CAS LX 502 Semantics

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CAS LX 502Semantics

• 12a. Speech acts
• Ch. 10(3)

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Conventional sentence types

• Declarative. (Assertion)
• I seem to have forgotten my umbrella.
• Interrogative. (Question)
• Where did I leave it?
• Imperative. (Order/Request)
• Go find my umbrella!
• Optative. (Wish)
• If only I had my umbrella!

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Austin (1955/1962/1975)

• A traditional view of meaning in language at the
  time (which we have been exploring as well)
  revolved around the assumptions that
• The basic sentence type is declarative.
• The main use of language is to describe states of
  affairs
• The meaning of utterances can be described in
  terms of truth and falsity (or the situations in
  which an utterance would be true/false).
• However, there are many sentence types and usages
  that cannot really be said to be true or
  false. This seems to cover only declaratives,
  and not even all of them.

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How to do things with words

• Languageactually affecting the world.
• I bet you 1 you cant name the Super Tuesday
  states. (Youre on).
• I ate a sandwich.
• I promise to get up early and vote.
• I need the day off.
• I (now) pronounce you man and wife.
• I hereby revoke your license for 90-days.
• May I have the salt?

NY, CA, MA, OH, VT, MN, CT, MD, RI, GA
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Performative utterances

• Certain utterances actually perform an act.
• I promise that I will do my homework.
• I hereby declare this meeting adjourned.
• I hereby cook this cake.
• For performative utterances, whether they are
  true or not is not at issue rather, we might ask
  whether they work (felicitous) or not
  (infelicitous).

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Felicity

• Generally speaking
• A1. There must be an accepted conventional
  procedure having a certain conventional effect,
  the procedure to include the uttering of certain
  words by certain persons in certain
  circumstances
• A2. The particular persons and circumstances must
  be appropriate for the invocation of the
  particular procedure invoked
• B1. The procedure must be executed by all the
  participants correctly
• B2. and completely
• Also sincerity as specified by the procedure.

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Misfire and abuse

• A speech act will misfire if the conditions
  arent met.
• I pronounce you man and wife.
• You are hereby charged with treason.
• A speech act can be abused if insincerly
  performed.
• I bet you 1,000,000 you will fail the test.

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Three elements of a speech act

• Locutionary act speaking/writing a grammatical
  utterance.
• Illocutionary act action intended by the
  speaker.
• Perlocutionary act effect intended by the
  speaker.
• Arrest that man!
• Urging, advising,
• Persuading,

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Categorization of speech acts

• Searle (1976) Five main types
• Representatives. Commit to the truth of expressed
  proposition
• Asserting, concluding,
• Directives. Attempts to get addressee to do
  something
• Demanding, questioning, requesting,
• Commissives. Commit to a future course of action
• Promising, threatening, offering,
• Expressives. Express a psychological state
• Thanking, apologizing, congratulating,
• Declarations. Effect immediate changes in the
  institutional state of affairs.
• Christening, firing, marrying,

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Defining speech acts à la Searle

• Schema
• Preparatory condition(s)
• Propositional condition(s)
• Sincerity conditions(s)
• Essential condition(s)
• Promising (by S to H of A via P using E)
• Prep1 H would prefer Ss doing A to his not
  doing A and S believes H would prefer Ss doing
  A to not doing A.
• Prep2 It is not obvious to both S and H that S
  will do A in the normal course of events.
• Prop In expressing that P, S predicates a future
  act A of S.
• Sinc S intends to do A
• Ess the utterance E counts as an undertaking to
  do A.

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Defining speech acts à la Searle

• Schema
• Preparatory condition(s)
• Propositional condition(s)
• Sincerity conditions(s)
• Essential condition(s)
• Questioning (by S to H via P using E)
• Prep1 S does not know the missing information.
• Prep2 It is not obvious to S and H that H will
  provide the information without being asked.
• (Prop No condition, any proposition.)
• Sinc S wants the missing information.
• Ess The act counts as an attempt to elicit this
  information from H.

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Implicit v. explicit performatives

• I hereby promise to pay you 35 euros.
• Ill give you 35 euros.
• (a promise, not a prediction or a statement).
• Its a fuzzy line.

