Temporality and tense in DRT (Kamp and Reyle 1993)

1. Future time reference: Truth-conditional pragmaticsor semantics of acts of communication?Kasia Jaszczolt University of Cambridgehttp://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~kmj21

2. Temporality and tense in DRT (Kamp and Reyle 1993)

3. Temporality and tense in DRT (Kamp and Reyle 1993) • Reanalysis of the type and degree of contextual input to representation structures

4. Temporality and tense in DRT (Kamp and Reyle 1993) • Reanalysis of the type and degree of contextual input to representation structures • Representations of acts of communication: merger representations (Jaszczolt 2003 & forthcoming)

5. Temporality and tense in DRT (Kamp and Reyle 1993) • Reanalysis of the type and degree of contextual input to representation structures • Representations of acts of communication: merger representations (Jaszczolt 2003 & forthcoming) • Application of merger representations to expressions of futurity

6. Temporality and tense in DRT (Kamp and Reyle 1993) • Reanalysis of the type and degree of contextual input to representation structures • Representations of acts of communication: merger representations (Jaszczolt 2003 & forthcoming) • Application of merger representations to expressions of futurity • Conclusion: truth-conditional semantics or pragmatics?

7. Tom will play a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday. • Tom is going to play a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Friday. • On Friday Tom is playing a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. • On Friday Tom plays a concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

8. ‘The algorithm must represent the temporal information that is contained in the tense of a sentence and in its temporal adverb (if there is one).’ Kamp & Reyle (1993: 512)

9. ‘…[the feature] TENSE has three possible values, past, present, and future, signifying that the described eventuality lies before, at, or after the utterance time, respectively. The value of TENSE for a given sentence S is determined by the tense of the verb of S. When the main verb is in the simple past, TENSE = past; when it is in the simple present, TENSE = pres; and when the verb complex contains the auxiliary will, TENSE = fut.’ Kamp & Reyle (1993: 512-513)

10. Truth-conditional pragmatics (e.g. Recanati 2003): truth value is predicated of an utterance – what is said by the speaker. Problem: degree of the contextual contribution (quasi-contextualism and contextualism)

11. Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 1999a, b; 2002; 2003; forthcoming a, b) • quasi-contextualism • merger representations

12. Stage I combination of word meaning and sentence structure compositional merger representation conscious pragmatic inference 1 social - cultural defaults 1 cognitive defaults Stage II · social - cultural defaults 2 · co nscious pragmatic inference 2 Fig. 1

13. Pragmatic information, such as the output of pragmatic inference or defaults, contributes to the truth-conditional content. • The representation of the truth-conditional content is a merger of information from (i) word meaning and sentence structure, (ii) conscious pragmatic processes, and (iii) default meanings. Merger representation.

14. Default Semantics uses an adapted and extended formalism of DRT but applies it to the output of the merger of these sources of meaning.

15. Mary will go to the opera tomorrow night. (regular future)

17. (6) Mary is going to the opera tomorrow night. (futurative progressive) (7) Mary goes to the opera tomorrow night. ( ‘tenseless future’, Dowty 1979)

18. Grice’s (2001) Equivocality Thesis: Modals are univocal across the practical/alethic divide. Acc – modal operator, ‘it is (rationally) acceptable that’

19. Acc ￂp ‘it is acceptable that it is the case that p’ Acc ! p ‘it is acceptable that let it be that p’

20. Stage I combination of word meaning and sentence structure compositional merger representation conscious pragmatic inference 1 social - cultural defaults 1 cognitive defaults Stage II · social - cultural defaults 2 · co nscious pragmatic inference 2 Fig. 1

26. Gradation of modality: strength of informative intention

27. Other modal uses of will: (7) Mary will be in the opera now. (epistemic necessity) • Mary will sometimes go to the opera in her tracksuit. (dispositional necessity)

31. Conclusions • The general notion of modality (Acc) subsumes various expressions of futurity (rf, fp, tf). It can be translated into the DS-theoretic operator ACCΔn.

32. Conclusions • The general notion of modality (Acc) subsumes various expressions of futurity (rf, fp, tf). It can be translated into the DS-theoretic operator ACCΔn. • ACC Δn, combined with CD and CPI 1, allows for representing the degrees of modality and the degrees of informative intentions associated with the acts of communication that make use of these different forms.

33. ACCΔn also allows for representing different modal uses of will such as dispositional and epistemic necessity.

34. DRT or truth-conditional pragmatics?

35. DRT or truth-conditional pragmatics? Compositional semantic theory of acts of communication

36. Pragmatic composition view: ‘…even if the semantic value of a word is fixed by language (and context, if saturation [filling in indexicals, ‘unarticulated constituents’, KJ] is necessary), composing it with the semantic values for other words often requires help from above [top-down process, KJ]. It is semantic composition which has a fundamentally pragmatic character.’ Recanati (2003:139).

37. Merger representations are compositional. They are mental representations that are coarse-grained equivalents of thoughts.

38. Merger representations have truth conditions.

39. Merger representations have truth conditions. • Default Semantics applies the amended and extended DRT mechanism to merger representations (e.g. incorporation of the operator on eventualities ACC e)

40. K.M. Jaszczolt, forthcoming, Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

41. Select references Van Eijck, J. and H. Kamp. 1997. ‘Representing discourse in context’. In J. van Benthem and A. ter Meulen (eds). Handbook of Logic and Language. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science. 179-237. Enç, M. 1996. ‘Tense and modality’. In S. Lappin, ed. The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. 345-358. Grice, P. 2001. Aspects of Reason. Ed. By R. Warner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Groenendijk, J. and M. Stokhof. 1991. ‘Dynamic Predicate Logic’. Linguistics and Philosophy 14. 39-100. Jaszczolt, K. M. 2003. ‘The modality of the future: A Default-Semantics account’. In P. Dekker and R. van Rooy (eds). Proceedings of the 14th Amsterdam Colloquium. ILLC, University of Amsterdam. 43-48. Kamp, H. and U. Reyle. 1993. From Discourse to Logic. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Recanati, F. 2003. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: CUP. Schiffer, S. 2003. The Things We Mean. Oxford: Clarendon Press.