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ISSN 0167-5133 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3 1991 Journal of SEMANTICS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS JOURNAL OF SEMANTICS AN INTERNA...

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ISSN 0167-5133

VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3 1991

Journal of

SEMANTICS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

JOURNAL OF SEMANTICS AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF THE SEMANTICS OF NATURAL LANGUAGE MANAGING EDITOR: PETER BOSCH (IBM Germany) REVIEW EDITOR: BART GEURTS (IBM Germany) EDITORIALBOARD: PETERBOSCH(LBM Germany) SIMON C. GARROD (Univ. of Glasgow) BART GEURTS (IBM Germany) PAUL HOPPED (Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh) LAURENCE R. HORN (Yale University) STEPHEN ISARD (Univ. of Edinburgh) HANS KAMP (Univ. of Stuttgart) LEO G. M. NOORDMANN (Univ. of Tilburg) ROB A. VAN DER SANDT (Univ. of Nijmegen) PIETER A. M. SEUREN (Univ. of Nijmegen)

C O N S U L T I N G EDITORS: R. BABTSCH (Univ. of Amsterdam) D. S. BREE (Univ. of Manchester) G. BROWN (Univ. of Cambridge) 0 . DAHL (Univ. of Stockholm) G. FAUCONNIER (Univ. of California, San Diego) P. N.JOHNSON-LAIRD (MRC, Cambridge) SIF JOHN LYONS (Univ. of Cambridge)

J. D. MCCAWIEY (Univ. of Chicago) B. RICHARDS (Imperial College, London) H. SCHNELLE (Ruhr Univ., Bochum) M. STEEDMAN (Univ. of Pennsylvania) Z. VENDLER (Univ. of California, San Diego) Y. WILKS (New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces) J. VAN BENTHEM (Univ. of Amsterdam)

H. E. BREKLE (Univ. of Regensburg) H. H. CLARK (Stanford University) H.-J. EIKMEYER (Univ. of Bielefeld) J. HOBBS (SRI, Menlo Park) D. ISRAEL (SRI, Menlo Park) E. L. KEENAN (Univ. of California, Los Angeles) E. LANG (Univ. or Wuppertal) W. MARSLEN-WILSON (MRC, Cambridge)

H. REICHGELT (Univ. of Nottingham) A.J. SANFORD (Univ. of Glasgow) A. VON STECHOW (Univ. of Konstanz) D. VANDERVEKEN (Univ. of Quebec) B. L. WEBBER (Univ. of Pennyslvania) D. WILSON (Univ. College, London).

EDITORIAL ADDRESS: Journal of Semantics, IBM Germany Scientific Center, IWBS 7000-75, Postfach 800880, D-7000 Stuttgart 80, W. Germany. Phone: (49-711-) 6695-559. Telefax: (49-71 1) 6695-500. BITNET: boschOdsolilog. New Subscribers to the Journal of Semantics should apply to the Journals Subscription Department, Oxford University Press, Pinkhill House, Southfield Road, Eynsham, OX8 iJJ. For further information see the inside back cover. Volumes 1-6 are available from Foris Publications Holland, PO Box 509,3300 Am Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Published by Oxford University Press

Copyright by NIS Foundation

ISSN 0167-5133

JOURNAL OF SEMANTICS Volume 8 Number 3 CONTENTS ANTON BATLINER

Deciding upon the relevancy of intonadonal features for the marking of focus: a statistical approach

171

ROBERT BANNERT

Automatic recognition of focus accents in German

191

SUSANNE U H M A N N

On the tonal disambiguation of focus structures

219

DIETER WUNDERLICH

Intonation and contrast

239

JAKOB HOEPELMAN, JOACHIM MACHATE AND RUDOLF SCHNITZER

Intonational focusing and dialogue games

253

Book Reviews

277

Journal ofSemantics 8: 171-189

© N.I.S. Foundation (1901)

Deciding upon the Relevancy of International Features for the Marking of Focus: a Statistical Approach ANTON BATLINER University of Munich

