Prashant Parikh Communication, Meaning, and Interpretation

In this paper, I give definitions of Gricean communication, speaker meaning, and addressee interpretation. In order to do this, I first develop a game-theoretic model of communication which provides a set of sufficient conditions for communication. I then abstract from these to derive necessary and sufficient conditions. And finally, I base my account of speaker meaning and addressee interpretation, two symmetric notions, on my account of communication. Language is a special kind of tool. It is in fact a complex social institution. All social institutions are of course tools that enable us to organize different aspects of social life. It seems plausible that the primary function of language is communication. Indeed, it is possible to see language, in particular, meanings, as arising from the interactions of a group of agents. This is how all social institutions emerge. Language is no different, except that it arises from the communicative interactions of agents. Lewis (1969) and Schiffer (1972), for example, have argued for such a view. This makes communication a key concept in any account of language. Grice’s (1957, 1969) ideas on nonnatural meaning provide the best starting point for constructing a model and definition of communication. I will first describe the basic ideas that undergird communication. These are the ideas of meaning and content and certain aspects of game theory and strategic inference. I then introduce our two main characters A and B and try to fix the parameters of the problem of communication in somewhat precise terms. Greater precision will come as we move along, but this will serve as a starting point. Having done this, I present a range of types of examples that my theory will be able to account for. This list is far from exhaustive, but it provides an initial indication of the scope of the model. I then take up one of these and analyze it. This analysis yields a set of sufficient conditions for communication. As I do this, I urge the reader to keep the other examples in