Michael Franke
Biographic Data
| ID | 844937 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Franke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Franke |
| SIGNATURE | FRANKE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Tübingen |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9670-8510 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Quantifying Epistemic Relevance
In ordinary information-seeking dialogue, the relevance of an assertion seems to depend on how much progress it makes toward resolving the question under discussion (QUD). This kind of relevance—epistemic relevance—has been quantified in more than one way in prior work. However, there has been little investigation into which measures of epistemic relevance best model human judgments. We present the most comprehensive (to date) experimental evalua…
Strategic use of English quantifiers in the reporting of quantitative information
This study investigates how quantifiers are used strategically to serve differ-ent argumentative goals. We report two experiments on how English speak-ers describe the results of school exams when being instructed to frame theirdescriptions either as a good or bad outcome. Experiment 1 shows thatparticipants have clear preferences for specific quantifier combinations inthis task. Experiment 2 shows that, in situations where producing descrip-tion…
This Better Be Interesting: A Speaker’s Decision to Speak Cues Listeners to Expect Informative Content
In anticipating upcoming content, comprehenders are known to rely on real-world knowledge. This knowledge can be deployed directly in favor of upcoming content about typical situations (implying a transparent mapping between the world and what speakers say about the world). Such knowledge can also be used to estimate the likelihood of speech, whereby atypical situations are the ones newsworthy enough to merit reporting (i.e., a nontransparent map…
Meaning and Use in the Expression of Estimative Probability
Words of estimative probability (WEPs), such as ‘possible’ and ‘a good chance’, provide an efficient means for expressing probability under uncertainty. Current semantic theories assume that WEPs denote crisp thresholds on the probability scale, but experimental data indicate that their use is characterised by gradience and focality. Here, we implement and compare computational models of the use of WEPs to explain novel production data. We find t…
Probabilistic modeling of rational communication with conditionals
While a large body of work has scrutinized the meaning of conditional sentences, considerably less attention has been paid to formal models of their pragmatic use and interpretation. Here, we take a probabilistic approach to pragmatic reasoning about indicative conditionals which flexibly integrates gradient beliefs about richly structured world states. We model listeners’ update of their prior beliefs about the causal structure of the world and …
Rational Interpretation of Numerical Quantity in Argumentative Contexts
Numerical descriptions furnish us with an apparently precise and objective way of summarising complex datasets. In practice, the issue is less clear-cut, partly because the use of numerical expressions in natural language invites inferences that go beyond their mathematical meaning, and consequently quantitative descriptions can be true but misleading. This raises important practical questions for the hearer: how should they interpret a quantitat…
Presuppositions of determiners are immediately used to disambiguate utterance meaning: A mouse-tracking study on the German language
The present study investigated how listeners understand and process the definite and the indefinite determiner. While the definite determiner clearly conveys a uniqueness presupposition, the status of the anti-uniqueness inference associated with the indefinite determiner is less clear. In a forced choice production task, we observed that participants make use of the information about number usually associated with the two determiners to convey a…
Theory-driven statistical modeling for semantics and pragmatics: A case study on grammatically generated implicature readings
Computational probabilistic modeling is increasingly popular in linguistics, but its relationship with linguistic theory is ambivalent. We argue here for the potential benefit of theory-driven statistical modeling, based on a case study situated at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Using data from a novel experiment, we employ Bayesian model comparison to evaluate the predictive adequacy of four models that differ in the extent to and manner in…
Vagueness and Imprecise Imitation in Signalling Games
Signalling games are popular models for studying the evolution of meaning, but typical approaches do not incorporate vagueness as a feature of successful signalling. Complementing recent like-minded models, we describe an aggregate population-level dynamic that describes a process of imitation of successful behaviour under imprecise perception and realization of similar stimuli. Applying this new dynamic to a generalization of Lewis’s signalling …
Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many
Certain uses of vague quantifiers few and many intuitively compare a true quantity to a priori expectations about that quantity. A concrete proposal for the truth conditions of such readings stipulates a contextually-stable threshold on a contextually-variable representation of a priori expectations (Clark, H. H. 1991. Words, the world, and their possibilities. In Lockhead G. R. & Pomerantz J. R. (eds.), The perception of structure: Essays in hon…
Smart Representations: Rationality and Evolution in a Richer Environment
Standard applications of evolutionary game theory look at a single game and focus on the evolution of behavior for that game alone. Instead, this article uses tools from evolutionary game theory to study the competition between choice mechanisms in a rich and variable multigame environment. A choice mechanism is a way of subjectively representing a decision situation, paired with a method for choosing an act based on this subjective representatio…
Embedded Scalars, Preferred Readings and Prosody: An Experimental Revisit
The scalar item some is widely assumed to receive a meaning enrichment to some but not all if it occurs in matrix position. The question under which circumstances this enrichment can occur in certain embedded positions plays an important role in deciding how to delineate semantics and pragmatics. We present new experimental data that bear on this theoretical issue. In distinction to previous experimental approaches, we presented sentence material…