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Overriding conventionindirect speech acts

• Can you pass the spinach?
• Why dont you go find your teddy bear?
• Direct act question, indirect act request.
• I must ask you to leave.
• Direct act statement, indirect act
  order/request
• Its freezing in here.
• Direct act statement, indirect act request
• So how do we know which one is meant?

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Literal and non-literal

• Can you pass the spinach?
• (Please) pass the spinach.
• I wish you wouldnt tap your pencil.
• (Please) stop tapping your pencil.
• Are you going to eat your peas?
• (Please) eat your peas.
• Searle These work by addressing one of the
  conditions.
• Requesting (by S to H of A)
• Prep H is able to perform A.
• Sinc S wants H to do A.
• Prop S predicates a future act A of H.
• Ess Counts as an attempt by S to get H to do A.

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How we understand indirect speech acts

• Searle reasoning from
• Felicity conditions
• Context
• Principles of cooperative conversation
• Can you pass the salt? (Quantity)
• I wish you wouldnt tap your pencil. (Relation)
• ConventionAre you capable of passing me the
  salt?
• Perception of the direct actYes indeed.

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Why be indirect?

• Close the window.
• Can you close the window?
• I dont suppose you could close the window, could
  you?
• I wonder if youd mind closing the window.
• Its rather chilly in here.
• Diminishing threats to face (worthiness,
  autonomy).
• Id love to go, but I have to wash my hair, I
  have a headache, and its my mothers birthday.
  Maybe another time.

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?

• ? ?
• ?
• ? ?
• ? ?
• ?
• ?

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Librarians and limits on QR

• Some librarian or other found every book.
• One librarian, or one per book.
• S some librarian found NP every book
• NP every booki S some librarian found ti .
• Some librarian knows that Pat found every book.
• One librarian, but not one per book.
• In order to get the one per book
  interpretation, we would need to use QR to bring
  every book up higher in the structure than some
  librarian or other. This suggests that QR can
  only move a quantifier as high as the smallest S
  in which it is found.
• S Some librarian knows S that Pat found every
  book
• NP every booki S some lib. knows S that Pat
  found ti.

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More about librarians

• Some librarian or other found out which book
  every student needed.
• One librarian or one librarian per book.
• Some librarian found out, for each student x, the
  book that x needed.
• For each student x, there is a (possibly
  different) librarian that found out the book that
  x needed.
• That shouldnt be possible
• S some librarian found out S which book
  every student needed.

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Still more about librarians

• And it isnt really
• Some librariani or other found out which book
  every boy stole from heri.
• One librarian, not one per boy.
• For every boy x, there is some librarian or
  other that found out the book that x stole from
  her.
• Why?
• S some librariani found out S which book
  every boy stole from heri

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QR of questions?

• Consider the pair-list kind of question What did
  everyone buy? interpreted as a series of
  questions What did Pat buy? What did Tracy buy?
  defined by the smallest set that can count as
  everyone.
• Some librarian or other found out which book
  every student needed.
• For every question Q in the series defined by
  Which book did every student need?, some
  librarian or other found out the answer to Q.

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QR of questions?

• Some librarian or other found out which book
  every student needed.
• S some librarian found out S which book every
  student needed
• Some librarian or other found out every answer.
• S which book every student neededi S some
  librarian found out ti
• Its as if the entire embedded question acts as a
  quantifier. That isnt moving out of its S.
• Idea when a question is interpreted as a series
  of questions (the pair-list interpretation), it
  can be considered a quantifier itself.

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Librarians continued

• Some librariani or other found out which book
  every boy stole from heri.
• For every question Q in the series defined by
  Which book did every boy steal from heri?, some
  librariani or other found out the answer to Q.
• Which book did every boy steal from
  heri some librariani found out ti.
• The idea is that if the question is raised up to
  a position above some librarian in the tree, some
  librarian no longer has scope/control over the
  pronoun her, and so the choice of (possibly
  different) librarians cannot determine the
  referent of her.

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Last point on librarians and QR

• Some librarian or other thinks I found out which
  book every boy needed.
• One librarian, not one-per-boy.
• S Some librarian or other thinks S I found
  out S which book every boy needed .
• S Some librarian or other thinks S I found
  out S which book every boy needed .