Could we enrich speech-act theory to deal with discourse ? Wittgenstein and Searle pointed out difficulties. Most conversations lack a conversational purpose , their background is indefinitely open , they can contain irrelevant and infelicitous utterances , they require collective intentionality , etc.

Today’s artificial assistants are typically prompted to perform tasks through direct, imperative commands such as Set a timer or Pick up the box. However, to progress toward more natural exchanges between humans and these assistants, it is important to understand the way non-imperative utterances can indirectly elicit action of an addressee. In this paper, we investigate command types in the se...

This paper reviews discourse phenomena that occur frequently in task.oriented man.machine dialogs, reporting on a~n empirical study that demonstrates the necessity of handling ellipsis, anaphora, extragrammaticality, inter-sentential metalanguage, and other abbreviatory devices in order to achieve convivial user interaction. Invariably, users prefer to generate terse or fragmentary utterances i...

There is much research on the syntax-semantics and syntax-phonology interaction. However, exact relation between prosodic patterns informational structure (as part of pragmatics) still to be investigated. In this empirical study, we challenge view that prosody pragmatics are two autonomous levels grammar. This paper an analysis narrative poem ‘Mending Wall’ recited by Robert Frost explore featu...

This paper sets out to ascertain on the basis of actual language behaviour whether 'universal pragmatics', especially Grice's maxims and Habermas's validity claims, can provide a sustainable conceptual framework for understanding the relationship between pragmatics and power. On the basis of a data base of magistrate/defendant and police/suspect discourse, it examines the nature of strategic di...

Although the language we encounter is typically embedded in rich discourse contexts, many existing models of processing focus largely on phenomena that occur sentence-internally. Similarly, most work on children's language learning does not consider how information can accumulate as a discourse progresses. Research in pragmatics, however, points to ways in which each subsequent utterance provid...