This entry discusses how pragmatic strengthening can lead to semantic change and how we detect conventionalized implicatures. I introduce the core terms bridging context , separating context , and reanalysis that serve to describe the process. The use of corpora in the study of pragmatic enrichment will be demonstrated by the German example selbst Intensif > selbst even . I propose that we should distinguish between normal pragmatic strengthening and evidence for lexified implicature . While the distinction has been assumed in earlier theories of semantic change, it remains open what kind of data constitutes empirical evidence for lexified/conventionalized implicature. In those accounts, bridging contexts are identified post hoc, thus weakening theories' predictive potential. I argue that attestations with implicature ‘beyond reason’ are important, so‐far overlooked data points in the diachronic record and offer early evidence for language change.

Abstract The paper investigates unembedded hwæþer questions in Old English (OE). We argue that they represent an intermediate stage in the development of hwæþer ‘which of the two’ to modern English whether. Syntactically, we find a range of quasi-subordinating uses of hwæþer in questions that all have in common that the speaker expresses a pedagogical question. Pedagogical questions are questions the speaker knows the answer to, but is urging the addressee to consider while drawing their own conclusions. In the OE Boethius, hwæþer can convey this use-conditional pragmatic flavour for polar questions. It thus comes close in function to other use-conditional particles.

The chapter proposes a semantic analysis of narrators in fiction, addressing three main issues: (a) in fiction, we cannot rely on reality to determine the identity of the narrator, (b) there are linguistic items beyond pronouns to introduce a narrator, and (c) narrators can be unreliable. It shows how narrators in fiction can be modeled by discourse referents (drefs) in dynamic semantics. At the core of the analysis is the assumption that hearers derive subjective meanings by taking into account all contexts c that could be the context they are in. Combined with dynamic semantics, this captures the intuition that a narrator can be both unique and indefinite. Different types of narrator introduction are surveyed: apart from first-person pronouns, speaker-oriented items like exclamatives, questions, and evidentials trigger the accommodation of a narrator dref. Other items, like predicates of personal taste, can but need not refer to the narrator dref. The analysis is extended to unreliable narrators and narrations about humanless worlds.

Japanese ka-questions have been described in the literature as always requesting honorific markers, unless they are used as self-addressed questions. Self-addressed questions are marked with the evidential modal daroo. This evidential has a polite counterpart desyoo which is used in declaratives and questions if the addressee is of higher rank or addressed formally. This is surprising at first sight, as the notion of addressing another person with a self-addressed question seems paradox. We argue that (a) daroo questions are not just questions to oneself, and that (b) ka-questions are not just polite questions. Instead, we propose that ka introduces a requirement that the addressee of the utterance must be explicated, i.e., explicitly mentioned in the utterance, and that honorific morphemes are one way of explicating the addressee. This correctly predicts that anti-honorific pronouns can also license ka-questions. Finally, we show how the grammatical marking of ka-questions coheres with the question prosody (final fall or rise).

This book provides an introduction to the fundamental terms in the field of pragmatics. Alongside classic topics – implicature, presupposition, speech acts, deixis – the focus is on a detailed understanding of the pragmatic phenomena of the German language. The volume presents and analyses German modal particles and the ‘free’ word order of the German language against the backdrop of current pragmatic theories.

Indirect speech is used when one speaker reports what another speaker said. In order to interpret indirect speech we therefore have to disentangle two utterance contexts: the actual utterance and the reported utterance. The chapter investigates words and constructions that refer to utterance contexts and demonstrates how their meaning helps us to keep track of different utterance levels. I discuss traditional indexicals (pronouns, tense) as well as emotives, discourse particles, exclamatives, the subjunctive mood, and other context‐dependent items, and elucidate the logical structure behind different types of indirect speech. Based on the case of German, the chapter develops a comprehensive semantic analysis for tense, reportative subjunctive mood, and indexical elements in free and embedded indirect speech.

