Linguistics 001

PragmaticsLanguage in Context

Sentences

• In our initial discussion of meaning we concentrated on two types of semantics:– Lexical semantics: what individual words

mean– Compositional semantics: how the

meanings of larger objects are constructed out of the meaning of the parts

• Remember that one idea was that a key part of understanding meaning involved determining the truth conditions for a sentence

Pragmatics

• How to use language in contexts?

• Again, we will see how structural issues arise in the use of language?

Context Matters

NJ Transit scope ambiguity:All the doors won't openTwo scenarios, two readings:1) Everyone has to move to the front because the back carriage doesn't line up with the train.2) A mechanical failure where all the doors are jammedBoth readings are possible, but the context favors picks one out

What is said and what is meant

• A discussion:

Oscar: How's Bert doing in his new job?

Ernie: He's making friends and he hasn't been

to prison yet.

• What is Ernie trying to convey that's not

in the text?

Pragmatics: Basic Distinctions• One of the starting points for

pragmatics is the idea that people use language to accomplish different types of acts

• These acts-- which are called speech acts-- come in many different varieties, depending on what particular act is accomplished

Speech Acts

• Different types of speech acts:– Asking for something– Promising to do something– Threatening to do something– Ordering someone to do something

• Note that language is not the only means by which these acts can be accomplished

Direct vs. Indirect

• A basic distinction:– Direct Speech Acts: The meaning

is more or less encoded in the literal meaning of the utterance

– Indirect Speech Acts: The meaning that is relevant is the speech act meaning, not simply the literal meaning

Direct Speech Acts

• Types of Direct Speech Act, along with sentence type:

Type Function SentenceAssertion convey meaning declarative

John got an A on the test.Question elicit information interrogative

Did John get an A on the test?Order affect others’ actions imperative

Get an A on the test!

Indirect Speech Acts

• Let’s consider a simple question:Will the train be on time?

• An answer (e.g. “yes”) would give the information that the person asking the question is looking for

• But consider:Do you know if the train will be on time?

• An answer “Yes, I know” here would be more or less annoying; in the typical case, this is not a question about the listener’s knowledge, but is instead asking for the same information as the first. But indirectly….

Grice: Cooperation in conversation• H.P Grice's research involves

understanding how speaker’s meaning- what a person uses the sentence to mean- arises from sentence meaning- the literal form and meaning of the sentence

• He developed a “grammar” of appropriateness.

Basic Principles

• Grice’s program involves understanding basic principles that get conversations going

• Cooperative principle: "Make your contribution to the conversation such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange in which you are engaged."

Cooperative Principle

• A non-linguistic example:

• Ernie is baking and asks “Do you have a

cup of sugar?”

• Bert passes him a cup of salt.

• This is uncooperative.

Specifics: Maxims

• Grice’s analysis involves specific maxims that speakers follow in respecting them

• The idea is that if speakers assume the maxims to be operative, then they can determine from what was literally said what the speaker’s meaning is

The Maxims

• Quality: (tell the truth)– Don’t say what you know to be false– Don’t say things that you lack

evidence for• Quantity: (say as much as is necessary)

– Make the contribution as informative as the

circumstances demand– Don’t be more informative than

required• Relevance: be relevant

The Nature of the Maxims

• Although the maxims have the form of instructions, they are not

• Rather, they are observations--heuristic in nature--that encode the assumptions that speakers are using in actual discourse situations– This is no different from the study of other

general principles in language– Consequently, one may wish to investigate

their broader dimensions: What happens to the brain when these principles are violated? How do children learn these, or are they learned at all?

Conversational Implicature

• Flouting a maxim provides information as

well. In this way Grice's work explains

why we can say the vague things we do

and still be understood.• We can see how people follow these

maxims to deduce speaker’s meaning in simple examples

Be Brief

Compare:

1) Miss Piggy sang Rainbow Connection

2) Miss Piggy produced a series of sounds

that corresponded closely with the score

of Rainbow Connection.

Be Relevant

• Consider another example; this one is a letter of recommendation:Dear Admissions Committee:I am pleased to write on behalf of John Smith,

who is applying to your program. Smith has excellent handwriting and is typically clean, and his kids are very cute.

