From Complex to Simple Speech
Acts:
a Bidimensional Analysis of Illocutionary
Forces
Claire BEYSSADE
Jean-Marie MARANDIN
Aim (1/4)
Analyze the illocutionary impact of utterances in an
explicit framework which combines
- a grammar for sentences
and
- a grammar for conversation
i. e. Ginzburg, A semantics for Interaction in Dialogue (to
app.)
1
Aim (2/4)
We assume that illocutionary import of linguistic
expressions can be modeled in terms of types of update of
Speaker’s Dialogue Gameboard (Ginzburg 1997).
Such an assumption is not specific to our framework of
reference (See i.a. dialogue acts analyzed as updates of
the Conversational Score in Poesio & Traum 1998).
2
Aim (3/4)
The features of linguistic expressions we are interested in are:
(i) Clause types (e.g. declarative vs interrogative type)
(1)
a. Mary has arrived
b. Has Mary arrived
(ii) Prosodic structures (e.g. falling vs rising contour)
(2)
a. Marie est arrivée
H
L
b. Marie est arrivée
L
H
3
Aim (4/4)
(iii) Tag constructions (e.g. French tags n’est-ce pas, sans
indiscrétion)
(3)
a. Marie est arrivée n’est-ce pas
‘Marie has arrived, hasn’t she?’
b. Sans indiscrétion, Marie est arrivée
‘Without being indiscreet, has Marie arrived?’
Here, we deal with (i) and (iii). As for the illocutionary import of
contours (indeed, their lack of direct illocutionary import), we
refer the reader to Beyssade et al. 2004, Beyssade & Marandin
2006, Marandin 2006.
4
Claim
(i) Clause types and tags are constructions
(ii) Constructions are associated with update
instructions
(iii) Main point: there are two types of update
– Update of Speaker’s own commitment
– Update of Speaker’s call on Addressee
5
Outline of the talk
Part 1: Utterances and speech acts
Part 2: Ginzburg’s framework and our revisions
- Extension of the notion of commitment
- Explicit notion of call on Addressee
Part 3: Illocutionary analysis of:
- Core clause types
- (French) tags
- Particular clause types (e.g. whimperatives)
Conclusion
- Types of utterances
6
Utterances & speech acts (1/3)
• Polyfunctionality of core clause types: declarative,
imperative, interrogative, exclamative (Gazdar 1981)
(4)
(5)
A.:
B.:
You will go home tomorrow
a. How do you know?
b. Yes.
c. Okay.
Polyfunctionality = no constraint upon the uptake by Addressee
7
Utterances & speech acts (2/3)
• Monofunctionality of particular clause types,
e. g. whimperative
(6) a. Why don’t you be quiet!
b. Veux-tu bien te taire !
will.you BIEN shut up
Monofunctionality = uptake by Addressee is specified
8
Utterances & speech acts (3/3)
Crucial distinction (Green 1975)
(7)
a. Have you taken away the garbage
b. Why don’t you be quiet
Both (7a) and (7b) can be taken as directives, but:
• (7a) is a directive when certain situational conditions hold
(= hint)
-•
(7b) is a directive in any situations
(= grammatical instruction)
We only deal with built-in instructions (clause types and tags).
9
Framework (1/3)
• Grammar for conversation (Ginzburg, to app.) slightly
revisited
• Main features:
- Dialogue as a game
- Partition into private vs public
- Distinction between FACT and QUD
- Core speech acts (assert, query): updates of
Speaker’s gameboard
10
Framework (2/3)
Unpublicized mental state




FACTS
propositions


DGB QUD
questions 







Latest Move sign





Figure 1
- asserting p amounts to update FACTS with p and QUD with p?
- questioning q amounts to update QUD with q

11
Framework (3/3)
Three main revisions:
1) The public part of the DGB records Speaker’s commitments
2) We generalize the notion of commitment to content of
different types: proposition but also questions and outcomes.
3) We demote the role of QUD as the locus to represent the
interactive part of the dialogue.
New slot: Call on Addressee.
12
Revision 1: Commitment (1/3)
Extending Hamblin’s notion of commitment:
"an assertion that F is a function that changes a context in
which the speaker is not committed to justifiable true belief in
F into a context he is so committed. A promise that F is a
function that changes a context in which the speaker is not
committed to bringing F into one in which he is so committed.
A permission to F is a function that changes a context in
which F is prohibited into one in which F is permissible".
(Gazdar 1981)
One can commit oneself to something else than a proposition.
13
Revision 1: Commitment (2/3)
Four types of semantic content: Proposition, Question, Outcome, Fact.
(Ginzburg & Sag 2000)
• commitment to a proposition: being ready to stand for the truth of that
proposition,
• commitment to a question: being interested in the issue defined by the
question,
• commitment to an outcome: being positively oriented towards the
actualization of a potential state of affairs (the outcome) (Stefanovitch 2003)
We leave aside commitments conveyed by exclamatives.
14
Revision 1: Commitment (3/3)
New architecture of DGB



