Journal of Semantics - current issue

Agreement, Disputes and Commitments in Dialogue

Lascarides, A., Asher, N. — 2009-05-05

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.

Multiple Focus

Beck, S., Vasishth, S. — 2009-05-05

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on multiple focus configurations, that is, structures containing two nested focus-sensitive operators plus two foci supposed to associate with those operators. There has been controversial discussion in the semantic literature regarding whether or not an interpretation is acceptable that corresponds to this association. While the data are unclear, the issue is of considerable theoretical significance, as it distinguishes between the available theories of focus interpretation. Some theories (e.g. Rooth's 1992) predict such a pattern of association with focus to be impossible, while others (such as Wold’s 1996) predict it to be acceptable. The results of our study show the data to be unacceptable rather than acceptable, favouring important aspects of the theory of focus interpretation developed by Rooth.

Solving Learnability Problems in the Acquisition of Semantics

Gualmini, A., Schwarz, B. — 2009-05-05

This paper proposes solutions to two semantic learnability problems that have featured prominently in the literature on language acquisition. Both problems have often been deemed unsolvable for language learners as a matter of logic, and they have accordingly been taken to motivate principles making sure they will not actually arise in the course of language acquisition. One problem concerns the acquisition of ambiguous sentences whose readings are related by entailment. Crain et al.'s (1994) Semantic Subset Principle is intended to preempt the problem by preventing acquisition of the weaker reading before the stronger reading has been acquired. In contrast, we demonstrate that this very order of acquisition becomes feasible in principle if children can exploit non-truth-conditional evidence of various kinds or evidence from sentences containing downward entailing operators. The other learnability problem concerns the potential need for expunction of certain readings of ambiguous sentences from a child's grammar. It has often been assumed that, in the absence of negative evidence, such expunction is impossible, and Wexler and Manzini (1987) posit a Subset Principle to preempt the problematic learning scenario. We argue, however, that if the evidence available to the child includes dialogues, and if listeners are expected to interpret speakers' utterances charitably, then expunction of unavailable readings is possible in principle.