Sincerely,Professor Throckmorton W.

Bullfinch

• A reader of this letter would understand this to be the best that Prof. Bullfinch can say about Mr. Smith….

Be specific

• Finger or thumb?

• Square or rectangle?

• Compare: thought-thinked

Implicatures

• Notice that what is implied in these cases

is still somewhat weak. We can cancel

implicatures:

• Bert spent some of the summer in prison.

• In fact, Bert spent all of the summer in

prison.

Speaker beliefs and Common

Ground• The 'happy' use of implicature requires some

common understanding between speakers.

– Some sort of mind-reading in effect

• Speakers build and test the common ground in

various ways.

• In fact, whether or not some sentences can even

be evaluated depends on the existence of certain

facts in the common ground.

Speaker bias & Common Ground

• At an interview, Bert might get asked either:

• 1) Are you a communist?

• 2) You're a communist? (rising intonation)

• The second form displays speaker bias.

– The speaker believes that Bert is a communist

but it is not in the common ground.

Presuppositions

• Some words have conditions on the common

ground that need to be fulfilled before we can

even think about what they mean.

• The has a uniqueness condition. When you

say the muppet, there is a presupposition

that you are referring to a particular muppet.

Presupposition Accommodation

• It was Cookie monster who ate the cookie.

• Presupposition: Someone ate the cookie.

• This imposes a condition onto the common ground.

However, even if no one previous mentioned the

eating of the cookie, the dialog will probably continue.

• The presupposition will be accommodated into the

hearer's beliefs and the common ground.

Presupposition Failure

It was the muppet with the weapon that did it!

• But which muppet am I referring to?

• We cannot accommodate this!

Implicature

Bert is evil and he lives on Sesame Street

Bert is evil but he lives on Sesame Street

• These two sentences are the same truth

conditionally but they clearly don't mean the

same thing.

• But carries some extra information as part of

its lexical entry - an implicature.

Flow of information

• One of the much studied areas in pragmatics• Why are we supposed to “Avoid pronouns

and don’t start a sentence with it, this, or that.”– “He screwed up.”– “Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a

moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo. His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face.”

• Why do some writings flow “better”?• Writing is an art, but part of it can be

distilled into a scientific form.

Side Note

• There are constraints on how to use pronouns that apply in syntax– John likes him.– John thinks that Bill likes him– These constraints are quite different from

what we discuss here (more when we talk about child language syntax).

– They tend to be more absolute

An unnatural flow

• Terry really goofs sometimes.• Yesterday he called Tony at 6am to go

sailing. • Tony was sick and furious at being

woken up so early• He told Terry to get lost and hung up.• Of course, he didn’t intend to upset

Tony (he=Terry)

A Natural Flow

• Terry really goofs sometimes.• Yesterday he called Tony at 6am to go

sailing. • Tony was sick and furious at being

woken up so early• He told Terry to get lost and hung up.• Of course Terry didn’t intend to upset

Tony.

Avoid Pronouns?

• Homer likes to drink.

• In fact Homer drinks everyday.

• And Homer often goes to Moe’s.

• Homer is not a role model.

• Avoiding pronouns altogether can be disturbing as well.

Basic Idea

• Each utterance consists of a topic, or the center of the discourse

• Different entities (including pronouns) in utterances follow a ranking order that determines which is the center.

• The center of the discourse may shift from one entity to another--we don’t have to talk about the same thing forever--and there are ways of making the transitions smooth.

(Syntactic) Subject > Object

• John met Bill at a party

• He was pleased. (“John” is preferred)

• John was seen by Bill.

• He was at the market. (“John” still preferred, even though it’s the semantic object but syntactic subject)

Transitions• John called Bill this morning.• He told Bill to come over to play the new computer game.• He couldn’t hide his excitement.

[continuation]

• John called Bill this morning.• He told Bill to come over to play the new computer game.• But he was upset at John for calling so early.

[promotion]

• John called Bill this morning.• He told Bill to come over to play the new computer game.• The dog barked when the phone rang. [shift]

• Continuation > Promotion > Shift in terms of naturalness

Midterm first then …