DGB






SG
QUD


To - Do - List

 
 
propositions  
 
questions
 
Speaker outcomes   

  
Addressee
outcomes

  
Figure 2
15
Revision 2: Call on Addressee (1/2)
• Ginzburg uses QUD to capture the dialogical working
of assertions and queries.
“In general, both asserter and her addressee do
have the issue p? in QUD as a consequence of
an assertion p” (Ginzburg, 1997)
• But, how to account for the the dialogical working
of exclamations and directives?
16

Revision 2: Call on Addressee (2/2)
Call-on-Addressee captures the interactive aspect of utterances.




DGB










SG
Commitment
QUD





To - Do - List



Call - on - Addressee


propositions 

questions

Speaker outcomes  

 
Addressee
outcomes

 












Figure 3
The content of Call on Addressee may be either a proposition, or a
question, or an outcome.
17
Issue
Given a construction
• What type of content does it commit the
Speaker to?
• What type of content does it contribute to
Call on Addressee?
18
Analysis 1:
core clause type (1/2)
• Hierarchy of clause types (Ginzburg & Sag 2000).
CLAUSALITY
clause
core-cl
decl-cl
inter-cl
imp-cl
excl-cl
Figure 4
Cf. Beyssade & Marandin 2006 for the constructional definition of CTs.
19
Analysis 1:
core clause type (2/2)
Core CTs are associated with a type of Speaker’s commitment in a oneto-one manner
Clause types
Speaker’s update
Declarative
Add a proposition
Interrogative
Add
a
abstract
Imperative
Add an outcome
Commitment to
in SG
propositional in QUD
in TDL
a proposition
an issue
the actualization of
a future situation
20
Core clause type:
declaratives vs interrogatives (1/2)
Comparing questioning declaratives and interrogatives
• Questioning declaratives and interrogatives are not felicitous in the
same situtations.
(8) [Context: Speaker wants to talk to Mary, he enters the department
office and sees Mary’s belongings on her desk]
a. Marie est arrivée (n’est-ce pas)
(Declarative)
b. ?# i. Est-ce que Marie est arrivée
(Interrogative)
b’.
ii. Marie est-elle arrivée
(Interrogative)
• Questioning declaratives convey Speaker’s bias toward their content
(Gunlogson 2003)
21
Core clause type:
declaratives vs imperatives (2/2)
Comparing directive declaratives and imperatives
• Imperatives: convey orders, demands, requests, pleas,
warnings or suggestions (varying with contexts)
• Directive declaratives: only convey commands or requests
(9) a. Viens demain / Que Marie vienne demain (Imperative)
b.Tu viendras demain / Marie viendra demain (Declarative)
Imperatives commit Speaker to a positive stance towards the
realization of a potential state of affair.
Directive declaratives commit Speaker to the future factuality
of that state.
22
Analysis 2: tags (1/2)
There are a family of tags whose main, if not only, semantic
contribution, is precisely to specify the call on addressee.
Example : sans indiscrétion
(10)
A.: Sans indiscrétion, Marie est arrivée
SANS INDISCRETION, Marie has arrived
B.: # Ah bon / je ne le savais pas / ...
‘Oh really / I didn't know that / …’
23
Analysis 2: tags (2/2)
Tags
Felicitous with
Sans indiscrétion
- declaratives
- interrogatives
N’est-ce pas
- declaratives
- question
Oui ou non
- declaratives
- polar interrogatives
- * interrogatives
- question
Point barre
S’il vous plait
- declaratives
- imperatives
Type of Call-onAddressee
- question
- proposition
- outcome
- outcome
24
Analysis 3: Particular CTs
Each core CT gives rise to several sub-types, which are
characterized by fixed formal features (lexical, syntactic or
prosodic).
Some of them are associated with illocutionary constraints.
This is the case with the various sorts of whimperatives. They
are subtypes of interrogative clauses which convey a directive.
Example: the vouloir bien whimperative in French
25
Whimperatives (1/2)
interrogative-clause
inter-hd-fill-cl
inter-hd-nexus-cl
inter-cp-cl
inter-scl-inv-cl
R- inter-scl-inv-cl
qui vient
si tu viens
viens-tu
C- inter-scl-inv-cl
veux-tu bien venir
26
Whimperatives (2/2)
(11) Veux-tu bien venir
The C- inter-scl-inv-cl (vouloir + bien +...)
• inherits the instruction that Speaker commits herself
to the issue conveyed in the utterance (‘whether you
will come) from the top type and
