Journal ArticleDOI
Indirect Speech Acts
Nicholas Asher,Alex Lascarides +1 more
TLDR
It is shown how a formal semantictheory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech acts and to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action.Abstract:
In this paper, we address several puzzles concerning speech acts,particularly indirect speech acts. We show how a formal semantictheory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech actsand to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action. Weprovide a formally precise definition of indirect speech acts, includingthe subclass of so-called conventionalized indirect speech acts. Thisanalysis draws heavily on parallels between phenomena at the speechact level and the lexical level. First, we argue that, just as co-predicationshows that some words can behave linguistically as if they're `simultaneously'of incompatible semantic types, certain speech acts behave this way too.Secondly, as Horn and Bayer (1984) and others have suggested, both thelexicon and speech acts are subject to a principle of blocking or ``preemptionby synonymy'': Conventionalized indirect speech acts can block their`paraphrases' from being interpreted as indirect speech acts, even ifthis interpretation is calculable from Gricean-style principles. Weprovide a formal model of this blocking, and compare it withexisting accounts of lexical blocking.read more
Citations
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The Impact of Culture and Gender on the Production of Online Speech Acts among Jordanian Facebook Users
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the influence of gender differences and Jordanian cultural norms on the use of speech acts in Facebook status updates (FSUs) and found that women made an average of 6 FSUs while men averaged four.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impolite orders in Ancient Greek?: The οὐκ ἐρεῖς; type
TL;DR: In this article, a negative interrogative in the future tense is used to utter an impolite order in Ancient Greek, where the locutionary form gives an orientation to the interpretation of the utterance: an indirect and conventional expression cannot be polite if the locutationary meaning is opposed to it.
Journal ArticleDOI
From Figure to Argument: Contrarium in Roman Rhetoric
TL;DR: The authors examines the logical pattern of this type of argument, which according to Cicero is based on a third Stoic indemonstrable syllogism: $$
eg ({\hbox{p}} \wedge {\h box{q}});
Pragmatic Knowledge and Ability in the Applied Linguistics and Second Language Assessment Literature: A Review
TL;DR: A brief review of the extensive pragmatics literature and examines how the construct of pragmatic knowledge and ability has been operationalized from the perspective of theoretical and applied linguists.
References
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Book
How to do things with words
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors presented a series of lectures with the following topics: Lecture I * Lecture II* Lecture III * Lectures IV* Lectures V * LectURE VI * LectURES VI * LII * LIII * LIV * LVI * LIX
Book ChapterDOI
Logic and Conversation
TL;DR: For instance, Grice was interested in Quine's logical approach to language, although he differed from Quine over certain specific specific questions, such as the viability of the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements.
Book
Head-driven phrase structure grammar
Ivan A. Sag,Carl Jesse Pollard +1 more
TL;DR: This book presents the most complete exposition of the theory of head-driven phrase structure grammar, introduced in the authors' "Information-Based Syntax and Semantics," and demonstrates the applicability of the HPSG approach to a wide range of empirical problems.