Workshop Interactional Foundations for Language

LAGB, University of Leeds, 1 September 2010 organizers: Kasia Jaszczolt and Stephen Levinson

This workshop addresses some of the interactional foundations for language, the underlying communicational competences that make language possible. Crucial to the nature of responses in verbal interaction is the ability to rapidly detect the main point or illocutionary force of an utterance in context. Some sense of the universal nature of the capacities involved can be inferred from communication before language acquisition and from cross-cultural regularities in this domain. These talks focus on one aspect or another of these foundations for human communication.

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2.00-2.40 Kasia Jaszczolt (University of Cambridge)‘On pragmatic compositionality’

2.40-3.20 Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (University of Helsinki)‘Recognizing actions in interaction’

3.20-3.40 tea break 3.40-4.20 Ulf Liszkowski (Max Planck Institute for

Psycholinguistics)‘Prelinguistic foundations of human communication’

 4.20-5.00 Nick Enfield (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

and Radboud University)‘Sources of asymmetry in human interaction’

 5.00-5.40 Stephen Levinson’s comments and general discussion

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Workshop ‘Interactional Foundations for Language’LAGB, University of Leeds, 1 September 2010

On Pragmatic Compositionality

Kasia M. JaszczoltUniversity of Cambridge

http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21

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What is expressed overtly in one language (by the lexicon or grammar) may be left to pragmatic

inference or default interpretation in another.

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e.g. sentential connectives:

Wari’ (Chapacura-Wanham, the Amazon) Tzeltal (Mayan, Mexico) no ‘or’

Maricopa (Yuman, Arizona) no ‘and’ Guugu Yimithirr (Australian Aboriginal) no ‘if’

cf. Mauri & van der Auwera, forthc.; Evans & Levinson 2009

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English ‘and’

(1)Tom finished the chapter and closed the book.

and +> and then

(2)Tom finished the chapter and then closed the book.(3)Tom finished the chapter. He closed the book.

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Swahili: consecutive tense marker ka(4)a. …wa-Ingereza wa-li-wa-chukua wa-le maiti,

3Pl-British 3Pl-Past-3Pl-take 3Pl-Dem corpses‘…then the British took the corpses,

b. wa-ka-wa-tia katika bao moja,

3Pl-Cons-3Pl-put.on on board oneput them on a flat board,

c. wa-ka-ya-telemesha maji-ni kwa utaratibu w-ote…3Pl-Cons-3Pl-lower water-Loc with order 3Pl-alland lowered them steadily into the water…’

adapted from Givón (2005: 154)

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rhetorical structure rules, Asher and Lascarides 2003

Narration:

Tom finished the chapter. He closed the book. e1 e2

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No ‘or’ in Wari’?

Absence of a disjunctive marker presence of some irrealis marker

(5)’am ’e’ ca ’am mi’ pin caperhaps live 3SG.M. perhaps give complete 3SG.M.

‘Either he will live or he will die.’

from Mauri and van der Auwera (fortc.: 12)

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‘…while perhaps none of the logical connectives are universally lexically expressed, there is no evidence that languages differ in whether or not logical connectives are present in their logical forms’.

von Fintel &Matthewson (2008: 170)

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Composition of meaning

• Ascribing generative capacity to syntax (Chomsky and followers)

• Compositionality as a property of semantics (Montague and followers, e.g. DRT, DPL, representationalism)

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• Pragmatic, interactive compositionality (post-Gricean contextualists, e.g. Recanati’s Truth-Conditional Pragmatics; Jaszczolt’s Default Semantics)

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von Fintel and Matthewson (2008)

*Strong Effability Hypothesis (Katz)

‘Every proposition is the sense of some sentence in each natural language.’

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*Translatability Thesis (Katz)

‘For any pair of natural languages and for any sentence S in one and any sense σ of S, there is at least one sentence S’ in the other language such that σ is a sense of S’. ’

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von Fintel and Matthewson (2008: 191):

‘We found that languages often express strikingly similar truth conditions, in spite of non-trivial differences in lexical semantics or syntax. We suggested that it may therefore be fruitful to investigate the validity of ‘purely semantic’ universals, as opposed to syntax-semantics universals’.

