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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Dissertation
Studies on Factivity, Complementation, and Propositional Attitudes
TL;DR: In this paper, a collection of seven papers in which a number of questions are investigated regarding verbs that take a sentential complement as their direct object is presented. But the focus of these papers is on the semantics of factive verbs and how factivity manifests itself in syntax.
Prolegomena to default semantics
TL;DR: The authors defend a strong version of such conversational defaults and suggest that default interpretations arise not in pragmatics, but rather already in the domain of semantics, supported by the evidence for default meanings at the level of mental states (I call them "cognitive defaults") as distinguished from default meanings in contextually situated discourse (or, what I call "social defaults").
Journal ArticleDOI
New perspectives on bias in polar questions: A study of Hungarian -e
TL;DR: In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of the Hungarian system of polar interrogatives is given, where the contributions of certain formal features, such as the interrogative and the negative particles, can be captured independently.
Interlanguage pragmatics in Russian: the speech act of request in email
TL;DR: The present study broadens current research by examining requests written by native and nonnative speakers of Russian, and as a relatively new means of communication, the sociolinguistic dynamics of email is not adequately understood.
Book ChapterDOI
Aspectual Viewpoints, Speech Act Functions and Discourse Structure
Patrick Caudal,Laurent Roussarie +1 more
TL;DR: The main goal of this paper will be to treat tenses as illocutionary viewpoint functions constraining rhetorical relations, and thereby interacting with discourse structure, and it will appear that the illocutionsary force of tenses is strongly connected with their aspectuo-temporal content.
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.