The paper investigates aspects of the contribution of indexicals to sentence meaning when the context, specifically the speaker, is unknown. One typical instance is the interpretation of the first person pronoun I in anonymous messages, another case are first and second person indexicals in narrative fiction. Whereas the speaker of an anonymous message can be found out, first speaker protagonists in fiction are a priori elusive. The paper argues that the meaning of indexicals in fiction and in anonymous utterances should be captured by forming the union over possible utterance contexts. It defines the subjective meaning for the hearer/reader as an appropriate level of semantic representation.

The paper analyzes German verb-final questions with the particle wohl , which roughly translate as ‘ Q, I wonder? ’. It construes German as an instance of a general typological pattern: Conjectural questions (CQs) are marked by evidentials in many languages, and German wohl is an inferential evidential. The analysis proceeds in three steps. First, wohl is shown to pattern with inferential evidentials in other languages. Declarative wohl p asserts p and conveys ‘the speaker defeasibly infers p from secure knowledge’ as non-at-issue content. Second, the analysis is extended to standard wohl Q questions, accounting for the interrogative flip. Third, the analysis integrates conjectural verb-final wohl questions. I propose that CQs ask for answers that are defeasibly entailed by the pooled knowledge of speaker and addressee. Due to the logic of defeasible inference, the addressee is not in a position to answer the CQ unless both interlocutors have pooled their knowledge. In normal utterance contexts, these questions are thus un-answerable. We see two conventionalized reactions: the interlocutors engage in speculative discourse, or the CQ is understood as a statement of curiosity that doesn’t require a response. EARLY ACCESS

Abstract Text comprehension is based on the literal content of sentences and pragmatic enrichment. Theories of pragmatic enrichment in the literature include enrichment of narrative texts, but also pragmatic content conveyed by presupposition triggers. Taking texts by Ror Wolf as my test case, I illustrate that our capacity of pragmatic enrichment can be abused to understand paradoxical content, even though the literal content of the text seems coherent at the surface level. This shows that pragmatic enrichment in narration is a genuine part of language processing and must not be equated with commonsense reasoning.

Text comprehension is based on the literal content of sentences and pragmatic enrichment. Theories of pragmatic enrichment in the literature include enrichment of narrative texts, but also pragmatic content conveyed by presupposition triggers. Taking texts by Ror Wolf as my test case, I illustrate that our capacity of pragmatic enrichment can be abused to understand paradoxical content, even though the literal content of the text seems coherent at the surface level. This shows that pragmatic enrichment in narration is a genuine part of language processing and must not be equated with commonsense reasoning.

We analyze German bloss as a marker of extreme ignorance questions Q, basically indicating that the speaker has dismissed answers to Q that she initially considered likely. We argue that bloss in questions is used in three varieties that all play on this common theme. The analysis can predict that bloss questions are not synonymous to wh-in-heaven ignorance questions, even though the two question types are similar in pragmatic content.

The original utterance is copied verbatim and is arguably mentioned, not used by the speaker of (1). In writing, the utterance is marked by quotation marks “ ”. Grammatical relations between the utterance in quotation marks and the clause introducing the quotation are generally prohibited. Let me introduce a few terms on basis of (1). The reported speaker, here Tom, will be called the “protagonist” (or “speaking protagonist”) whereas the person who utters (1) will be called the “speaker” (or “narrator”, later also “signer”). The utterance context with Tom as the speaker will be called the internal context d (because it is part of the story told by the speaker) whereas the context in which the speaker utters (1) is called external context C. Contexts define various parameters such as a speaker, addressee, time, location and possibly more. In (1), the speaker of d is Tom whereas the speaker of C is whoever reads (1) out aloud. The pronouns I and you in quotation refer to the internal context d. All other forms of reported speech and thought in languages like English are different in

Pragmatic theories of the licensing of negative polarity items (NPIs) have gained popularity in recent years. However, none of the existing accounts pays much attention to the distinction between weak and strong NPIs. The present paper aims to remedy this by providing a pragmatic analysis of minimizer NPIs, which are traditionally treated as strong NPIs. We will argue that explaining the more restricted distribution of strong NPIs in terms of a hidden even operator cannot succeed since hidden even would also predict NPIs to be able to occur in downward-entailing contexts such as in the scope of few. Therefore, a hidden even operator successfully captures the licensing of weak NPIs. Minimizer NPIs, however, require an additional antiveridicality condition to be licensed.

