Discourse-Level Implicature

A Case for QUD

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11273022
AutoresKatja Jasinskaja (University of Cologne), Fabienne Salfner (0000-0001-9685-8973, Leibniz-Centre General Linguistics), Constantin Freitag (University of Konstanz, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen54
Número3
Páginas239-258
Fecha de publicación2017-04-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDiscourse Processes (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0163-853X • E-ISSN: 1532-6950
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0163853x.2016.1150672
OpenAlexW2329108802
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas18

This article argues that multisentence discourses give rise to Gricean quantity implicatures that go beyond the mere sum of the implicatures of the sentences they consist of. We formulate two theories of discourse-level implicature: the null theory, which only has a mechanism for sentence-level implicature and does not rely on any specific notion of discourse structure, and a theory that assumes that discourse is hierarchically structured by Questions Under Discussion (QUD) and that QUDs can guide the derivation of quantity implicatures at all levels of discourse structure. In two experiments using the inference task paradigm and focusing on sequences of sentences with contrastive topic, the QUD-based theory is shown to make more accurate predictions than the null theory. This finding provides additional motivation for the QUD-based approach to discourse structure

Discourse analysis · Implicature · Inference · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Null (SQL · Pragmatics · Sentence · Task (project management · Computer Science · Multi-Agent Systems and Negotiation · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence