, title = {Discourse Expectations Are Sensitive to the Question Under Discussion: Evidence From {ERPs}}, year = {2020}, month = {feb}, number = {2}, pages = {122--140}, volume = {57}, abstract = {Questions under Discussion (QUDs) have been suggested to influence the integration of individual utterances into a discourse-level representation. Previous work has shown that processing ungrammatical ellipses is facilitated when the elided material addresses an implicit QUD raised through a nonactuality implicature (NAIs). It is not clear, however, if QUDs influence discourse coherence during comprehension of fully acceptable discourse. We present two ERP studies examining the effects of QUDs introduced by NAIs using two-sentence discourses. Experiment 1 showed that processing definite NPs with inaccessible antecedents is facilitated when their content is relevant to the QUD. Using acceptable discourses, Experiment 2 showed that definite NPs failing to address a QUD elicit increased processing cost. Overall, our results indicate that QUDs raise the expectation that the following discourse will address them, providing unambiguous evidence that their influence is not limited to the processing of ungrammatical input.}, doi = {10.1080/0163853x.2019.1575140}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Delogu2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental, processing, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @InProceedings{Kursat2020, author = {Kursat, Leyla and Degen, Judith and Denison, Stephanie and Mack, Michael and Xu, Yang and Armstrong, Blair C}, booktitle = {CogSci}, title = {Probability and processing speed of scalar inferences is context-dependent.}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Studies addressing the question of whether scalar inferences generally incur a processing cost have yielded conflicting results. Constraint-based accounts, which seek to unify these conflicting results, make a prediction which we test here: the probability of an interpretation and the speed with which it is processed depends on the contextual support it receives. We manipulated contextual support for the scalar inference in two truth-value judgment experiments by manipulating a lexical feature (presence of partitive “of the”) and a pragmatic feature (the implicit Question Under Discussion). Participants’ responder type – whether their majority response was pragmatic (reflecting the inference) or literal (reflecting its absence) – was the main predictor of response times: pragmatic responses were faster than literal responses when generated by pragmatic responders; the reverse was true for literal responders. We interpret this as further evidence against costly inference accounts and in support of constraint-based accounts of pragmatic processing.}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Psycholinguistics}, keywords = {psycholinguistics; experimental pragmatics;scalar inference; Question Under Discussion, scalar implicatures, scalars}, url = {https://www.cognitivesciencesociety.org/cogsci20/papers/0233/0233.pdf}, } @Article{Xiang2020, author = {Ming Xiang and Alex Kramer and Ann E. Nordmeyer}, journal = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition}, title = {An informativity-based account of negation complexity.}, year = {2020}, month = {oct}, number = {10}, pages = {1857--1867}, volume = {46}, abstract = {In sentence comprehension, negative sentences tend to elicit more processing cost than affirmative sentences. A growing body of work has shown that pragmatic context is an important factor that contributes to negation comprehension cost. The nature of this pragmatic effect, however, is yet to be determined. In 4 behavioral experiments, the current study assesses 2 possible pragmatic accounts: the expectation-based and the informativity-based accounts. Our findings suggest that informativity, instead of contextual expectation, is more directly responsible for negation comprehension. Contextual expectation only modulates negation comprehension cost if it facilitates the appropriate type of question under discussion.}, doi = {10.1037/xlm0000851}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Xiang2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, negation; QUD; pragmatics; informativity; contextual expectation, experimental}, publisher = {American Psychological Association ({APA})}, } @InProceedings{Westera2020, author = {Matthijs Westera and Laia Mayol and Hannah Rohde}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th Language Resources and Evaluation Conference}, title = {TED-Q: TED Talks and the Questions they Evoke}, year = {2020}, abstract = {We present a new dataset of TED-talks annotated with the questions they evoke and, where available, the answers to these questions. Evoked questions represent a hitherto mostly unexplored type of linguistic data, which promises to open up important new lines of research, especially related to the Question Under Discussion (QUD)-based approach to discourse structure. In this paper we introduce the method and open the first installment of our data to the public. We summarize and explore the current dataset, illustrate its potential by providing new evidence for the relation between predictability and implicitness – capitalizing on the already existing PDTB-style annotations for the texts we use – and outline its potential for future research. The dataset should be of interest, at its current scale, to researchers on formal and experimental pragmatics, discourse coherence, information structure, discourse expectations and processing. Our data-gathering procedure is designed to scale up, relying on crowdsourcing by non-expert annotators, with its utility for Natural Language Processing in mind (e.g., dialogue systems, conversational question answering).}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Westera2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {annotation, corpus, discourse structure, data set, experimental pragmatics}, url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10230/46320}, } @Article{Djaerv2020, author = {Kajsa Dj\"{a}rv and Hezekiah Akiva Bacovcin}, journal = {Journal of Pragmatics}, title = {Prosodic effects on factive presupposition projection}, year = {2020}, month = {nov}, pages = {61--85}, volume = {169}, abstract = {This paper investigates the interaction between prosodically mediated pragmatics and factive presupposition projection. In particular, it addresses a set of proposals, articulated most clearly in Abrusán (2011, 2016); Simons et al. (2010), and Simons et al. (2017), which argue that prosodically mediated focus, as a signal of the Question Under Discussion (Roberts, 1996, 2012), determines whether or not particular content becomes presupposed (Abrusán) or ends up projecting from the scope of entailment-targeting operators (Simons et al.). We present experimental results demonstrating that the predictions made by these proposals are too strong: although focus is shown to have an effect on factive presupposition projection, it does not completely eliminate the factive inference, as argued by these authors. Rather, we find that the main factor determining whether or not a factive inference projects is the identity of the predicate. We argue that this supports a view whereby factive presuppositions are lexically triggered, and may only be cancelled in a particular set of embedded contexts via local accommodation (Heim, 1983). However, focus may give rise to inferences via the QUD, to the effect that the factive inference is weakened (although not completely eliminated).}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2020.04.011}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Djarv2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Projection and Presupposition, Focus, Projection}, keywords = {Factivity, Focus, Question Under Discussion, Prosody, Presupposition projection and triggering, Experimental pragmatics}, publisher = {Elsevier {BV}}, } @Article{Ronai2020, author = {Eszter Ronai and Ming Xiang}, journal = {Journal of Linguistics}, title = {Pragmatic inferences are QUD-sensitive: an experimental study}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Implicatures serve as an important testing ground for examining the process of integrating semantic and pragmatic information. Starting with Bott & Noveck (2004), several studies have found that implicature computation is costly. More recently, attention has shifted toward identifying contextual cues that modulate this processing cost. Specifically, it has been hypothesized that calculation rate and processing cost are a function of whether the Question Under Discussion (QUD) supports generating the implicature (Degen 2013; Degen & Tanenhaus 2015). In this paper, we present a novel elicitation task establishing what the relevant QUDs are for a given context (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, a sentence-picture verification study, we extend earlier findings about the effect of QUDs on scalar inference to a different kind of pragmatic inference: it-cleft exhaustivity. For both inferences, we find that under QUDs that bias toward calculation, there is no increase in reaction times, but under QUDs that bias against calculating the inference we observe longer reaction times. These results are most compatible with a constraint-based account of implicature, where QUD is one of many cues. Additionally, we explore whether our findings can be informative in narrowing down precisely what aspect of the inferential process incurs a cost.}, doi = {10.1017/S0022226720000389}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Ronai2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {experimental pragmatics, implicatures, inference processing, Question Under Discussion, psycholinguistics}, source = {https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226720000389}, } @InCollection{Smeets2020, author = {Liz Smeets and Luisa Meroni}, booktitle = {Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Springer Netherlands}, title = {Stress or Context for the Computation of Scalar Implicatures}, year = {2020}, pages = {313--331}, abstract = {Since the work of Chierchia et al. (2001) and Noveck (2001), children’s ability to compute scalar implicatures (SIs) has been widely studied. The results of many studies showed that while children master the prerequisites to compute SIs, they are not as proficient as adults in computing them (a.o., Papafragou and Musolino 2003; Napoleon and Bishop 2011). Other studies (i.e., Meroni and Gualmini 2013), on the other hand, showed that even four-year-old children can compute SIs on the  scale at adult-like levels when the context is made pragmatically felicitous. Specifically, they show that the implicature is computed when an explicit Question Under Discussion (QUD) is added, as this reading constitutes the only felicitous answer to that question (Gualmini et al. 2008). Under the most natural intonation, when some is presented after a QUD that contains the stronger alternative all it receives stress, but it is destressed when the QUD contains some, which does not trigger a SI. Interestingly, only the former condition led children to compute SIs. As a consequence, it could well be the case that children in the study by Meroni and Gualmini (2013) compute SIs when the scalar item is stressed (Miller et al. 2005), independently of the QUD. In this study we aim to disentangle the relative contribution of stress and the explicit QUD to children’s (un)successful SI computation. To test the relative contribution of stress and the QUD, a Truth Value Judgment task (TVJt) was designed in which the target sentences exhibited the opposite stress pattern than in the original study. We conclude that prosody also plays a role in helping children to recognize the set of contextual alternatives which lead them to SI derivation. This study strengthens the claim that young children use and need both contextual and prosodic information to make pragmatic inferences.}, doi = {10.1007/978-94-024-1932-0_13}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Smeets2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, children, learning, scalar implicatures, prosody, experimental}, } @Article{Bledin2020, author = {Justin Bledin and Kyle Rawlins}, journal = {Journal Of Semantics}, title = {Resistance and Resolution: Attentional Dynamics in Discourse}, year = {2020}, number = {1}, pages = {43-82}, volume = {37}, abstract = {This paper centers on discourses where instead of accepting or rejecting an assertion, a hearer uses an epistemic possibility claim to bring a new subject matter to the original speaker’s attention and consequently leads this speaker to change her mind and retract the initial claim. To analyze such resistance moves, we develop a new theory of attention-shift-induced belief change in which attention is modeled using granularity-levels or resolutions of logical space and refining a speaker’s attention can allow her to combine more of her resolution-sensitive information and potentially change her beliefs. We integrate this theory into pre-existing machinery from the literature on formal models of discourse to account for both the informational and attentional dynamics in epistemic resistance discourses, and to lay out some of the formal prerequisites for a more comprehensive theory of resistance moves in general. Along the way, we introduce the new concept of a subject matter under public attention (SUP) and compare this with the more familiar concept of a question under discussion (QUD).}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffz015}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bledin2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {modality, possibility, resistance, attention, beliefs, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, } @Article{Balogh2021, author = {Kata Balogh}, journal = {Studies in Language}, title = {Additive particle uses in Hungarian}, year = {2021}, number = {2}, pages = {428-469}, volume = {45}, abstract = {In this paper, we investigate empirical data that raise challenging issues with respect to focus sensitivity of the Hungarian additive particle is ‘also, too’. In Hungarian, the additive particle is attached to a constituent, and the is-phrase cannot occupy the structural focus position. This raises the issue how to capture the focus sensitivity of is. We propose a primarily pragmatic, context-based analysis of the Hungarian additive particle, where the particle associates with the pragmatic focus (Lambrecht 1994) determined on basis of the immediate question under discussion (Roberts 2012). Important evidence for this claim is that the Hungarian additive particle can take different semantic associates, corresponding to the pragmatic focus of the sentence. After discussing the Hungarian data, we will present the analysis in the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997; Van Valin 2005). To capture Hungarian and English data in a uniform way, important extensions of the framework will be proposed.}, doi = {10.1075/sl.19034.bal}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Balogh2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Focus}, keywords = {additives, cross-linguistic, Hungarian, focus}, } @PhdThesis{Goebel2020, author = {Alexander Goebel}, school = {University of Massachusets, Amherst}, title = {Representing Context: Presupposition Triggers and Focus-sensitivity}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This dissertation investigates the role of Focus-sensitivity for a typology of presupposition triggers. The central hypothesis is that Focus-sensitive triggers require a linguistic antecedent in the discourse model, whereas presuppositions of triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity are satisfied as entailments of the Common Ground. This hypothesis is supported by experimental evidence from two borne out predictions. First, Focus-sensitive triggers are sensitive to the salience of the antecedent satisfying their presupposition, as operationalized via the Question Under Discussion, and lead to interference-type effects, while triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity are indifferent to the QUD-structure. Second, Focus-sensitive triggers are harder to globally accommodate than triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity. The picture that emerges from these results is that the same kind of meaning - presuppositions - is grounded in distinct underlying representations of context in relation to an independent property of the trigger - Focus-sensitivity - which directly affects the way a trigger is processed.