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What are they?

• vF&M (2008):

(i) some universal semantic composition principles (?)

(ii) Gricean principles of utterance interpretation (?)

semantic/pragmatic processing principles

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Evans and Levinson (2009)

generative power of semantics/pragmatics (conceptual structure)

e.g. ‘…although recursion may not be found in the syntax of languages, it is always found in the conceptual structure, that is, the semantics or pragmatics – in the sense that it is always possible in any language to express complex propositions’ (p. 444)

Universals:

‘For our generativist critics, generality is to be found at the level of structural representation; for us, at the level of process’ (p. 475)

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‘universals’ ‘universal principles’, ‘universal processes’, including methodological assumptions about theory of processing

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…such as the principle of compositionality: the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its parts and the structure in which they are combined (Frege, Montague, Partee)

vs. lexical universals I, you, big, small…; semantic types t,e; conservativity of determiners; N,V, Adj, … etc.

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focus on language diversity or universal patterns? X

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Outline

• Meaning in contextualism

• Compositionality in Default Semantics– Merger representations – Sources of information contributing to – Processes that produce – Pragmatic compositionality

• Examples of applications (Jaszczolt, e.g. 2005, 2009, 2010)

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Post-Gricean theory of utterance/discoursemeaning

radical pragmatics

sense-generality

contextualism

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(6) Some British people like cricket.(6a) Some but not all British people like cricket.

(7) Everybody read Frege.(7a) Every member of the research group read Frege.

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Semantic analysis takes us only part of the way towards the recovery of utterance meaning. Pragmatic enrichment completes the process.

Enrichment: some +> some but not alleverybody +> everybody in the room, every acquaintance

of the speaker, etc.

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Modulation (Recanati 2004, 2005):

The logical form becomes enriched/modulated as a result of pragmatic inference and the entire semantic/pragmatic product becomes subjected to the truth-conditional analysis.

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Modulation (Recanati 2004, 2005):

The logical form becomes ?enriched/modulated as a result of pragmatic inference and the entire semantic/pragmatic product becomes subjected to the truth-conditional analysis.

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Beyond contextualism

?

How far can the logical form be extended? ‘How much pragmatics’ is allowed in the representation of the primary intended meaning of an utterance?

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merger representations of Default Semantics (DS):

There is no syntactic constraint on merger representations.

DS does not recognize the level of meaning at which the logicalform is pragmatically developed/modulated as a real, cognitively justified construct. To do so would be to assumethat syntax plays a privileged role among various carriers ofinformation (contextualists’ mistake).

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(8) Child to mother: Everybody has a bike.

(8a) All of the child’s friends have bikes.

(8b) Many/most of the child’s classmates have bikes.

(8c) The mother should consider buying her son a bike.

(8d) Cycling is a popular form of exercise among children.

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(8) Child to mother: Everybody has a bike.

(8a) All of the child’s friends have bikes.

(8b) Many/most of the child’s classmates have bikes.

(8c) The mother should consider buying her son a bike.

(8d) Cycling is a popular form of exercise among children.

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(9) Child: Can I go to see Avatar?Mother: You are too small.

(9a) The child is too small to see the film Avatar in the cinema.(9b) The child can’t go to see the film.

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(9) Child: Can I go to see Avatar?Mother: You are too small.

(9a) The child is too small to see the film Avatar in the cinema.(9b) The child can’t go to see the film.

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post-Gricean contextualism (meaning intentions)

vs. relativism:

x Truth, meaning, knowledge are to be analysed from the position form which they are assessed.

MacFarlane (2005, forthcoming)

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• Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended content through a proposition which is not syntactically restricted.

Experimental evidence:

Nicolle and Clark 1999Pitts 2005Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007Sysoeva 2009

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world knowledge (WK)

word meaning and sentence structure (WS)

situation of discourse (SD)

stereotypes and presumptions properties of human inferential system (IS) about society and culture (SC)

Fig. 1: Sources of information contributing to a merger representation Σ

merger representation Σ

Merger Representation

• Speaker’s meaning is modelled as the so-called merger representation.

