This paper explores the relationship between dynamic and truth conditional semantics for epistemic modals. It provides a generalization of a standard dynamic update semantics for modals. This new semantics derives a Kripke semantics for modals and a standard dynamic semantics for modals as special cases. The semantics allows for new characterizations of a variety of principles in modal logic, including the inconsistency of ‘p and might not p’. Finally, the semantics provides a construction procedure for transforming any truth conditional semantics (...) for modals into a dynamic semantics for modals with similar properties. (shrink)

According to standard linguistic theory, the meaning of an utterance is the product of conventional semantic meaning and general pragmatic rules on language use. We investigate how such a division of labor between semantics and pragmatics could evolve under general processes of selection and learning. We present a game‐theoretic model of the competition between types of language users, each endowed with certain lexical representations and a particular pragmatic disposition to act on them. Our model traces two evolutionary forces and their (...) interaction: (i) pressure toward communicative efficiency and (ii) transmission perturbations during the acquisition of linguistic knowledge. We illustrate the model based on a case study on scalar implicatures, which suggests that the relationship between underspecified semantics and pragmatic inference is one of coevolution. (shrink)

This article takes off from Johan van Benthem’s ruminations on the interface between logic and cognitive science in his position paper “Logic and reasoning: Do the facts matter?”. When trying to answer Van Benthem’s question whether logic can be fruitfully combined with psychological experiments, this article focuses on a specific domain of reasoning, namely higher-order social cognition, including attributions such as “Bob knows that Alice knows that he wrote a novel under pseudonym”. For intelligent interaction, it is important that the (...) participants recursively model the mental states of other agents. Otherwise, an international negotiation may fail, even when it has potential for a win-win solution, and in a time-critical rescue mission, a software agent may depend on a teammate’s action that never materializes. First a survey is presented of past and current research on higher-order social cognition, from the various viewpoints of logic, artificial intelligence, and psychology. Do people actually reason about each other’s knowledge in the way proscribed by epistemic logic? And if not, how can logic and cognitive science productively work together to construct more realistic models of human reasoning about other minds? The paper ends with a delineation of possible avenues for future research, aiming to provide a better understanding of higher-order social reasoning. The methodology is based on a combination of experimental research, logic, computational cognitive models, and agent-based evolutionary models. (shrink)

An important finding of the game theoretic research on signaling games is the insight that under many circumstances, a signal obtains credibility by incurring costs to the sender. Therefore it seems questionable whether or not cheap talk—signals that are not payoff relevant—can serve to transmit information among rational agents. This issue is non-trivial in strategic interactions where the preferences of the players are not aligned. Researchers like Crawford & Sobel, Rabin, and Farrell demonstrated, however, that even in the case of (...) partially divergent interests, cheap talk may be informative. They assume that signals have an exogenously given meaning that is common knowledge between the players, and they explore the conditions under which such a signal is credible. This discussion has obvious relevance to the program of Gricean pragmatics in linguistics. According to Grice’s "Cooperative Principle”, this research tradition only considers scenarios where the interests of the players are aligned. Nevertheless, the assumption of differential signaling costs introduces an element of non-aligned interests. The present paper proposes a framework that combines these two research strands. Using an inference protocol of iterated best response, it gives a recipe for how the interlocutors derive rationalizable strategies from exogeneously given "literal” meanings of signals. No special assumptions about the alignment of interests or signaling costs are made. After introducing the formal model, the paper sketches several applications of this model to problems in linguistic pragmatics, like scalar implicatures, the division of pragmatic labor, and the interpretation of measure terms. (shrink)

In everyday life it is often important to have a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, desires, and intentions of other people. Sometimes it is even useful to to have a correct model of their model of our own mental states: a second-order Theory of Mind. In order to investigate to what extent adults use and acquire complex skills and strategies in the domains of Theory of Mind and the related skill of natural language use, we conducted an experiment. It (...) was based on a strategic game of imperfect information, in which it was beneficial for participants to have a good mental model of their opponent, and more specifically, to use second-order Theory of Mind. It was also beneficial for them to be aware of pragmatic inferences and of the possibility to choose between logical and pragmatic language use. We found that most participants did not seem to acquire these complex skills during the experiment when being exposed to the game for a number of different trials. Nevertheless, some participants did make use of advanced cognitive skills such as second-order Theory of Mind and appropriate choices between logical and pragmatic language use from the beginning. Thus, the results differ markedly from previous research. (shrink)

In this paper we argue for a unified semantics for hypothetical conditionals, hc s, e.g. _if it rains, we’ll cancel the picnic_, and biscuit conditionals, bc s, e.g., _if you are hungry, there are biscuits on the sideboard_. We side with recent literature in proposing that differences in the interpretation are related to (in)dependence between antecedent and consequent, but we move beyond current accounts in spelling out a characterization of independence that is actually predictive. We further establish a systematic link (...) between _if_-constructions and discourse structure, providing a dynamic update model that integrates the QUD, and thus the intentional discourse-structure. We argue that in bc s the antecedent sets up the question that is addressed by the consequent, and show that rescuing (Gricean) relevance in face of independence gives rise to implicatures corresponding to the different flavors associated with bc s. Crucially, we argue, this is the same mechanism responsible for our understanding that in the hc above, for example, it is the rain that will cause the cancellation of the picnic. Along the way we notice how the phenomena observed in _if_-constructions are also replicated in other quantificational structures. Ultimately, there is not much that is biscuit-specific. Their interpretation is the result of a conspiracy among semantics, dynamic update and intentional discourse-structure. (shrink)