}, doi = {10.7275/19172131}, groups = {Focus, Projection and Presupposition, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Projection}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, presupposition, focus, experimental}, } @Article{Lewis2020, author = {Karen S. Lewis}, journal = {Inquiry}, title = {Metasemantics without semantic intentions}, year = {2020}, month = {nov}, pages = {1--29}, abstract = {The most common answers to metasemantic questions regarding context-sensitive expressions appeal primarily to speakers' intentions. Having rejected intentionalism in Lewis [(2020. “The Speaker Authority Problem for Context-Sensitivity (Or: You Can't Always Mean What You Want).” Erkenntnis 85: 1527–1555.], this paper takes a non-intentionalist perspective in answering the metasemantic question: how does a context determine the value of context-sensitive expressions? It focuses on the case of gradable adjectives, i.e. expressions like ‘tall’, ‘expensive’, and ‘rich’, which require a contextually determined standard in the unmarked positive form, as in ‘Pia is tall’. I argue that this standard is determined by a salient comparison class, which, when embedded in the relevant facts, provides input into statistical reasoning which outputs a standard in accordance with conversational domain goals.}, doi = {10.1080/0020174x.2020.1847184}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Lewis2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {metasemantics, metacommunication, intention, comparison class, philosophical}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @Article{Miller2020, author = {Philip Miller and Barbara Hemforth and Pascal Amsili and Gabriel Flambard}, journal = {Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America}, title = {Missing Antecedents Found}, year = {2020}, month = {aug}, number = {1}, pages = {822}, volume = {5}, abstract = {Numerous papers have used so-called 'missing antecedent phenomena' as a criterion for distinguishing deep and surface anaphora. Specifically, only the latter are claimed to licence pronouns with missing antecedents. These papers also argue that missing antecedent phenomena provide evidence that surface anaphora involve unpronounced syntactic structure in the ellipsis site. The present paper suggests that the acceptability judgments on which the argument is based exhibit a confound because they do not take discourse conditions on VPE (a surface anaphor) and VPA (a deep anaphor) into account. Two acceptability experiments provide evidence that what is relevant to the judgments are the discourse conditions and not the presence of deep vs. surface anaphors, casting doubt on the reliability of missing antecedent phenomena as a criterion for deep vs. surface status.}, doi = {10.3765/plsa.v5i1.4795}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Miller2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Experimental Approaches, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {ellipsis; VP ellipsis; VP anaphora; missing antecedents; deep and surface anaphora; acceptability experiments; discourse conditions; question under discussion, experimental}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @InProceedings{Jivanyan2020, author = {Hasmik Jivanyan}, booktitle = {Fresh Perspectives on Major Issues in Pragmatics}, title = {At-Issue or Not-At-Issue Discourse Contribution by Puisque (F ‘Since’)? Information Structure and Discourse Structure}, year = {2020}, publisher = {Routledge}, abstract = {The main goal of this chapter is to study the discourse contribution of the clauses linked by the discourse connective puisque (‘since’, PSQ) in French, in terms of (not-)at-issue meaning. This question constitutes the novelty of this chapter, since it has not been addressed with respect to PSQ, or even with respect to discourse connectives, to my knowledge. This new question implies a specific methodological framework providing new theoretical instruments to answer it: The analysis is carried out within a formal discourse-pragmatic model based on the notion of Question Under Discussion (QUD; cf. Roberts 1996; Velleman & Beaver 2015). Thus, an important outcome of this chapter is that it puts the study of discourse connectives in general, and of PSQ in particular, in a new theoretical framework. In order to evaluate the discourse contribution of PSQ-clauses, I take into consideration several aspects of PSQ-usages: i) the information structure of the relation PSQ establishes, ii) the type of coherence relation expressed, and, crucially, iii) the clause-linking specificities of PSQ. The first two aspects are widely studied in discourse-analytical models. The third one is traditionally well attested (Groupe Lambda-L 1975; Ducrot 1983), however, it has not been questioned from the point of view of the theoretical implications it bears on discourse progression or the discourse-level information structure of PSQ-clauses. The study of the latter will be the main import of this chapter, captured in terms of (not-)at-issueness. The analysis of PSQ-usage with respect to the question of how the PSQ-clause contributes to discourse progression reveals that PSQ is not homogeneous in its usages. Limiting the analysis on medial positions of PSQ, two types of PSQ-usages are distinguished. These two types are different with respect to the information status of the PSQ-clause, the type of coherence relation expressed, as well as the way the PSQ-clause contributes to discourse progression, either as at-issue or not-at-issue content.}, doi = {10.4324/9781003017462-8}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Jivanyan2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Rhetorical Relations, Discourse Particles, Cross-Linguistic, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {discourse particle, not-at-issueness, not at issueness, coherence relations, rhetorical relations, French, cross-linguistic, non-English}, } @Article{Augurzky2020, author = {Petra Augurzky and Fabian Schlotterbeck and Rolf Ulrich}, journal = {Language, Cognition and Neuroscience}, title = {Most (but not all) quantifiers are interpreted immediately in visual context}, year = {2020}, month = {feb}, number = {9}, pages = {1203--1222}, volume = {35}, abstract = {The present ERP study used picture-sentence verification to investigate the neurolinguistic correlates of online semantic processing. We examined the effects of positive and negative polarity on the N400 in sentences containing the quantifiers more than half and fewer than half. Contrary to previous studies, we examined logical-semantic processes independently of lexical associations and world knowledge, and we used materials that were balanced with respect to the formal-semantic properties of polar quantifiers. Using picture-sentence verification, we examined the N400 at different sentence positions and thus controlled for contextual properties and predictability across the sentence. Our findings replicate delayed effects associated with negative quantifiers: For positive quantifiers, the truth-evaluation process had an immediate effect on the N400 across the sentence, while no incremental effects were found for negative quantifiers. Our results are compatible with predictive approaches suggesting that the increased semantic complexity of negative quantifiers affects the processing of later sentence regions.}, doi = {10.1080/23273798.2020.1722846}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Augurzky2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {event related potentials, psycholinguistics, experimental, N400, language comprehension, quantifiers, quantifier processing, picture-sentence verification}, publisher = {Informa {UK} Limited}, } @InProceedings{Hesse2020, author = {Christoph Hesse and Anton Benz and Maurice Langner and Felix Theodor and Ralf Klabunde}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Discourse Theories for Text Planning}, title = {Annotating QUDs for generating pragmatically rich texts}, year = {2020}, pages = {10–16}, publisher = {Association for Computational Linguistics}, abstract = {We describe our work on QUD-oriented annotation of driving reports for the generation of corresponding texts – texts that are a mix of technical details of the new vehicle that has been put on the market together with the impressions of the test driver on driving characteristics. Generating these texts pose a challenge since they express non-at-issue and expressive content that cannot be retrieved from a database. Instead these subjective meanings must be justified by comparisons with attributes of other vehicles. We describe our current annotation task for the extraction of the relevant information for generating these driving reports.