• The outputs of sources of information about meaning are treated on an equal footing. The syntactic constraint is abandoned.

• Merger representations have the status of mental representations.

• They have a compositional structure: they are proposition-like constructs, integrating information coming from various sources that interacts according to the principles established by the intentional character of discourse.

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Sources of information for

(i) world knowledge (WK)(ii) word meaning and sentence structure (WS)(iii) situation of discourse (SD)(iv) properties of the human inferential system (IS)(v) stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture

(SC)

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SC

(10) A Botticelli was stolen from the Uffizi last week.

(10a) A painting by Botticelli was stolen from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence last week.

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IS

(11) The author of Wolf Hall is coming to Cambridge.

(11’) Hilary Mantel is coming to Cambridge.

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The model of sources of information can be mapped onto types of processes that produce the merger representation of the primary meaning and the additional (secondary) meanings.

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Primary meaning:

combination of word meaning and sentence structure (WS)

conscious pragmatic inferencepm (from situation of discourse, social and

social, cultural and cognitive defaults (CD) cultural assumptions, and world world-knowledge defaultspm (SCWDpm) knowledge) (CPIpm) Secondary meanings:

Social, cultural and world-knowledge defaultssm (SCWDsm) conscious pragmatic inferencesm (CPIsm)

Fig. 2: Utterance interpretation according to the processing model of the revised version of Default Semantics

merger representation Σ

Methodological globalism: default and inferential enrichment is proposition-based

Processing defaults system-based, ‘local’ defaults:

X (12) bread knife +> knife used for cutting bread

X (13) a secretary +> female one

X (14) a road +> hard-surfaced one

(adapted from Levinson 2000: 37-38)

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Mapping between sources and processes

WK SCWD or CPISC SCWD or CPIWS WS (logical form)SD CPIIS CD

In building merger representations DS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the components of with a subscript standing for the type of processing.

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Cf. Evans &Levinson’s universal principles (2009: 429):

‘…stable engineering solutions, satisfying multiple design constraints, reflecting both cultural-historical factors and the constraints of human cognition’

in DS:• social, cultural and world-knowledge defaults (SCWD);• conscious pragmatic inference (CPI, grounded in SC

and WK); • cognitive defaults (CD, grounded in the properties of

human inferential system (IS), intentionality)

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Compositionality of Primary Meanings

• Schiffer (e. g. 1991, 1994, 2003): composition of meaning reflects compositional reality. Meaning supervenes on the structure of the world.

• Recanati (2004): compositionality belongs to modulated propositions. ‘Interactionist’, ‘Gestaltist’ compositionality.

• DS: compositionality of utterance meaning rather than sentence meaning.

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Compositionality should be an empirical assumption about the nature of possible human languages.

Szabó (2000)

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compositionality on the level of referential properties (for anything that counts as language of thought, KJ)

Fodor (2008)

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Selected applications of DS

definite descriptions, proper names, and belief reports (Jaszczolt 1992, 1997, 1999); negation and discourse connectives (Lee 2002); presupposition, sentential connectives, number terms, temporality, and modality (Jaszczolt 2005; 2009; Srioutai 2004, 2006; Jaszczolt and Srioutai forthcoming; Engemann 2008); syntactic constraint on primary meaning (Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007)

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• Languages:

English, Korean, Thai, Russian, French, German, Italian

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Definite NPs in English

(11) The author of Wolf Hall is coming to Cambridge.

(11a) The author of Wolf Hall (whoever he or she is) is coming to Cambridge.

(11b) Hilary Mantel is coming to Cambridge.

(11c) Michael Morpurgo is coming to Cambridge.

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x

[Hilary Mantel]CD (x)

[[x]CD is coming to Cambridge]WS

Fig. 3: Partial merger representation for the default referential reading of example (11)

x

[Michael Morpurgo]CPIpm (x)

[[x]CPIpm is coming to Cambridge]WS

Fig. 4: Partial merger representation for the referential mistake reading of example (11)

x y

[Wolf Hall]CD (y) [the author of y]WS, CPIpm (x)

[[x]CPIpmis coming to Cambridge]WS

Fig. 5: Partial merger representation for the attributive reading of example (11)

Belief reports and compositionality

(15) Tom believes that the author of Wolf Hall is coming to Cambridge.