Abstract

MATERIAL AND PROCEDURES This paper is concerned with the prediction of focus; focus is the part of an utterance which is semantically most important. On the phonetic surface focus is marked by the focal accent (Fa). To be more exact, we will try to predict the phrase that carries the Fa. Our material consists of 360 utterances, spoken by six untrained speakers (three male, three female). Three different sentences with a similar syntactic structure were each put in different contexts that determined sentence modality as well as place and manner of focus (simple focus, focus projection, or multiple focus); for a detailed description of the corpus and the intended focal structures, cf. Batliner & Oppenrieder (1989) and Oppenrieder (1989). In each of the sentences the last two phrases could be stressed, depending on the surrounding context. Based on the sentence modality system according to Altmann (1987), the sentences formed minimal pairs that could only be differentiated by their intonational form: focus infinal vs.focus in prefinal position on the one hand, and questions us. non-questions on the other hand. Table 1 shows an

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We present results on how focus is marked internationally in German. Six untrained speakers produced a corpus of 360 sentences. The corpus was constructed in such a way that sentence modality and place of focus could only be differentiated by intonational means. Acoustic features representing the parameters pitch, duration, and intensity were extracted manually or automatically. The relevancy of these features and the effect of several transformations were tested with statistical methods (discriminant analysis). Perceptual experiments where the listeners had to decide upon the place of the focal accent and to judge the naturalness and categories of the utterances were performed as well. By calculating average values for the (appropriately transformed) relevant features we found 'normal', prototypical cases; by looking at utterances where all listeners agreed on the naturalness and (intended) categories we arrived at coinciding results. At the same time we found 'unusual' but regular productions. Finally, the speaker-specific use of the different parameters is discussed and the question is addressed as to whether the parameters can be classified as relevant or irrelevant for the intonational marking of focus.

172 Deciding upon the Relevancy of International Features

Table 1 Examples of context and test sentence, induced sentence modality and place of focus Constellation of sentence modality and focus: Assertion, focus on 'linen' Context: Mother 'What does the master make Nina weave at the moment?' Sentence: Employee: 'She makes Nina weave the linen.'

Table 2 Test sentences, translation, and induced sentence modalities Sie lafet die Nina das Leinen weben?/.

She makes the Nina the linen weave She makes Nina weave the linen

assertive question vs. assertion Lassen Sie den Manni die Bohnen schneiden?/!

Make the Manni the beans cut Make Manni cut the beans

polar question vs. imperative Lassen wir den Leo die Blumen diingen?/!

Let us make the Leo the flowers fertilize Let us make Leo fertilize the flowers

polar question vs. adhortative


example of a context sentence, the pertinent test sentence, and the induced sentence modality and place of focus. Table 2 shows the three test sentences, an (awkward) word-by-word translation into English, an appropriate translation, and a finer description of the induced sentence modalities question/nonquestion (Q/NQ), NQ being either assertion, imperative, or adhortative. The only instruction given to the speakers was to produce the context and the test sentence. We did not instruct the speakers to produce the Fa or Qs/ NQs in a certain way: by instructing the speakers, one can eliminate certain variabilities and facilitate the analysis. On the other hand one loses the chance to find regular and interesting deviations and merely receives several realizations of representative cases where representativeness is based on the intuition of the researcher. By evaluating a relatively large number of cases we expected to find both representative cases (which we will call central types) and rarer but acceptable cases (which we will call marginal types). The data were evaluated in two ways that proved to be converging:

Anton Batliner 173

(i) We extracted acoustic feature values that represent the prosodic parameters pitch, duration, and intensity. Using a statistical classifier we tested the relevancy of the features with respect to the place of the Fa. By calculating average values for the relevant features we found the central type of each Q/NQ-Fa constellation. (ii) We presented the utterances to a forum of listeners who judged the naturalness, category, and place of Fa. Category roughly means sentence modality; as for the differences, c£ Oppenrieder (1988). By selecting the utterances that were judged to be the 'best' ones and by comparing the feature values of those utterances with the average values from (i) we found the central type as well as marginal types.

For each utterance we calculated the following features: (i) For the whole utterance: the fundamental frequency (Fo) at the end of the utterance (off); the all-point regression line of the Fo values (reg); the duration in centiseconds. (ii) For the 2nd and 3rd phrase: the maximal and minimal Fo value; the difference of the position on the time axis of the maximal and minimal Fo value in centiseconds; the duration in centiseconds; the average and maximal logarithmic energy. The parameter values were extracted 'by hand' on mingograms and automatically from the digitized versions of the utterances (cf. Noth 1989 for details on the Fo algorithm and the computation of the energy values). In Batliner et al. (1989) we showed that automatically extracted Fo values produced recognition rates comparable to those from mingogram values. An automatic extraction of the durational values, however, would pose a problem (cf. Batliner & Noth 1989: 212 f).