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Hesse2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {annotation, not-at-issueness, not at issueness, expressive content}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/2020.dt4tp-1.3}, } @Article{Skordos2020, author = {Dimitrios Skordos and Roman Feiman and Alan Bale and David Barner}, journal = {Journal of Semantics}, title = {Do Children Interpret `or' Conjunctively?}, year = {2020}, month = {mar}, number = {2}, pages = {247--267}, volume = {37}, abstract = {Preschoolers often struggle to compute scalar implicatures involving disjunction (or), in which they are required to strengthen an utterance by negating stronger alternatives, e.g. to infer that, ‘The girl has an apple or an orange’ likely means she does not have both. However, recent reports surprisingly find that a substantial subset of children interpret disjunction as conjunction, concluding instead that the girl must have both fruits. According to these studies, children arrive at conjunctive readings not because they have a non-adult-like semantics, but because they lack access to the stronger scalar alternative and, and employ doubly exhaustified disjuncts when computing implicatures. Using stimuli modelled on previous studies, we test English-speaking preschoolers and replicate the finding that many children interpret or conjunctively. However, we speculate that conditions which replicate this finding may be pragmatically infelicitous, such that results do not offer a valid test of children’s semantic competence. We show that when disjunctive statements are uttered in contexts that render the speaker’s intended question more transparent, conjunctive readings disappear almost entirely.}, doi = {10.1093/jos/ffz022}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Skordos2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Language Acquisition and Processing, Experimental Approaches, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {children, learning, scalar alternatives, experimental, psycholinguistics}, publisher = {Oxford University Press ({OUP})}, } @InProceedings{Mayol2020, author = {Mayol, Laia and Vallduv\'{i} Botet, Enric}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung}, title = {Utterances with themes as strategies to address a broad Question Under Discussion}, year = {2020}, number = {1}, pages = {533-546}, volume = {24}, abstract = {In a QUD-model of discourse, any utterance elaborates on the maximal QUD in that context. QUDs play an essential role in defining the two parts in which an utterance can be divided: theme and rheme. An utterance must always contain a rheme, which is the part that elaborates on the QUD, and may contain a theme, which replicates content already present in the QUD. Since themes are replicating material already present in the QUD, one may wonder why themes are uttered at all. Vallduv´ı (2016) proposes that themes signal the the QUD update will have an intermediate step and that the QUD being addressed is not the maximal one. In other words, themes mark that the QUD update is non-default. The goal of this paper is to empirically examine one of these non-default updates and, in particular, whether theme-containing utterances can be used to signal that the QUD being addressed is broader than the maximal one and, if so, whether they are necessary in this situation. Two discourse-completion studies in Catalan were carried out. The results show that theme-containing utterances are mostly used to address a broad QUD (as opposed to narrower ones) and that when speakers decide to address a broad QUD, the proportion of theme-containing utterances increases significantly. The use of themes is, however, not required to signal this change of QUD; themeless-utterances can also be used in this context.}, doi = {10.18148/sub/2020.v24i1.916}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches, Topic}, keywords = {maximality, rhemes, themes, topic, experimental, updates, Catalan, non-English, cross-linguistic}, } @Article{vanElswyk2020, author = {Peter {van Elswyk}}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {What the metasemantics of know is not}, year = {2020}, month = {jul}, number = {1}, pages = {69--82}, volume = {43}, abstract = {Epistemic contextualism in the style of Lewis (in Aust J Philos 74:549–567, 1996) maintains that ascriptions of knowledge to a subject vary in truth with the alternatives that can be eliminated by the subject’s evidence in a context. Schaffer (in Philos Stud 119:73–103, 2004, in Oxford Stud Epistemol 1:235–271, 2005, in Philos Phenomenol Res 75:383–403, 2007, in Philos Issues 18(1):1–19, 2008, in: Schaffer, Loewer (eds) A companion to David Lewis, pp 473–490. Wiley, Hoboken, 2015), Schaffer and Knobe (in Noûs 46:675–708, 2012), and Schaffer and Szabó (in Philos Stud 168(2):491–543, 2014) hold that the question under discussion or QUD always determines these alternatives in a context. This paper shows that the QUD does not perform such a role for know and uses this result to draw a few lessons about the metasemantics of context-sensitivity.}, doi = {10.1007/s10988-019-09263-w}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/vanElswyk2020.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {epistemic contextualism, philosophy, qud, question under discussion, know, metasemantics, contrastivism, knowledge}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media {LLC}}, } @Article{AnderBois2012, author = {Scott AnderBois}, journal = {Natural Language Semantics}, title = {Focus and uninformativity in Yucatec Maya questions}, year = {2012}, month = {sep}, number = {4}, pages = {349--390}, volume = {20}, abstract = {Crosslinguistically, questions frequently make crucial use of morphosyntactic elements which also occur outside of questions. Chief among these are focus, disjunctions, and wh-words with indefinite semantics. This paper provides a compositional account of the semantics of wh-, alternative, and polar questions in Yucatec Maya (YM), which are composed primarily of these elements. Key to the account is a theory of disjunctions and indefinites (extending work by others) which recognizes the inherently inquisitive nature of these elements. While disjunctions and indefinites are inquisitive, they differ from questions since they are also truth-conditionally informative. Compositionally, then, the role of focus in YM questions is to presuppose the informative component of an indefinite wh-word or disjunction, rendering the inquisitive component the question's only new contribution to the discourse. In addition to deriving question denotations compositionally, the account also captures a potentially surprising fact: focused disjunctions in YM can function as either questions or assertions, depending solely on the discourse context.}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-012-9084-3}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Anderbois2012.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {questions, alternatives, focus, disjunction, indefinites, assertion, Yucatec Maya, cross-linguistic}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media {LLC}}, } @PhdThesis{AnderBois2011, author = {Scott AnderBois}, school = {University of California, Santa Cruz}, title = {Issues and Alternatives}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The central topic this dissertation is the semantic relationship between disjunctions, indefinites, and other instances of existential quantification on the one hand and questions on the other. I argue that the former have more in common with the latter than is generally acknowledged and, in particular, that their compositional semantics includes not only truth-conditional information, but also an issue-raising or inquisitive capacity. For example, a simple assertion like “Someone left.” not only proposes to rule out the possibility that no one left, it also presents the issue of ‘Who left?’ as a possible direction for future discussion. This dissertation presents several empirical arguments for this inquisitive capacity and for particular interactions with other elements in the sentence. The most direct argument comes from novel fieldwork on wh- and alternative questions in Yucatec Maya (an indigenous