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Asher (1986: 129): discourse referents are ‘pegs’ onwhich the hearer can ‘hang’ the ascriptions of properties that the DRS-conditions specify.

[Hilary Mantel]CD(x) default de re[Michael Morpurgo]CPI1(x) de dicto with a referential

mistake[the author of Wolf Hall]CPI1(x) de dicto proper

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‘x believes that ’. ’ Bel (x, ’)

The individual that corresponds to x on a certain

interpretation has the cognitive state that corresponds

to ’ on that interpretation.

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Fig. 6: Partial of the default de re reading of (15)

x y ’ [Tom]CD (x) [Hilary Mantel]CD (y) [[x]CD [believes]CD ’]WS

’: [[y]CD is coming to Cambridge]WS

Fig. 7: Partial of the reading de dicto with a referential mistake of (15)

x y ’ [Tom]CD (x) [Michael Morpurgo]CPI 1 (y) [[x]CD [believes]CD ’]WS

’: [[y]CPI 1is coming to Cambridge]WS

Fig. 8: of the reading de dicto proper of (15)

x y ’ [Tom]CD (x) [the author of Wolf Hall]CPI 1 (y) [[x]CD [believes]CPI 1 ’]WS

’: [[y]CPI 1is coming to Cambridge]WS

The relational semantics for believe is founded on that for

n-ary predication:

s〚Pt1,…,tn〛s'M iff s= s' and {〚t1〛M,s,…,〚tn〛M,s} I(P)

For ‘x believes ’ ’:

* s〚Pt1,t2〛s'M iff s = s' and {〚t〛M,s} I(P)

s〚Pt, ’〛s'M iff s = s' and <〚t〛M,s,’ > I(P)

and

i. ’ is a merger representation of a mental state of t modelled on a DRS for an

extensional context and constructed according to the reanalysis of a DRS for

an extensional context in interactive semantics;

ii. P {BelCD , BelCPI 1}

iii. v {vCD , vCPI 1}

(1) Tom finished the chapter and closed the book.

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Fig. 9: partial of example (1)

x 1 2 [Tom]CD (x) 1: [[x]CD finish the chapter]WS

2: [[x]CD close the book]WS

[1 2]WS

[1 2]SCWD

Swahili: consecutive tense marker ka(4)

a. …wa-Ingereza wa-li-wa-chukua wa-le maiti,3Pl-British 3Pl-Past-3Pl-take 3Pl-Dem corpses‘…then the British took the corpses,

b. wa-ka-wa-tia katika bao moja…

3Pl-Cons-3Pl-put.on on board oneput them on a flat board…’

adapted from Givón (2005: 154)

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Fig. 10: partial of example (4)

X 1 2

[wa-Ingereza]CD (X)

1: [wa-chukua wa-le maiti [X]CD]WS

2: [wa-tia katika bao moja [X]CD]WS

[1 2]WS

No ‘or’ in Wari’?

(5)’am ’e’ ca ’am mi’ pin caperhaps live 3SG.M. perhaps give complete 3SG.M.

‘Either he will live or he will die.’

from Mauri and van der Auwera (fortc.: 12)

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Fig. 11: partial of example (5)

x 1 2

[contextually salient male]CD (x)

1: [’e’ ca [x]CD ]WS

2: [mi’ pin ca [x]CD]WS

ACCΔ

’am ├ Σ1

ACCΔ’am ├ Σ2

[1 2]WS

Summary

• A contextualist theory that adopts pragmatic compositionality allows for representing the linguistic diversity of means of conveying information (lexicon/grammar/pragmatics trade-off) by allocating it to contributing sources and processes.

• An adequate representation of this diversity requires that all contributing sources and processes are treated on an equal footing.

• Proposal: universal sources and processes identified in DS and their cross-linguistic applicability.

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