PERCEPTION EXPERIMENTS An average of twelve listeners participated in three different perception experiments: (i) Context and test sentence were presented by earphone and at the same rime in a written version. On a raring scale from 1 (test sentence matches very well with context) to 5 (test sentence does not match at all), the


E X T R A C T I O N OF FEATURES

174 Deciding upon the Relevancy of International Features

listeners had to judge the naturalness of the production. We will name the average rating of the listeners NAT. (ii) The test sentence was presented in isolation. The listeners had to classify the sentence as question, assertion, imperative, exclamation, or optative. We will name the percentage of classifications as question MOD. (iii) The test sentence was again presented in isolation. The listeners had to decide which of the phrases carried the Fa. \ifai is the number of listeners who perceived the ith phrase as most stressed then FOK - {fa 2 -fa 3)/{fa i

+fa2+fa3)

STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF THE EXTRACTED FEATURES

'Best' transformations Each of the intonational features was used as a predictor variable in the discriminant analysis to predict sentence modality (Q/NQ) and (position of the) Fa. Because of the combinatorial explosion the optimal feature combination had to be determined heuristically: the predictors entered the analysis separately and (if the feature was calculated for the 2nd and 3rd phrase) together with the corresponding variable for the other phrase. Several transformations for each variable were tested. In order to reduce the necessary amount of computation all cases were used both for learning and testing with learn = test (/ — t). Throughout this paper, the analyses are based on this constellation, if not explicitly another constellation (/ 5/j or li 15 , cf. below) is referred to. The relevant variables under the best transformation were put into multivariate discriminant analyses. We can only present the most important results; for a more detailed discussion see Batliner (1989a). The statistical method is fully described in Klecka (1980) and Norusis (1986). Further applications of this method with respect to the prediction of sentence modality can be found e.g. in Batliner (1988) and Batliner etal. (1989).

Fo The transformation of the Hz values into semitones did not improve the classification results. A possible explanation could be that semitone transformation 'over' normalizes the different voice ranges of male and female


takes on values between i (all listeners perceived the 2nd phrase as stressed) and — i (all listeners perceived the 3rd phrase as stressed).

Anton Batliner 175

speakers (cf. Batliner et al. 1989). A normalization of the voice register by subtracting a reference value for either the speaker or the utterance resulted in significant improvements in the prediction. In the final analyses we used semitone values and subtracted the basic value of the speaker, i.e. the lowest Fo value produced by the speaker. The transformed maximal and minimal values for the 2nd and 3rd phrase are called max2, max3, min2, and min}. The relative position of the maximal and minimal values on the time axis for the 2nd and 3rd phrase are called pos2 and pos3. These values are positive, if the minimal value comes later than the maximal value; they are negative, if it is the other way round.

Best prediction was achieved after a normalization of the speaking rate that took into consideration average duration of that phrase for each speaker {avduri) and the average duration of the syllables in the utterance (dur I'numberof syllables): dur

duri

avduri

dur/number of syllables

The transformed duration values for the 2nd and 3rd phrase are called dur2 and dur}. We tested several other formulas. The results did not differ much—as long as the actual duration value was put into relation to some reasonable reference value.

Intensity The best results were achieved with the maximal energy in the 0-5000 Hz band. Average values, 'sonorant' energy sub-bands, and normalizations with respect to the average energy level of the utterance, or with respect to the different intrinsic energy values of the vowels, produced worse results. The intensity values for the 2nd and 3rd phrase are called int2 and int}.