language of Mexico), which consist of focused disjunctions and focused indefinite wh-words respectively. I argue that both patterns can be accounted for under a semantics where disjunctions and indefinite wh-words — across all their uses — make a contribution that is both inquisitive and potentially informative. The (contextually restricted) presupposition of focus is responsible for isolating this inquisitive capacity in questions, thus distinguishing them from assertions. This Yucatec Maya-based semantics for disjunctions and indefinites sheds light on several puzzles regarding these elements more generally, and in particular, in English. The first of these is the ellipsis process known as Sluicing, which I analyze as the anaphoric retrieval of an issue introduced by prior inquisitive elements. Second, I provide an analysis of subtle differences between positive, negative, and alternative polar questions with or not, which makes use of a more structured ‘two-tiered’ semantics for issues. Finally, I provide a semantic/pragmatic account of polar questions with preposed negation in which (double) negation plays the pivotal semantic role, suppressing inquisitive content within the question itself, thereby providing added emphasis on the truth-conditional information of the proposition itself (i.e. Verum Focus).}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {disjunction, indefinites, questions, at issueness, at-issueness, Yucatec Maya, cross-linguistic, presupposion, focus, anaphora resolution, polar questions}, url = {https://research.clps.brown.edu/anderbois/PDFs/AnderBois_Diss_Web.pdf}, } @InProceedings{AnderBois2015a, author = {Scott AnderBois and Robert Henderson}, booktitle = {Methodologies in Semantic Fieldwork}, title = {Linguistically Establishing Discourse Context: Two Case Studies from Mayan Languages}, year = {2015}, editor = {M. Ryan Bochnak and Lisa Matthewson}, abstract = {This chapter tackles the question of whether the language under investigation or a language of wider communication should be used in presenting contexts for judgment tasks. Based on two case studies from fieldwork on Mayan languages, the primary conclusion is that neither choice is inherently better. Instead, grammatical features of the two languages and the constructions under investigation must guide the selection of a language for establishing the discourse context. Because the relevant grammatical features are often interesting in their own right and crucial for replication, the chapter concludes with a prescriptive proposal: researchers should both disclose the language used for setting up judgment contexts and explain why that language was chosen.}, doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190212339.003.0009}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Anderbois2015a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Mayan, attitude reports, pluractionality, discourse context, judgment tasks, experimental, cross-linguistic, fieldwork}, } @Article{AnderBois2014, author = {Scott AnderBois}, journal = {Language}, title = {The semantics of sluicing: Beyond truth conditions}, year = {2014}, number = {4}, pages = {887--926}, volume = {90}, abstract = {Since Merchant 2001, it has been widely agreed that the licensing condition on sluicing is at least partially semantic in nature. This article argues that the semantics this condition operates on must include not only truth conditions, but also the issues introduced by existential quantification and disjunction. In the account presented here, the special role these elements play in antecedents for sluicing derives from the deep semantic connections between these elements and questions. In addition to accounting for well-known facts about sluicing in a natural way, this article also analyzes novel facts such as the interaction of sluicing with appositives and double negation, and handles recalcitrant cases such as disjunctive antecedents. The account can readily be extended to so-called ‘sprouting’ cases where the crucial material in the antecedent is an implicit argument or is missing altogether.}, doi = {10.1353/lan.2014.0110}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/AnderBois2014.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {sluicing, existential quantification, appositives, sprouting, inquisitivity, indefinites, disjunction, negation, ellipsis}, } @InProceedings{DeKuthy2019, author = {De Kuthy, Kordula and Brunetti, Lisa and Berardi, Marta}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 13th Linguistic Annotation Workshop}, title = {Annotating Information Structure in {I}talian: Characteristics and Cross-Linguistic Applicability of a {QUD}-Based Approach}, year = {2019}, address = {Florence, Italy}, month = aug, pages = {113--123}, publisher = {Association for Computational Linguistics}, abstract = {We present a discourse annotation study, in which an annotation method based on Questions under Discussion (QuD) is applied to Italian data. The results of our inter-annotator agreement analysis show that the QUD-based approach, originally spelled out for English and German, can successfully be transferred cross-linguistically, supporting good agreement for the annotation of central information structure notions such as focus and non-at-issueness. Our annotation and interannotator agreement study on Italian authentic data confirms the cross-linguistic applicability of the QuD-based approach.}, doi = {10.18653/v1/W19-4014}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {Italian, cross-linguistic, annotation, computational linguistics}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/W19-4014}, } @InProceedings{Mayan2019, author = {Scott AnderBois}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 29}, title = {At-issueness in direct quotation the case of Mayan and quotatives}, year = {2019}, abstract = {In addition to lexical verbs of saying, many languages have more grammaticized means for reporting the speech of others. This paper presents the first detailed formal account of one such device: quotative morphemes in Mayan languages, with a focus on Yucatec Maya ki(j). When mentioned in previous literature, quotatives have either been regarded as a special kind of verb of saying or reportative evidential. I argue that quotatives have important differences (and some similarities) with both verbs of saying and reportatives. To capture these properties, I propose a "scoreboard" account where quotative ki(j) signals that the co-occurring quotative material demonstrates a move in an in-narrative scoreboard.}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v29i0.4623}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/AnderBois2019.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, Cross-Linguistic}, keywords = {Illocutionary Mood, Narrative, Parentheticals, Quotation, Reported Speech, Mayan, cross-linguistic}, } @InCollection{AnderBois2018, author = {Scott AnderBois}, booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {Ellipsis in Inquisitive Semantics}, year = {2018}, editor = {Jeroen van Craenenbroeck and Tanja Temmerman}, abstract = {Work in inquisitive semantics has developed an alternative-rich notion of semantic content which is uniform across questions and assertions. This chapter explores the ramifications of this view for the theory of ellipsis. It examines these issues primarily by focusing on the analysis of a particular ellipsis process in English: sluicing. Empirically, it reviews a number of arguments in favor of an account of sluicing incorporating inquisitive semantics, most notably cases where truth-conditionally equivalent sentences have differential behavior for sluicing. Theoretically, the chapter demonstrates how a theory of ellipsis building on Merchant (2001) but based on an inquisitive semantics helps address this data. Beyond this, it briefly discusses motivations for extending this sort of approach to other ellipsis processes and compares the proposed account with other potential ways of incorporating inquisitive semantics into a theory of ellipsis.}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198712398.013.10}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/AnderBois2018.