Reply to commentaries
Probabilistic pragmatics, or why Bayes’ rule is probably important for pragmatics
Probabilistic pragmatics aspires to explain certain regularities of language use and interpretation as behavior of speakers and listeners who want to satisfy their conversational interests in a context that may contain a substantial amount of uncertainty. This approach differs substantially from more familiar approaches in theoretical pragmatics. To set it apart, we here work out some of its key distinguishing features and show, by way of some si…
Game Theory and the Evolution of Meaning
Evolutionary game theory is a general, but mathematically precise framework for modeling the competition between and fitness‐based selection of different types of behavior. We review recent applications of this framework to account for the evolution of behavior that lends meaning to ostensible acts and signs
BRIAN SKYRMS Signals: Evolution, Learning, and Information
Game Theoretic Pragmatics
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: (i) the conversational context is modelled as a game between speaker and hearer; (ii) 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 mo…
Quantity implicatures, exhaustive interpretation, and rational conversation
Quantity implicatures are inferences triggered by an utterance based on what other utterances a speaker could have made instead. Using ideas and formalisms from game theory, I demonstrate that these inferences can be explained in a strictly Gricean sense as *rational behavior*. To this end, I offer a procedure for constructing the context of utterance insofar as it is relevant for quantity reasoning as a game between speaker and hearer. I then gi…
Epistemic Interpretation of Bidirectional Optimality Based on Signaling Games
To some, the relation between bidirectional optimality theory and game theory seems obvious: strong bidirectional optimality corresponds to Nash equilibrium in a strategic game (Dekker and van Rooij 2000). But in the domain of pragmatics this formally sound parallel is conceptually inadequate: the sequence of utterance and its interpretation cannot be modelled reasonably as a strategic game, because this would mean that speakers choose formulatio…
Vagueness and Imprecise Imitation in Signalling Games
Signalling games are popular models for studying the evolution of meaning, but typical approaches do not incorporate vagueness as a feature of successful signalling. Complementing recent like-minded models, we describe an aggregate population-level dynamic that describes a process of imitation of successful behaviour under imprecise perception and realization of similar stimuli. Applying this new dynamic to a generalization of Lewis’s signalling …
Smart Representations: Rationality and Evolution in a Richer Environment
Standard applications of evolutionary game theory look at a single game and focus on the evolution of behavior for that game alone. Instead, this article uses tools from evolutionary game theory to study the competition between choice mechanisms in a rich and variable multigame environment. A choice mechanism is a way of subjectively representing a decision situation, paired with a method for choosing an act based on this subjective representatio…
Game Theoretic Pragmatics
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: (i) the conversational context is modelled as a game between speaker and hearer; (ii) 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 mo…
Theory-driven statistical modeling for semantics and pragmatics: A case study on grammatically generated implicature readings
Computational probabilistic modeling is increasingly popular in linguistics, but its relationship with linguistic theory is ambivalent. We argue here for the potential benefit of theory-driven statistical modeling, based on a case study situated at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Using data from a novel experiment, we employ Bayesian model comparison to evaluate the predictive adequacy of four models that differ in the extent to and manner in…
Epistemic Interpretation of Bidirectional Optimality Based on Signaling Games
To some, the relation between bidirectional optimality theory and game theory seems obvious: strong bidirectional optimality corresponds to Nash equilibrium in a strategic game (Dekker and van Rooij 2000). But in the domain of pragmatics this formally sound parallel is conceptually inadequate: the sequence of utterance and its interpretation cannot be modelled reasonably as a strategic game, because this would mean that speakers choose formulatio…
Quantity implicatures, exhaustive interpretation, and rational conversation
Quantity implicatures are inferences triggered by an utterance based on what other utterances a speaker could have made instead. Using ideas and formalisms from game theory, I demonstrate that these inferences can be explained in a strictly Gricean sense as *rational behavior*. To this end, I offer a procedure for constructing the context of utterance insofar as it is relevant for quantity reasoning as a game between speaker and hearer. I then gi…
BRIAN SKYRMS Signals: Evolution, Learning, and Information
Game Theoretic Pragmatics
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: (i) the conversational context is modelled as a game between speaker and hearer; (ii) 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 mo…
Game Theory and the Evolution of Meaning
Evolutionary game theory is a general, but mathematically precise framework for modeling the competition between and fitness‐based selection of different types of behavior. We review recent applications of this framework to account for the evolution of behavior that lends meaning to ostensible acts and signs
Embedded Scalars, Preferred Readings and Prosody: An Experimental Revisit
The scalar item some is widely assumed to receive a meaning enrichment to some but not all if it occurs in matrix position. The question under which circumstances this enrichment can occur in certain embedded positions plays an important role in deciding how to delineate semantics and pragmatics. We present new experimental data that bear on this theoretical issue. In distinction to previous experimental approaches, we presented sentence material…
Reply to commentaries
Probabilistic pragmatics, or why Bayes’ rule is probably important for pragmatics