Discarded transformations Declination The phenomenon of declination—the lowering of the Fo curve along the rime axis—is well known. Often accents are described as excursions from this


Duration

176 Deciding upon the Relevancy of International Featutes

Comparison ratios The Fo values of the 2nd and 3rd phrase can be put into the analysis separately, or they can be combined into comparison ratios; cf. Taylor & Wales (1987): for the two phrases that could be accented in their Australian English material, they computed three different comparison ratios: Division ratio — a/u. Subtraction ratio — a — u. Michaelson Contrast ratio — (a — u)/(a + u). . (a — accented, u — unaccented). In a multivariate regression analysis, they obtained much better results with the contrast ratio than with the two other ratios; the average values of R2 ('explained variance') are: contrast ratio subtraction ratio: division ratio:

0.8 5 o. 15 0.29

Unfortunately, Taylor & Wales have not done any analyses with the raw data that could be compared with our data. We computed comparison ratios for our variables as well and put them into regression and discriminant analyses; our results can be summarized as follows:


(hypothetical base-) line. In that case, a Fo peak later in the utterance must not have the same excursion height as an earlier peak to indicate an accent and/or the Fa. It could be possible for our material as well to base the analysis not on (properly transformed) absolute parameter values but on values that are put into relation to a falling declination line. We computed therefore both an abstract ('neutral') speaker-specific declination line based on NQs with an 'unmarked' declination and a concrete declination line for each utterance as an all point regression line. The prediction of the Fa based on these values was inconsistent and generally not as good as a prediction based on the values described in the previous section. The reason might be that our computation of the declination line is not the best one. Anyway, there seems to be virtually no agreement on adequate computation (cf. Lieberman 1986; Lieberman et al. 1985; t'Hart 1986; Ladd 1984; and Batliner 1989b: 72). In our opinion, a declination line is therefore still rather an object of investigation than an appropriate reference parameter. (In any case, the discriminant analysis takes into consideration the effect of declination because it is based on the distribution of the parameter values and not only on the absolute values.)

Anton Batliner 177

(i) The contrast ratio was not better than the two other ratios, (ii) The comparison ratios were not better than the absolute values. We cannot explain the huge differences between the results of Taylor & Wales and our results in (i); as a consequence, we did not work with comparison ratios, but with the separate parameter values of the 2nd and the 3rd phrase. (Again, the extra information contained in the comparison ratios are taken into consideration by the discriminant analysis because it is based on the joint distribution of the predictor variables of the 2nd and the 3rd phrase.) Results

(i) Learning sample: 5 speakers; test sample: 1 speaker (simulation of speaker independence: l$ti). This is the most relevant constellation for a speakerindependent automatic speech understanding system. 100 90 80 70 60 50

Ihl.lll off

reg

max2

max}

min2

mint

Predictors (univariate, l=t)

pos2

pos}

Figure 1 Per cent correct classifications: quesrions/non-quesrions


In Figures 1 and 2, per cent correct classifications are displayed if only one variable is used as predictor variable in the (univariate) discriminant analysis. On the abscissa, the different variables are plotted; on the ordinate, the per cent correct classifications. For the Q/NQ -classification, durarion and intensity are not included, because they always produced results near chance level. For the Fa classification, not off and reg were used, but durarion and intensity. For Q/NQ (Figure 1), most of the variables are relevant, the most relevant ones being off, maxj, and then reg and m\ny (Of course, most of these variables are more or less correlated with each other; cf. Batliner 1989a: 37 ff). If one tries to predict the Fa and does not separate Qs and NQs [FaAll in Figure 2), the results are not very convincing; a separation of Qs and NQs yields better results. The most relevant variables are max} and dur} for NQs, and max2 and pos2 for Qs. Besides / — t (leam — test), multivariate analyses with two further learn and test constellations were conducted (Figure 3):

178 Deciding upon the Relevancy of International Features 100 FaAH FaQ

90

I

I FaNQ

"'in,

pus,

80

70

60

max 2

max j

mm 2

pos,

ctur,

durf

mt2

'"'.