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {alternatives, appositives, inquisitive semantics, sluicing, sprouting}, } @InProceedings{AnderBois2018a, author = {Scott AnderBois and Pauline Jacobson}, booktitle = {Proceedings of SALT 28}, title = {Answering implicit questions the case of namely}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Though several prior works use English namely as evidence for the semantics of other elements, its own syntax and semantics have been mostly unexamined. In this paper, we focus on two central questions which we claim to be interrelated. First, what is the semantic contribution of namely? Second, how does namely combine with the surrounding material compositionally to produce appropriate overall sentence meanings? Given the apparent similarity of namely to fragments and Sluicing, one answer suggested in previous literature (e.g. Onea & Volodina (2011), Weir (2014), Ott (2016)) is that an example like Someone coughed, namely Bill. involves deletion of silent linguistic material . . . Bill coughed. Here, we argue against this idea, arguing that namely introduces an answer to an implicit specificational question combining with its complement (i.e. Bill in the above example) directly, similar to Qu-Ans analysis of fragments (Groenendijk & Stokhof (1984), Jacobson (2016)).}, doi = {10.3765/salt.v28i0.4428}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Anderbois2018a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Ellipsis, Anaphora Resolution}, keywords = {ellipsis, fragments, implicit questions, Sluicing, specification}, } @InProceedings{AnderBois2016a, author = {Scott AnderBois}, booktitle = {The Proceedings of AFLA 23}, title = {A QUD-Based Account of the Discourse Particle naman in Tagalog}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Although the Tagalog second position particle naman is often regarded as marking contrast, we show that it also has plainly non-contrastive uses including to convey obviousness. We develop a unified account of contrastive and non-contrastive uses of naman in a QUD-framework as marking the closure of the prior immediate QUD. While the focus here is on naman in declaratives, we briefly explore the prospects of extending the account to its use in imperatives and with predicate adjectives.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/AnderBois2016a.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Discourse Particles, Lexical Meaning}, keywords = {discourse particles, tagalog, non-English, cross-linguistic, imperatives, declaratives, mood}, url = {https://research.clps.brown.edu/anderbois/PDFs/AFLA23_AnderBois.pdf}, } @Article{Green1995, author = {Mitchell S. Green}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Quantity, Volubility, and Some Varieties of Discourse}, year = {1995}, number = {1}, pages = {83-112}, volume = {18}, abstract = {Grice's Quantity maxims have been widely misinterpreted as enjoining a speaker to make the strongest claim that she can, while respecting the other conversational maxims. Although many writers on the topic of conversational implicature interpret the Quantity maxims as enjoining such volubility, so construed the Quantity maxims are unreasonable norms for conversation. Appreciating this calls for attending more closely to the notion of what a conversation requires. When we do so, we see that eschewing an injunction to maximal informativeness need not deprive us of any ability to predict or explain genuine cases of implicature. Crucial to this explanation is an appreciation of how what a conversation, or a given stage of a conversation, requires, depends upon what kind of conversation is taking place. I close with an outline of this dependence relation that distinguishes among three importantly distinct types of conversation.}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Green1995.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications, Implicature}, keywords = {philosophical, maxims, quantity, implicature}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/25001579}, } @Article{Green2000, author = {Mitchell S. Green}, journal = {Linguistics and Philosophy}, title = {Illocutionary Force and Semantic Content}, year = {2000}, number = {5}, pages = {435-473}, volume = {23}, abstract = {Illocutionary force and semantic content are widely held to occupy utterly different categories in at least two ways: (1) any expression serving as an indicator of illocutionary force must be without semantic content, and (2) no such expression can embed. A refined account of the force/content distinction is offered here that (a) does the explanatory work that the standard distinction does, while, in accounting for the behavior of a range of parenthetical expressions, (b) shows neither (1) nor (2) to be compulsory. The refined account also motivates a development of the "scorekeeping model" of conversation, helps to isolate a distinction between illocutionary force and illocutionary commitment, and reveals one precise respect in which meaning is only explicable in terms of use.}, groups = {Mood and Speech Acts, The Language Game, Philosophical Applications, Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing}, keywords = {illocutionary force, speech acts, scorekeeping, conversational score, philosophical}, url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/25001787}, } @Article{Degen2021, author = {Judith Degen and Judith Tonhauser}, journal = {Open Mind}, title = {Prior Beliefs Modulate Projection}, year = {2021}, month = {aug}, pages = {1--12}, abstract = {Beliefs about the world affect language processing and interpretation in several empirical domains. In two experiments, we tested whether subjective prior beliefs about the probability of utterance content modulate projection, that is, listeners’ inferences about speaker commitment to that content. We find that prior beliefs predict projection at both the group and the by-participant level: the higher the prior belief in a content, the more speakers are taken to be committed to it. This result motivates the integration of formal analyses of projection with cognitive theories of language understanding.}, doi = {10.1162/opmi_a_00042}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Degen2021.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Projection}, keywords = {experimental semantics, experimental pragmatics, projection}, publisher = {{MIT} Press - Journals}, } @Article{Pankratz2021, author = {Elizabeth Pankratz and Bob {Van Tiel}}, journal = {Language and Cognition}, title = {The role of relevance for scalar diversity: a usage-based approach}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Scalar inferences occur when a weaker statement like It’s warm is used when a stronger one like It’s hot could have been used instead, resulting in the inference that whoever produced the weaker statement believes that the stronger statement does not hold. The rate at which this inference is drawn varies across scalar words, a result termed ‘scalar diversity’. Here, we study scalar diversity in adjectival scalar words from a usage-based perspective. We introduce novel operationalisations of several previously observed predictors of scalar diversity using computational tools based on usage data, allowing us to move away from existing judgment-based methods. In addition, we show in two experiments that, above and beyond these previously observed predictors, scalar diversity is predicted in part by the relevance of the scalar inference at hand. We introduce a corpus-based measure of relevance based on the idea that scalar inferences that are more relevant are more likely to occur in scalar constructions that draw an explicit contrast between scalar words (e.g., It’s warm but not hot). We conclude that usage has an important role to play in the establishment of common ground, a requirement for pragmatic inferencing.}, doi = {10.1017/langcog.2021.13}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Pankratz2021.