The paper investigates a seeming paradox. Formal theories of meaning standardly assume that sentencesin real communication or in fictionare evaluated relative to utterance contexts. Therefore, such theories lead us to expect that texts in fiction always refer to speakers, which come as part of these utterance contexts. Intuition, on the contrary, tells us that many stories do not create the impression that there is someone who is telling us all this. I will discuss how this paradox can be resolved within formal semantics.

The paper investigates the future-in-the-past (FiP) as in Peter would (later) see the Fujiyama. FiP can convey an outlook on events that, as the speaker knows, took place later (“objective sense”). FiP can also convey a past utterance or thought of a protagonist. In this perspective-taking sense, FiP sentences share the uncertainty about the future of present tense will-sentences. Kaufmann’s (2005) semantic treatment of the future is extended to account for shifted senses of the future-in-the-past, leading to the insight that tense scopes differently in non-shifted and shifted future-in-the-past. A final outlook speculates about more radical changes in the analysis of tense and aspect in order to account for this observation. This article is part of the special collection: Perspective Taking

The present paper presents a unified analysis of free and embedded indirect speech, with a specific focus on German. First we need a context-based analysis of indexicals (rigid/shiftable) which can capture their orientation in uses in indirect speech. The analysis includes a treatment of the German reportative subjunctive as a shiftable indexical tense. Indirect speech in embedded clauses of the type Peter said that S forces us to extend this context-based analysis of indexicals by an adequate link to the matrix clause. I assume that the event introduced by the matrix verb (‘say’, ‘think’ etc.) provides the context parameter for the embedded clause. The resulting analysis makes correct predictions for a wide range of phenomena such as quantification over embedded speech, embedding under passive clauses and indirect speech in nominalizations.

This chapter uses temporal and evaluative/commentary items in combination in order to diagnose the intended context(s) of interpretation. Based on this combined evidence, one can infer systematic patterns of context shift and isolate extra readings for single words. The chapter investigates how reference to sp indicates free indirect speech and thought. It also sees how the information content of the utterance factors into asserted content, pre-supposition, and expressive content, taking up our earlier observations on update. The chapter recapitulates our findings for leider which offers an ideal test case, given that it has a comparatively clear and specific emotive content. It next covers ja, a certain use of also, epistemic wohl and doch. Particles and speaker oriented adverbs convey information about the speaker. Particles are investigated in combination with temporal indexicals. The chapter argues that paradoxical interpretations only arise for indexicals jetzt/now and hier/here.Keywords: doch; epistemic wohl; free indirect speech; leider; paradoxical interpretations; temporal indexicals

This chapter reviews the classical work by Anne Banfield (Banfield 1982). It is fair to say that she is the first author to integrate an analysis of free indirect discourse into formal linguistic theory. The chapter then turns to two very recent formal analyses of free indirect discourse, Schlenker (2004) and Sharvit (2008), which are close to the present approach in both spirit and implementation. Finally, there is a recent and growing literature on quotation, which in part covers phenomena in free indirect discourse. Maier (2007, 2010), building on earlier work by Potts (2007b), presents an analysis for mixed quotations and proposes extending it to free indirect discourse. It seems tempting to ask whether free indirect discourse could be viewed as a special kind of mixed quotation phenomenon. The chapter pursues this idea and explores its merits and limitations.Keywords: Anne Banfield; formal linguistic theory; free indirect discourse; Maier; mixed quotations; Schlenker; Sharvit