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.
1
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
2
Workshop ‘Interactional Foundations for Language’
LAGB, University of Leeds, 1 September 2010
On Pragmatic Compositionality
Kasia M. Jaszczolt
University of Cambridge
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kmj21
3
What is expressed overtly in one language (by the
lexicon or grammar) may be left to pragmatic inference
or default interpretation in another.
4
e.g. sentential connectives:
Wari’ (Chapacura-Wanham, the Amazon)
Tzeltal (Mayan, Mexico)
no ‘or’
Maricopa (Yuman, Arizona)
Guugu Yimithirr (Australian Aboriginal)
no ‘and’
no ‘if’
cf. Mauri & van der Auwera, forthc.; Evans & Levinson 2009
5
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.
6
Swahili: consecutive tense marker ka
(4)
a. …wa-Ingereza wa-li-wa-chukua
3Pl-British
3Pl-Past-3Pl-take
‘…then the British took the corpses,
b. wa-ka-wa-tia
katika
3Pl-Cons-3Pl-put.on on
put them on a flat board,
wa-le
3Pl-Dem
bao
board
maiti,
corpses
moja,
one
c. wa-ka-ya-telemesha maji-ni
kwa
3Pl-Cons-3Pl-lower
water-Loc
with
and lowered them steadily into the water…’
utaratibu w-ote…
order
3Pl-all
adapted from Givón (2005: 154)
7
rhetorical structure rules, Asher and Lascarides 2003
Narration:
Tom finished the chapter.
He closed the book.
e1

e2
8
No ‘or’ in Wari’?
Absence of a disjunctive marker  presence of some irrealis marker
(5)’am
perhaps
’e’
ca
’am
mi’
live
3SG.M. perhaps give
pin
ca
complete 3SG.M.
‘Either he will live or he will die.’
from Mauri and van der Auwera (fortc.: 12)
9
‘…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)
10
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)
11
• Pragmatic, interactive compositionality (post-Gricean
contextualists, e.g. Recanati’s Truth-Conditional Pragmatics;
Jaszczolt’s Default Semantics)
12
von Fintel and Matthewson (2008)
*Strong Effability Hypothesis (Katz)
‘Every proposition is the sense of some sentence in each
natural language.’
13
*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’. ’
14
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’.
15
 What are they?
• vF&M (2008):
(i) some universal semantic composition principles
(?)
(ii) Gricean principles of utterance interpretation
(?)
 semantic/pragmatic processing principles
16
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)
17
‘universals’  ‘universal principles’, ‘universal processes’,
including methodological assumptions about theory of
processing
18
…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.
19
focus on language diversity or universal patterns?
X
20
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)
21
Post-Gricean theory of utterance/discourse
meaning
radical pragmatics
sense-generality
contextualism
22
(6)
(6a)
(7)
(7a)
Some British people like cricket.
Some but not all British people like cricket.
Everybody read Frege.
Every member of the research group read Frege.
23
Semantic analysis takes us only part of the way towards the
recovery of utterance meaning. Pragmatic enrichment
completes the process.
Enrichment:
some
everybody
+> some but not all
+> everybody in the room, every acquaintance of
the speaker, etc.
24
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.
25
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.
26
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?
27
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 logical
form is pragmatically developed/modulated as a real,
cognitively justified construct. To do so would be to assume
that syntax plays a privileged role among various carriers of
information (contextualists’ mistake).
28
(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.
29
(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.
30
(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.
31
(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.
32

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)
33
• Interlocutors frequently communicate their main intended
content through a proposition which is not syntactically
restricted.
Experimental evidence:
Nicolle and Clark 1999
Pitts 2005
Sysoeva and Jaszczolt 2007
Sysoeva 2009
34
world knowledge (WK)
word meaning and sentence structure (WS)
merger representation Σ
situation of discourse (SD)
stereotypes and presumptions
about society and culture (SC)
properties of human inferential system (IS)
Fig. 1: Sources of information contributing to a 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.
36
Sources of information for 
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
world knowledge (WK)
word meaning and sentence structure (WS)
situation of discourse (SD)
properties of the human inferential system (IS)
stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture (SC)
37
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.
38
IS
(11)
The author of Wolf Hall is coming to Cambridge.
(11’)
Hilary Mantel is coming to Cambridge.
39
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.
40
Primary meaning:
combination of word meaning
and sentence structure (WS)
merger representation Σ
social, cultural and
cognitive defaults (CD)
world-knowledge defaultspm (SCWDpm)
conscious pragmatic inference pm
(from situation of discourse, social and
cultural assumptions, and world
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
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)
42
Mapping between sources and processes
WK
SC
WS
SD
IS





SCWD or CPI
SCWD or CPI
WS
(logical form)
CPI
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.
43
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)
44
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.
45
Compositionality should be an empirical assumption about
the nature of possible human languages.
Szabó (2000)
46
compositionality on the level of referential properties
(for anything that counts as language of thought, KJ)
Fodor (2008)
47
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)
48
• Languages:
English, Korean, Thai, Russian, French, German, Italian
49
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.
50
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)
xy

[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.
54
Asher (1986: 129): discourse referents are ‘pegs’ on
which 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
55
‘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.
56
x y ’

[Tom]CD (x)
[Hilary Mantel]CD (y)
[[x]CD [believes]CD ’]WS
’:
[[y]CD is coming to Cambridge]WS
Fig. 6: Partial  of the default de re reading 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. 7: Partial  of the reading de dicto with a referential mistake 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
Fig. 8:  of the reading de dicto proper of (15)
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.
62
x 1 2
[Tom]CD (x)

1:
2:
[[x]CD finish the chapter]WS
[[x]CD close the book]WS
[1  2]WS
[1  2]SCWD
Fig. 9: partial  of example (1)
Swahili: consecutive tense marker ka
(4)
a. …wa-Ingereza wa-li-wa-chukua
3Pl-British
3Pl-Past-3Pl-take
‘…then the British took the corpses,
b. wa-ka-wa-tia
katika
3Pl-Cons-3Pl-put.on on
put them on a flat board…’
bao
board
wa-le
3Pl-Dem
maiti,
corpses
moja…
one
adapted from Givón (2005: 154)
64
X  1 2
[wa-Ingereza]CD (X)

1:
2:
[wa-chukua wa-le maiti [X]CD]WS
[wa-tia katika bao moja [X]CD]WS
[1  2]WS
Fig. 10: partial  of example (4)
No ‘or’ in Wari’?
(5)’am
perhaps
’e’
ca
’am
mi’
live
3SG.M. perhaps give
pin
ca
complete 3SG.M.
‘Either he will live or he will die.’
from Mauri and van der Auwera (fortc.: 12)
66
x 1 2
[contextually salient male]CD (x)

1:
2:
[’e’ ca [x]CD ]WS
[mi’ pin ca [x]CD]WS
ACCΔ’am ├ Σ1
ACCΔ’am ├ Σ2
[1  2]WS
Fig. 11: partial  of example (5)
Summary
• A contextualist theory that adopts pragmatic compositionality
allows for representing the linguistic diversity of means of
conveying information (lexicon/grammar/pragmatics tradeoff) 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.
68
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