Abstract
This paper provides a formal pragmatic analysis of (im)precision which accounts for its essential properties, but also for Lewis’s (J Philos Logic 8(1):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(s). 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.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aloni, M. (2001). Quantification under conceptual covers. Ph. D. thesis, Universeiteit van Amsterdam.
Aloni, M. (2007). Expressing ignorance or indifference: Modal implicatures in bi-directional optimality theory. In B. ten Cate, H. Zeevat (Eds.), Logic, language and computation: Papers from the 6th international Tbilisi symposium, Berlin (pp. 1–20). Berlin: Springer.
Anderson, C. (2013). Inherent and coerced gradability across categories: Manipulating pragmatic halos with sorta. In Semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) (Vol. 29, pp. 81–96).
Barker, C. (2002). The dynamics of vagueness. Linguistics and Philosophy, 25(1), 1–36.
Benz, A., & van Rooij, R. (2007). Optimal assertions and what they implicate. Topoi, 26, 63–78.
Blutner, R. (1998). Lexical pragmatics. Journal of Semantics, 15, 115–162.
Blutner, R. (2000). Some aspects of optimality in natural language interpretation. Journal of Semantics, 17, 189–216.
Burnett, H. (2012). The grammar of tolerance: On vagueness, context-sensitivity, and the origin of scale structure. Ph. D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles.
de Jager, T. (2009). ‘Now that you mention it, I wonder...’: Awareness, Attention, Assumption. Ph. D. thesis, University of Amsterdam.
Dekker, P., & van Rooij, R. (2000). Bi-directional optimality theory: An application of game theory. Journal of Semantics, 17, 217–242.
Farkas, D., & Bruce, K. (2010). On reacting to assertions and polar questions. Journal of Semantics, 27(1), 81–118.
Frank, M. C., & Goodman, N. (2012). Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games. Science, 336(6084), 998.
Franke, M. (2009). Signal to act: Game theory in pragmatics. Ph. D. thesis, Universeiteit van Amsterdam.
Franke, M. (2014). Pragmatic reasoning about unawareness. Erkenntnis, 79(4), 729–767.
Grice, H. P. (1957). Meaning. The philosophical review 66(3), 377–388.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and smeantics 3: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press.
Gunlogson, C. (2008). A question of commitment. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 22(1), 101–136.
Heim, I. (1982). The semantics of definite and indefinite NPs. Ph. D. thesis, MIT.
Jäger, G. (2012). Game theory in semantics and pragmatics. In C. Maienborn, P. Portner, & K. von Heusinger (Eds.), International handbook of natural language meaning, Vol. 3, pp. 2487–2516. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Kamp, H., & Reyle, U. (1993). From discourse to logic: Introduction to modeltheoretic semantics of natural language, formal logic and discourse representation theory. Studies in linguistics and philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Kao, J. T., Wu, J. Y., Bergen, L., & Goodman, N. D. (2014). Nonliteral understanding of number words. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(33), 12002–12007.
Kennedy, C. (2007). Vagueness and grammar: The semantics of relative and absolute gradable adjectives. Linguistics and Philosophy, 30(1), 1–45.
Kennedy, C., & McNally, L. (2005). Scale structure and semantic typology of gradable predicates. Language, 81(2), 345–381.
Klecha, P. (2014). Bridging the divide: Scalarity and modality. Ph. D. thesis, University of Chicago.
Klecha, P. (2015). Two kinds of sobel sequences: Imprecision in conditionals. In Proceedings of WCCFL (Vol. 32, pp. 131–140).
Kratzer, A. (1977). What ‘must’ and ‘can’ must and can mean. Linguistics and Philosophy, 1(3), 337–355.
Krifka, M. (1999). At least some determiners aren’t determiners. In K. Turner (Ed.), The semantics/pragmatics interface from different points of view, Volume 1 of Current research in the semantics/pragmatics interface (pp. 257–291). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V.
Krifka, M. (2002). Be brief and vague! and how bidirectional optimality theory allows for verbosity and precision. In D. Restle & D. Zaeferer (Eds.), Sounds and systems: Studies in structure and change: A festschrift for Theo Vennemann (pp. 439–458). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Krifka, M. (2007). Approximation of number words: A case for strategic communication (unpublished manuscript).
Lasersohn, P. (1999). Pragmatic halos. Language, 75(3), 522–551.
Lasersohn, P. (2005). Context dependence, disagreement, and predicates of personal taste. Linguistics and Philosophy, 28, 643–686.
Lauer, S. (2012). On the pragmatics of pragmatic slack. In A. A. Guevara, A. Chernilovskaya, & R. Nouwen (Eds.), Sinn und Bedeutung 16, Vol. 2, pp. 389–401. MITWPL.
Lauer, S. (2013). Towards a dynamic pragmatics. Ph. D. thesis, Stanford University.
Lewis, D. (1969). Convention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lewis, D. (1979). Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8(1), 339–359.
MacFarlane, J. (2008). Truth in the garden of forking paths. In M. Kölbel and M. García-Carpintero (Eds.), Relative truth, pp. 81–102. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morzycki, M. (2011). Metalinguistic comparison in an alternative semantics for imprecision. Natural Language Semantics, 19(1), 39–86.
Parikh, P. (2001). The use of language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Pinkal, M. (1995). Logic and Lexicon. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Prince, A., & Smolensky, P. (1993/2002). Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Rutgers Optimality Archive.
Rawlins, K. (2010). Conversational backoff. In Proceedings of SALT 20, pp. 347–365.
Roberts, C. (2012). Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics and Pragmatics, 5(6), 1–69.
Sauerland, U., & Stateva, P. (2011). Two types of vagueness. In P. Égré, & N. Klinedinst (Eds.), Vaguness and language use, Chapter 6, pp. 121–145. London: Palgrave.
Solt, S., Cummins, C., & Palmović, M. (2017). The preference for approximation. International Review of Pragmatics, 9(2), 248–268.
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986a). Loose talk. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 87, 153–171.
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986b). Relevance: Communication and cognition. New York: Blackwell.
Stalnaker, R. (1984). Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Swanson, E. (2006). Interactions with context. Ph. D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Syrett, K., Kennedy, C., & Lidz, J. (2010). Meaning and context in children’s understanding of gradable adjectives. Journal of Semantics, 27(1), 1–35.
Unger, P. (1975). Ignorance. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
van Rooij, R. (2004). Signalling games select Horn strategies. Linguistics and Philosophy, 27, 493–527.
Zipf, G. K. (1949). Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Cambridge: Addison-Wesley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Klecha, P. On unidirectionality in precisification. Linguist and Philos 41, 87–124 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-017-9216-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-017-9216-9