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {usage-based linguistics, scalar inference, relevance, corpus study, experimental, scalar implicatures}, } @Article{Bassi2021, author = {Itai Bassi and Guillermo Del Pinal and Uli Sauerland}, journal = {Semantics and Pragmatics}, title = {Presuppositional exhaustification}, year = {2021}, month = {aug}, number = {11}, volume = {14}, abstract = {Grammatical theories of Scalar Implicatures make use of an exhaustivity operator exh, which asserts the conjunction of the prejacent with the negation of excludable alternatives. We present a new Grammatical theory of Scalar Implicatures according to which exh is replaced with pex, an operator that contributes its prejacent as asserted content, but the negation of scalar alternatives at a non-at-issue level of meaning. We show that by treating this non-at-issue level as a presupposition, this theory resolves a number of empirical challenges faced by the old formulation of exh (as well as by standard neo-Gricean theories). The empirical challenges include projection of scalar implicatures from certain embedded environments (‘some under some’ sentences, some under negative factives), their restricted distribution under negation, and the existence of common ground-mismatching and oddness-inducing implicatures. We argue that these puzzles have a uniform solution given a pex-based Grammatical theory of implicatures and some independently motivated principles concerning presupposition projection, cancellation and accommodation.}, doi = {10.3765/sp.14.11}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Bassi2021.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {scalar implicatures, exhaustification, presuppositions, oddness}, publisher = {Linguistic Society of America}, } @Article{Yalcin2016, author = {Seth Yalcin}, journal = {Philosophy and Phenomenological Research}, title = {Belief as Question-Sensitive}, year = {2016}, month = {sep}, number = {1}, pages = {23--47}, volume = {97}, abstract = {I begin by reviewing a version of the familiar possible worlds model of belief and belief content. The picture is incomplete in ways that lead to the problem of logical omniscience. I will suggest that the addition of the aforementioned kind of sensitivity helps to fill in the picture in ways that start to address the problem. I then describe some (optional) applications of this picture of belief for modeling concepts and for modeling inquiry into, and disagreement about, which distinctions are natural or structure-tracking, and about which distinctions are “fully factual” or real. My larger aim is to explore the extent to which the idea of belief as question-sensitive state can be motivated by considerations in the philosophy of content, considered largely in abstraction from issues in natural language semantics about belief ascription. By the end we certainly will not have fully resolved the problems of logical omniscience, but we will have made some headway.}, doi = {10.1111/phpr.12330}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Yalcin2016.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Philosophical Applications}, keywords = {belief, knowledge, epistemic states, epistemology, philosophical}, publisher = {Wiley}, } @PhdThesis{Zondervan2010, author = {Arjen Zondervan}, school = {Utrecht University}, title = {Scalar Implicatures or Focus: An Experimental Approach}, year = {2010}, groups = {Experimental Approaches, Implicature}, keywords = {experimental, scalar implicatures, implicature, scalars}, url = {https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/43820/zondervan.pdf?sequence=2}, } @InProceedings{Zondervan2007, author = {Arjen Zondervan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Fifth Semantics in theNetherlands Day}, title = {Effects of question under discussion and focus on scalar implicatures}, year = {2007}, pages = {39-52}, groups = {Implicature}, keywords = {scalar implicatures, scalars, implicatures}, } @InCollection{Zondervan2009, author = {Arjen Zondervan}, booktitle = {Semantics and Pragmatics, From Experiment toTheory}, publisher = {Palgrave Macmillan}, title = {Experiments on QUD and focus as a contextualconstraint on scalar implicature calculation}, year = {2009}, editor = {R. Breheny and Uli Sauerland and Kazuko Yatsushiro}, abstract = {This paper presents experimental support from four experiments for the claim that more scalar implicatures (SIs) are calculated when the scalar term is in a focused constituent, i.e. the constituent that was questioned by the Question Under Discussion (QUD) of the context. In Experiment 1 and 2, the QUD was explicitly given, while in Experiment 3 and 4, it was implicit in the context. In each case, participants calculated more SIs when the scalar term was in a focused constituent. Implications of these results are discussed, both for the experimental paradigm, especially the Truth Value Judgment Task, as for the theoretical framework of exhaustivity-based accounts of scalar implicature calculation.}, groups = {Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {scalar implicature, experimental, implicatures, scalars}, } @InCollection{Zondervan2011, author = {Arjen Zondervan}, booktitle = {Experimental Pragmatics/Semantics}, publisher = {John Benjamins}, title = {The role of QUD and focus on the scalar implicature of most}, year = {2011}, editor = {J\"{o}rg Meibauer and Markus Steinbach}, abstract = {Where previous studies supported the effect of the contextual property of Question Under Discussion (QUD) and focus on the scalar implicature of or, this paper presents two experiments that replicate this effect with the scalar term most. Both experiments show that, while story and target sentence are kept constant, more scalar implicatures are calculated when the scalar term is in the focus (new information) part of the sentence. In the experiments, the focus is manipulated by an explicit QUD. It is shown that the effect also holds for sentential answers to yes/no-questions, and might even extend to scalar implicatures in questions themselves.}, groups = {Focus, Implicature, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {scalar implicatures, implicature, focus, experimental}, } @InCollection{Saeboe2009, author = {Kjell Johan S\ae{}b\o{}}, booktitle = {Focus at the Syntax-Semantics Interface, Working Papers of the SFB}, publisher = {University of Stuttgart}, title = {Focus, Sensitivity, and the Currency of the Question}, year = {2009}, editor = {Arndt Riester and Edgar Onea}, number = {3}, volume = {732}, abstract = {According to Beaver and Clark (2008), a closed class of items, primarily particles like even or only, are systematically sensitive to focus, encoding a dependency on the Current Question (the CQ). This theory appears to give wrong predictions for exclusive particles like only in some cases where intuitively, what the particle asso-ciates with is not the (only) constituent in focus, – something else can be in focus instead or as well, even it itself. I conclude that while both focus itself and exclusive particles always address a Question, they do not always address the same.}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {exclusive particle, current question, wrong prediction, closed class, particle associates, exclusives, focus}, url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.595.3017&rep=rep1&type=pdf}, } @Article{Saeboe2007, author = {Kjell Johan S\ae{}b\o{}}, journal = {Journal of Logic, Language, and Information}, title = {Focus Interpretation in Thetic Statements: Alternative Semantics and Optimality Theory Pragmatics}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Broad focus (or informational integration or nonautonomy) is lexically and contextually constrained, but these constraints are not well understood. On a standard theory of focus interpretation, the presupposition of a broad focus is verified whenever those of two narrow foci are. I argue that to account for cases where two narrow foci are preferred, it is necessary to assume that broad focus competes with two narrow foci and implicates the opposite of what they presuppose. Central constraints on thetic statements are thus accounted for in an Optimality Theory (OT) enriched Alternative Semantics.