Probabilistic pragmatics aspires to explain certain regularities of language use and interpretation as behavior of speakers and listeners who want to satisfy their conversational interests in a context that may contain a substantial amount of uncertainty. This approach differs substantially from more familiar approaches in theoretical pragmatics. To set it apart, we here work out some of its key distinguishing features and show, by way of some si…
Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many
Certain uses of vague quantifiers few and many intuitively compare a true quantity to a priori expectations about that quantity. A concrete proposal for the truth conditions of such readings stipulates a contextually-stable threshold on a contextually-variable representation of a priori expectations (Clark, H. H. 1991. Words, the world, and their possibilities. In Lockhead G. R. & Pomerantz J. R. (eds.), The perception of structure: Essays in hon…
Smart Representations: Rationality and Evolution in a Richer Environment
Standard applications of evolutionary game theory look at a single game and focus on the evolution of behavior for that game alone. Instead, this article uses tools from evolutionary game theory to study the competition between choice mechanisms in a rich and variable multigame environment. A choice mechanism is a way of subjectively representing a decision situation, paired with a method for choosing an act based on this subjective representatio…
Vagueness and Imprecise Imitation in Signalling Games
Signalling games are popular models for studying the evolution of meaning, but typical approaches do not incorporate vagueness as a feature of successful signalling. Complementing recent like-minded models, we describe an aggregate population-level dynamic that describes a process of imitation of successful behaviour under imprecise perception and realization of similar stimuli. Applying this new dynamic to a generalization of Lewis’s signalling …
Presuppositions of determiners are immediately used to disambiguate utterance meaning: A mouse-tracking study on the German language
The present study investigated how listeners understand and process the definite and the indefinite determiner. While the definite determiner clearly conveys a uniqueness presupposition, the status of the anti-uniqueness inference associated with the indefinite determiner is less clear. In a forced choice production task, we observed that participants make use of the information about number usually associated with the two determiners to convey a…
Theory-driven statistical modeling for semantics and pragmatics: A case study on grammatically generated implicature readings
Computational probabilistic modeling is increasingly popular in linguistics, but its relationship with linguistic theory is ambivalent. We argue here for the potential benefit of theory-driven statistical modeling, based on a case study situated at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Using data from a novel experiment, we employ Bayesian model comparison to evaluate the predictive adequacy of four models that differ in the extent to and manner in…
Rational Interpretation of Numerical Quantity in Argumentative Contexts
Numerical descriptions furnish us with an apparently precise and objective way of summarising complex datasets. In practice, the issue is less clear-cut, partly because the use of numerical expressions in natural language invites inferences that go beyond their mathematical meaning, and consequently quantitative descriptions can be true but misleading. This raises important practical questions for the hearer: how should they interpret a quantitat…
This Better Be Interesting: A Speaker’s Decision to Speak Cues Listeners to Expect Informative Content
In anticipating upcoming content, comprehenders are known to rely on real-world knowledge. This knowledge can be deployed directly in favor of upcoming content about typical situations (implying a transparent mapping between the world and what speakers say about the world). Such knowledge can also be used to estimate the likelihood of speech, whereby atypical situations are the ones newsworthy enough to merit reporting (i.e., a nontransparent map…
Meaning and Use in the Expression of Estimative Probability
Words of estimative probability (WEPs), such as ‘possible’ and ‘a good chance’, provide an efficient means for expressing probability under uncertainty. Current semantic theories assume that WEPs denote crisp thresholds on the probability scale, but experimental data indicate that their use is characterised by gradience and focality. Here, we implement and compare computational models of the use of WEPs to explain novel production data. We find t…
Probabilistic modeling of rational communication with conditionals
While a large body of work has scrutinized the meaning of conditional sentences, considerably less attention has been paid to formal models of their pragmatic use and interpretation. Here, we take a probabilistic approach to pragmatic reasoning about indicative conditionals which flexibly integrates gradient beliefs about richly structured world states. We model listeners’ update of their prior beliefs about the causal structure of the world and …
Strategic use of English quantifiers in the reporting of quantitative information
This study investigates how quantifiers are used strategically to serve differ-ent argumentative goals. We report two experiments on how English speak-ers describe the results of school exams when being instructed to frame theirdescriptions either as a good or bad outcome. Experiment 1 shows thatparticipants have clear preferences for specific quantifier combinations inthis task. Experiment 2 shows that, in situations where producing descrip-tion…
Quantifying Epistemic Relevance
In ordinary information-seeking dialogue, the relevance of an assertion seems to depend on how much progress it makes toward resolving the question under discussion (QUD). This kind of relevance—epistemic relevance—has been quantified in more than one way in prior work. However, there has been little investigation into which measures of epistemic relevance best model human judgments. We present the most comprehensive (to date) experimental evalua…
Computer Science (17 works) · Artificial Intelligence (13 works) · Linguistics (12 works) · Mathematics (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Natural language processing (7 works) · Mathematical economics (6 works) · Utterance (5 works)