• specifies the Call on Addressee as an outcome (‘that
you will come’).
27
Conclusion (1/5)
Our proposal predicts that utterances fall into nine illocutionary
types.
(Ten, when one includes the exclamative type)
Each type results from the combinaison of:
• the type of content of Speaker’s commitment,
• the type of content of the Call-on -Addressee.
28
Conclusion (2/5)
Three types based on the declarative type
Clause
Content
Conversation
move
types
Speaker-oriented Addressee-oriented
Impact
impact
Declarative
Proposition p Update (S,SG, p)
Default
Update (S, CoA, p)
Update (S, CoA, p?)
Update (S, CoA, p!)
29
Conclusion (3/5)
Three types based on the interrogative type
Clause
Content
Conversation
move
types
Speaker-oriented Addressee-oriented
Impact
impact
Interro
gative
Question q
Update(S,QUD, q) Default
Update (S, CoA, q)
Update (S,CoA, q’)
Update (S,CoA,q!’)
30
Conclusion (4/5)
Three types based on the imperative type
Clause
Content
Conversation
move
types
Speaker-oriented Addressee-oriented
Impact
impact
Imperative
Outcome o
Update (S,TdL, o)
Default
Update (S, CoA, o)
Update (S, CoA, o’)
Update (S, CoA, o’?)
31
Conclusion (5/5)
Independently of the framework we are using, we have
shown that it is fruitful to take it that utterances have
two sides, as the two sides of the same coin:
– the former pertains to Speaker’s commitment,
– the latter pertains to the commitment Speaker calls
on Addressee to acknowledge.
32
Selected references
N. Asher and B. Reese. 2005. 'Negative bias in polar questions'. In E. Maier, C. Bary, and J.
Huitink (eds), Proceedings of SuB9, 30–43.
C. Beyssade & J.-M. Marandin. 2006. ’French Intonation and Attitude Attribution'. In Denis P. et
al. (eds) Issues at the semantics-pragmatics interface, Selected papers from TLS8.
Somerville: Cascadilla Press.
C. Beyssade & J.-M. Marandin. 2006. ‘The speech act assignment problem revisited:
Disentangling Speaker’s commitment from Speaker’s call on Addressee’ CSSP’s
proceedings. http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/.
C. Beyssade et al., 2004. 'Les sens des contours intonatifs en français : croyances compatibles
ou conflictuelles ?’, Proceedings JEP-TALN: 73-76.
G. Gazdar. 1981. 'Speech act assignment', in Joshi, Webber and Sag (eds.), Elements of
Discourse Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 64-83.
J. Ginzburg. 1997. 'On some semantic consequences of turn taking'. In P. Dekker, M. Stokhof,
and Y. Venema (eds.) Proceedings of the 11th Amsterdam Colloquium, 145-150, ILLC,
Amsterdam.
33
Selected references (2/2)
J.Ginzburg. To app. A Semantics for Interaction in Dialogue, CSLI Publications and University of
Chicago Press.
J. Ginzburg and I. A. Sag. 2000. Interrogative investigations. Stanford: CSLI.
G. M. Green. 1975. 'How to get people to do things with words'. Syntax and Semantics 3, 107141.
C. Gunlogson. 2003. True to Form: Rising and Falling Declaratives as Questions in English.
New York: Routledge.
J.-M. Marandin. to app. 'Contours as constructions'. Constructions. http://www.constructionsonline.de
P. Portner. 2005. 'The Semantics of Imperatives within a Theory of Clause Types'. In K.
Watanabe and R. B. Young (eds.), Proceedings of Salt 14.
J. M. Sadock. 1974. Toward a Linguistic Theory of Speech Acts, New-York, Academic Press.
A. Stefanowitsch. 2003. 'The English Imperative: a Construction-based Approach', ms.
M. Poesio and D. Traum.1998. ‘Toward an axiomatization of dialogue acts’. Proceedings of
Twendial'98, 13th Twente Workshop on Language Technology: Formal Semantics and
Pragmatics of Dialogue.
34
Doc: definition of CTs (1/2)
A CT is defined by a bundle of formal features
(inherited form the headedness hierarchy in
the HPSG parlance) and a type of content :
a. decl-cl  [CONT Proposition]
b. inter-cl  [CONT Question]
c. imp-cl  [CONT Outcome]
d. excl-cl  [CONT Fact]
35
Doc: definition of CTs (2/2)
phrase
CLAUSALITY
HEADEDNESS
core-cl
hd-ph
decl-cl
hd-subj-ph
decl-hd-subj-cl
Mary has arrived
36
Doc
(9) a. Pierre fera le ménage, oui ou non
Pierre will clean the room, oui ou non
b. Pierre fera le ménage, s’il te plait
Marie will clean the room, please
(9a)
Update 1
Add p in SG
Update 2
Add p? in CoA
(9b).
Add p in SG
Add p! in CoA
37