This paper provides a formal pragmatic analysis of precision which accounts for its essential properties, but also for Lewis’s :339–359, 1979) observation of asymmetry in how standards of precision may shift due to normal discourse moves: Only up, not down. I propose that shifts of the kind observed and discussed by Lewis are in fact cases of underlying disagreement about the standard of precision, which is only revealed when one interlocutor uses an expression which signals their adherence to a higher (...) standard than the one adhered to by the other interlocutor. This paper shows that a modest formal pragmatic analysis along the lines of many prior optimality-theoretic and game-theoretic accounts can easily capture the natural asymmetry in standard-signaling that gives rise to Lewis’s observation, so long as such an account is dynamic and enriched with a notion of relevance. (shrink)

Paulina Sliwa (2015) argues that knowing why p is necessary and sufficient for understanding why p. She tries to rebut recent attacks against the necessity and sufficiency claims, and explains the gradability of understanding why in terms of knowledge. I argue that her attempts do not succeed, but I indicate more promising ways to defend reductionism about understanding why throughout the discussion.

Game theoretic pragmatics is a small but growing part of formal pragmatics, the linguistic subfield studying language use. The general logic of a game theoretic explanation of a pragmatic phenomenon is this: the conversational context is modelled as a game between speaker and hearer; an adequate solution concept then selects the to‐be‐explained behavior in the game model. For such an explanation to be convincing, both components, game model and solution concept, should be formulated and scrutinized as explicitly as possible. The (...) article demonstrates this by a concise overview of both evolutionary and non‐evolutionary approaches to game theoretic pragmatics, arguing for the use of agent‐based micro‐dynamics within evolutionary, and for the use of epistemic game theory within non‐evolutionary approaches. (shrink)

We reopen the investigation into the formal and conceptual relationship between bidirectional optimality theory (Blutner in J Semant 15(2):115–162, 1998 , J Semant 17(3):189–216, 2000 ) and game theory. Unlike a likeminded previous endeavor by Dekker and van Rooij (J Semant 17:217–242, 2000 ), we consider signaling games not strategic games, and seek to ground bidirectional optimization once in a model of rational step-by-step reasoning and once in a model of reinforcement learning. We give sufficient conditions for equivalence of bidirectional (...) optimality and the former, and show based on numerical simulations that bidirectional optimization may be thought of as a process of reinforcement learning with lateral inhibition. (shrink)

In this paper we are going to show that error coping strategies play an essential role in linguistic pragmatics. We study the effect of noisy speaker strategies within a framework of signalling games with feedback loop. We distinguish between cases in which errors occur in message selection and cases in which they occur in signal selection. The first type of errors affects the content of an utterance, and the second type its linguistic expression. The general communication model is inspired by (...) the Shannon–Weaver communication model. We test the model by a number of benchmark examples, including examples of relevance implicatures, quantity implicatures, and presupposition accommodation. (shrink)

Franke, Dulcinati and Pouscoulous also examine a form of covert lying, by considering to what extent speakers use implicatures to deceive their addressee. The participants in their online signaling game had to describe a card, which a virtual coplayer then had to select. When the goal was to deceive rather than help the coplayer, participants produced more false descriptions (overt lies), but also more uninformative descriptions (covert lies by means of an implicature). [73].

Indefinites face competition at two levels: Presupposition and content. The antipresupposition hypothesis predicts that they signal the opposite of familiarity, or uniqueness, namely, novelty, or non-uniqueness. At the level of descriptive content, they are pressured from two sides: definites expressing identity and another phrases expressing difference, and Gricean reasoning predicts that indefinites signal both difference and identity and are infelicitous when definites and another phrases are felicitous. However, occasionally a space opens between the and another, for a to fill. This (...) is in part due to conditions handicapping the or another semantically, in part to another’s phonological handicap. The division of labor between determiners in the field of difference and sameness is thus the result of an intricate competition. We model this competition in a version of game-theoretic pragmatics. (shrink)

Language use and interpretation is heavily contingent on context. But human interlocutors need not always agree what the actual context is. In game theoretic approaches to language use and interpretation, interlocutors’ beliefs about the context are the players’ beliefs about the game that they are playing. Together this entails that we need to consider cases in which interlocutors have different subjective conceptualizations of the game they are in. This paper therefore extends iterated best response reasoning, as an established model for (...) pragmatic reasoning, to games with unawareness. This extension not only leads to more plausible context models for many communicative situations, but also to improved predictions for otherwise problematic cases and an extension of the scope of pragmatic phenomena that can be captured by game theoretic analysis. (shrink)