Journal of Semantics Advance Access originally published online on February 6, 2009
Journal of Semantics 2009 26(2):109-158; doi:10.1093/jos/ffn013
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Agreement, Disputes and Commitments in Dialogue
University of Edinburgh
Université Paul Sabatier
Correspondence: ALEX LASCARIDES, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 10, Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, Scotland, United Kingdom, e-mail: alex{at}inf.ed.ac.uk
Correspondence: NICHOLAS ASHER IRIT, Université Paul Sabatier, 118, Route de Narbonne, F-31062 Toulouse, France, e-mail: asher{at}irit.fr
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This paper provides a logically precise analysis of agreement and disputes in dialogue. The semantics distinguishes among the public commitments of each dialogue agent, including commitments to relational speech acts or rhetorical relations (e.g. Narration, Explanation and Correction). Agreement is defined to be the shared entailments of the agents' public commitments. We show that this makes precise predictions about implicit agreement. The theory also provides a consistent interpretation of disputes and models what content is agreed upon when a dispute has taken place.
Received for publication 8 January 2008. Revision received 10 October 2008. Accepted for publication 17 November 2008.