}, groups = {Focus}, keywords = {focus, theticity, alternative semantics, optimality theory, pragmatics, informational integration}, url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/40180439}, } @Article{10.3389/fpsyg.2021.629177, author = {Liu, Mingya}, journal = {Frontiers in Psychology}, title = {Processing Non-at-Issue Meanings of Conditional Connectives: The wenn/falls Contrast in German}, year = {2021}, issn = {1664-1078}, pages = {2958}, volume = {12}, abstract = {Logical connectives in natural language pose challenges to truth-conditional semantics due to pragmatics and gradience in their meaning. This paper reports on a case study of the conditional connectives (CCs) wenn/falls ‘if/when, if/in case’ in German. Using distributional evidence, I argue that wenn and falls differ in lexical pragmatics: They express different degrees of speaker commitment (i.e., credence) toward the modified antecedent proposition at the non-at-issue dimension. This contrast can be modeled using the speaker commitment scale (Giannakidou and Mari, 2016), i.e., More committedLess committed. Four experiments are reported which tested the wenn/falls contrast, as well as the summary of an additional one from Liu (2019). Experiment 1 tested the naturalness of sentences containing the CCs (wenn or falls) and conditional antecedents with varying degrees of likelihood (very likely/likely/unlikely). The starting prediction was that falls might be degraded in combination with very likely and likely events in comparison to the other conditions, which was not borne out. Experiment 2 used the forced lexical choice paradigm, testing the choice between wenn and falls in the doxastic agent’s conditional thought, depending on their belief or disbelief in the antecedent. The finding was that subjects chose falls significantly more often than wenn in the disbelief-context, and vice versa in the belief-context. Experiment 3 tested the naturalness of sentences with CCs and an additional relative clause conveying the speaker’s belief or disbelief in the antecedent. An interaction was found: While in the belief-context, wenn was rated more natural than falls, the reverse pattern was found in the disbelief-context. While the results are mixed, the combination of the findings in Experiment 2, Experiment 3 and that of Experiment 4a from Liu (2019) that falls led to lower speaker commitment ratings than wenn, provide evidence for the CC scale. Experiment 4b tested the interaction between two speaker commitment scales, namely, one of connectives (including weil ‘because’ and wenn/falls) and the other of adverbs (factive vs. non-factive, Liu, 2012). While factive and non-factive adverbs were rated equally natural for the factive causal connective, non-factive adverbs were preferred over factive ones by both CCs, with no difference between wenn and falls. This is discussed together with the result in Liu (2019), where the wenn/falls difference occurred in the absence of negative polarity items (NPIs), but disappeared in the presence of NPIs. This raises further questions on how different speaker commitment scales interact and why.}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.629177}, groups = {Cross-Linguistic, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {German, cross-linguistic, not-at-issueness, not at issueness, experimental, psycholinguistics}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.629177}, } @Article{Clifton2021, author = {Charles Clifton and Lyn Frazier and Barbara Kaup}, journal = {Journal of Psycholinguistic Research}, title = {Negative clauses imply affirmative topics and affirmative antecedents}, year = {2021}, month = {aug}, abstract = {We propose that negative clauses are generally interpreted as if the affirmative portion of the clause is under discussion, a likely topic. This predicts a preference for affirmative (topical) antecedents over negative antecedents of a following missing verb phrase (VP). Three experiments tested the predictions of this hypothesis in sentences containing negation in the first clause followed by an ambiguous as-clause as in Don’t cross on red as a stupid person would and its counterpart with smart replacing stupid. In Experiment 1 sentences containing an undesirable attribute adjective such as stupid were rated as more natural, and read faster, than their desirable attribute counterparts (smart), with or without a comma preceding as. The second experiment indicated that the interpretation of the missing VP reflected the attribute adjective’s desirability, with processing difficulty presumably reflecting reanalysis from the initial affirmative antecedent (cross on red) to include negation when the initial interpretation violated plausibility. A third experiment generalized the effect beyond sentences with an initial contracted don’t.}, doi = {10.1007/s10936-021-09792-1}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Clifton2021.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Psycholinguistics, Experimental Approaches, Topic}, keywords = {psycholinguistics, experimental, negation, question under discussion, topic}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media {LLC}}, } @InCollection{Gega2021, author = {Paola Gega and Mingya Liu and Lucas Bechberger}, booktitle = {Language, Cognition, and Mind}, publisher = {Springer International Publishing}, title = {Numerical Concepts in Context}, year = {2021}, pages = {93--119}, abstract = {Numerical concepts are an integral part of everyday conversation and communication. Expressions relating to numbers in natural language can have precise or imprecise interpretations. While the precise interpretation most prominently appears in mathematical contexts, the imprecise interpretation seems to arise when numbers (as quantities) are applied to real world contexts (e.g., the rope is 50 m long). Earlier literature shows that the (im)precise interpretation can depend on different factors, e.g., the kind of approximator a numeral appears with (precise vs. imprecise, e.g., exactly vs. roughly) or the kind of numeral itself (round vs. non-round, e.g., 50 vs. 47). We report on a corpus-linguistic study and a rating experiment of English numerical expressions. The results confirm the effects of both factors and additionally an effect of the kind of unit (discrete vs. continuous, e.g., people vs. meters). This shows the contextual variability in the interpretation of numerical concepts in natural language.}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-69823-2_5}, file = {:C\:/Users/zcmas/Google Drive/QUD Bibliography/New Files/Gega2021.pdf:PDF}, groups = {Experimental Approaches}, keywords = {numerical concepts, numbers, quantities, Approximator, Number, Unit, Corpus linguistics, Experiment, Imprecision, Uncertainty}, } @Comment{jabref-meta: databaseType:bibtex;} @Comment{jabref-meta: grouping: 0 AllEntriesGroup:; 1 StaticGroup:An Integrated Acct of Classical Topics in Pragmatic Theory\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Retrieving Meaning via Relevance to QUD and Goals\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Implicature\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Exhaustivity in Questions\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Topic\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Focus\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Embedded Contrastive Focus\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Lexical Meaning\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Disambiguation\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Discourse Particles\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Projection\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Projection and Presupposition\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Accomodation\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Evidentiality\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Anaphora Resolution\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Definites and Anaphora\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Ellipsis\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Domain Restriction (with only)\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Rhetorical Relations\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Rhetorical Relations, Cohesion, and Strategies of Inquiry\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Contrastive Topic and Strategies of Inquiry\;0\;0\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Mood and Speech Acts\;0\;0\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Attention and Intention-Recognition in Language Acquisition and Processing\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:The Language Game\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 2 StaticGroup:Language Acquisition and Processing\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Philosophical Applications\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Experimental Approaches\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Psycholinguistics\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Cross-Linguistic\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; 1 StaticGroup:Clarification Requests\;0\;1\;0x8a8a8aff\;\;\;; }