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Toward a Discourse Structure Account of Speech and Attitude Reports
Abstract
This paper addresses the question of propositional attitude reports within segmented discourse representation theory (SDRT). In line with most SDRT discussions on attitudes reports, we argue that reported speech should be segmented as the rest of the discourse is, but we identify several issues raised by such a segmentation: first, the nature of some relations crossing the boundaries between main and embedded speech remains unclear. Moreover, such constructions are introducing a conflict between SDRT’s right frontier constraint (RFC) and well established facts about accessibility from factual to modal contexts. We propose two solutions for adapting discourse structure to overcome these conflicts. The first one introduces a new ingredient in the theory while the second one is more conservative and relies on continuation-style semantics for SDRT.
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We propose a procedure how discourse should be processed when segments are not asserted by the writer but attributed by her to other sources.
Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) provides a dynamic semantics for discourse that exploits a rich notion of discourse structure. According to SDRT, a text is segmented into constituents related to each other by means of rhetorical relations; the resulting structure, known as a segmented discourse representation structure or SDRS has various semantic effects. This theory has shown how discourse structure makes contributions to the interpretation of a variety of linguistic phenomena, including tense, modality, presupposition, the interpretation of anaphoric pronouns and ellipsis. SDRT exploits dynamic semantics to interpret SDRSs. We investigate here the advantages of integrating SDRT within continuation style semantics.
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.
In this paper we combine a simple recovery mechanism for ellipsis with a general, discourse account of parallelism to account for a variety of phenomena concerning ellipsis, including Sag's wide scope puzzle and complex examples concerning sloppy identity. Our recovery mechanism requires an identity of logical structure between the recovered material and antecedent in the ellipsis. The recovered material and the antecedent are then interpreted independently in their respective contexts, subject only to the general discourse constraints on parallelism. These constraints give a uniform account of parallelism facts, whether or not there is ellipsis.
In this paper, I examine the division of labour between dis-course semantics and information packaging and reconsider the schemata for the semantics of veridical discourse relations given in SDRT. On the basis of studies of the phenomena of discourse relation blocking, I claim that one cannot reduce the semantics of discourse relations to their content-level semantic effects. I propose revised semantic schemata involving public commitment operators to characterize the rhetorical im-port of discourse relations within their semantics.
Application de la semantique des representations discursives aux proprietes anaphoriques des verbes d'attitudes propositionnelles, comme connaitre, douter, dire, desirer. L'objectif poursuivi par l'A. est de montrer comment les proprietes anaphoriques sont systematiquement correlees a la logique des constructions avec verbes d'attitudes propositionnelles. L'A. commence par rappeler les grandes lignes de la semantique des representations discursives avant d'etudier des proprietes de ce type de verbe
This paper deals with the semantics of de dicto, de re and de se belief reports. First, I flesh out in some detail the established, classical theories that assume syntactic distinctions
between all three types of reports. I then propose a new, unified analysis, based on two ideas discarded by the classical
theory. These are: (i) modeling the de re/de dicto distinction as a difference in scope, and (ii) analyzing de se as merely a special case of relational de re attitudes. The resurrection of these ideas takes place in a dynamic setting. My formalization of the first idea involves
a modification of the presupposition-as-anaphora resolution algorithm for DRT. The second involves treating acquaintance relations
as second-order presuppositions, to be bound in the context by means of higher-order unification, or accommodated if necessary.
The resulting framework requires no syntactic distinctions between different modes of attitude, with the exception of a specific
subclass of de se reports characterized by special ‘de se pronouns’ (i.e. PRO and logophors). These special pronouns are handled in syntax; everything alse is passed on to the pragmatic
resolution module as it appears on the surface. The more sophisticated contextual resolution process nonetheless ensures adequate
output truth conditions for a variety of classical and novel puzzles. In particular, I compare the new pragmasemantic system
to the classical, syntactic analysis with respect to iterated and quantified reports, and monstrously shifted indexicals.
KeywordsAttitudes-Belief reports-
De dicto
-
De re
-
De se
-DRT-Presupposition-Semantics-Pragmatics
Expressions are used in a variety of ways. Two radically different ways in which the expression ‘nine’ can occur are illustrated by the paradigms:
(1) Nine is greater than five,
(2) Canines are larger than felines.
Logics of Conversation (Studies in Natural Language Processing)
- N Asher
- A Lascarides