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
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Proceedings Article
The interpretation of non-sentential utterances in dialogue
David Schlangen,Alex Lascarides +1 more
Journal Article
A Contrastive Study of Conventional Indirectness in Spanish: Evidence from Peninsular and Uruguayan Spanish
TL;DR: In this article, a contrastive empirical study of conventional indirect requests in Peninsular and Uruguayan Spanish was conducted, and the results reveal pragmatic similarities at the level of the linguistic encoding of utterances with both, and showed a negative correlation between (in)directness and social distance.
Journal ArticleDOI
The goals of persuasion
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model of persuasion in terms of goals and beliefs, where the persuader leads a persuadee to pursue some goal out of a free choice, i.e., by convincing him/her that the proposed goal is useful for some other goal that the persuadee already has.
Dissertation
Le discours sur l'espace judiciaire européen: analyse du discours et sémantique argumentative
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse le sens des mots autour de l'expression " espace de liberte, de securite, de justice" and define the notion of normalisation discursive.
Journal ArticleDOI
Pragmatic development in a foreign language: A study of Greek FL requests
TL;DR: This article investigated the developmental patterns in the requestive behavior of foreign language learners of Greek and found that although several aspects of the learners' pragmatic competence develop with increasing proficiency, even the advanced learners’ performance lags far behind native speakers in several respects.
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.