Predictors (univariate, l = t)

Figure 2 Per cent correct classifications: Fa

100 90

80 70

50 Q/NQ

FaAil

FaO + FaNO

FaQ

FaNQ

Predictors (multivariate)

Figure 3 Per cent correct classifications

(ii) Learning sample: 1 speaker, test sample: 5 speakers (generalization from a single speaker to the other speakers: h 15). All the univariate discriminant analyses were done with I — 1. If we look at the corresponding multivariate analysis (all the variables are put at the same time into the analysis; I - / i n Figure 3), the classification is very good (always well above 00 per cent), best for Q /NQ; as for the Fa, the separation of Q s and NQ s


50

Anton Ba diner 179

60 50 40 30 20 10 %

0 -10 -20 -30 -40 -50

-60 max2

max t

min2

"tin,

pas,

pas t

dur,

dur,

Predictors (multivariate. l=t)

Figure 4 Correlation: predictors with discriminant function

im2

mf,


(FaQ and FaNQ and the weighted mean of these two groups FaQ + FaNQ in Figure 3) produces better results than an analysis with no separation of Q s and NQs (FaAll), especially for l$ti. Figure 4 shows the correlation of the predictors with the discriminant function in a multivariate analysis for I — t. The greater the correlation, the more relevant is the predictor. For the impact of the predictor on the assignment of the Fa, the signs are irrelevant. Ceterisparibus, a positive value indicates rather Fa on the 2nd phrase, and a negative value rather Fa on the 3rd phrase. (In our case, this procedure is more appropriate than the discriminant function of the predictors, as some of the variables are correlated with each other, cf. Klecka 1980: 33 f). The different relevancy of e.g. max2, max,, min}, pos2, and pos} for Qs and NQs shows up clearly. Generally, the results indicate that in Q s, other intonational parameters are used to mark the Fa or the same parameters are used in a different way than in NQs. The prediction is worse if Qs and NQ s are analysed together than if they are treated separately. Fa is classified better in NQs than in Qs. The explanation might be that in Q s the same parameters are used to indicate sentence modality as well as place of Fa; cf. especially the variable height of the Fo offset. There are therefore more degrees of freedom in Qs and consequently more possible confusions. The results under FaQ and FaNQ were achieved with a grouping into Qs and NQs 'by hand'. For / — t the grouping of the Q/NQ-classifier was used as an input to the FaQ- and FaNQ -classifier as well. The classification errors of the first step even improved the results (c(. the error analysis below).

i8o Deciding upon the Relevancy of International Features

CENTRAL AND MARGINAL TYPES We will now show the two converging strategies (cf. the first section) as to how to find the central types:

For the four central types, Figures 5-8 show the average feature values as well as the Fo contour of a typical production (four out of the nineteen cases): the dashed vertical line marks the border between the 2nd and the 3rd phrase of the actual production. For the 2nd and 3rd phrase, each of the filled squares shows averages for max2, min2, max} and min}. The position on the abscissa corresponds to the average position on the time axis in centiseconds starting from the beginning of the utterance; the position on the ordinate corresponds to the average Fo values in semitones above the speaker-specific basic value (sti,as). On the top of each figure average beginning point and duration of the 2nd and 3rd phrases is displayed. In the following characterization, the terms 'High',

20

A verage duration (146 cases)

18

I

16

1

2nd phase

3rd phase

14 12 j

10 8 6 4 2 80

100

120 Centiseconds

140

160

Figure 5 Focus on 2nd phrase, non-question, central type


(i) Each of the 4 Q/NQ — Fa constelllations has one central type that is characterized by the average values of the predictors. (ii) We inspected those cases where a strong agreement among the listeners could be observed: practically all the listeners agreed upon the intended Q / NQ grouping, the place of the Fa, and the naturalness of the production {MOD > 80 for Qs and MOD < 20 for NQs, \FOK\ - 1, NAT< 2). Twenty-four out of the 360 cases passed these strict criteria. Nineteen cases could be identified as representatives of the central types.

Anton Batliner 181

'Low', and 'boundary tone' (cf. the tone sequence model, e.g. in Pierrehumbert 1980) are used interchangeably with the terms 'rising'/'falling' contour. (1) Focus on 2nd phrase, non-question (Figure 5): the contour is falling in bodi phrases (High Low). Max2 is markedly higher than max/, min2 and min3 do not differ.

20

Average duration (121 cases) 1 | > 1

18

i

I

2nd phase

3rd phase

14 maXin

7

12 max2 °

I 10 8

1

6-

j

4 2

a m'm3

A

-

J mm2

I I I

0 80

1 100

1 120

1

I

1

140

1601

Centiseconds

Figure 6 Focus on 2nd phrase, question, central type

20

Ave rage duration (38 cases)

18

|

i

1

16 -

3rd phase

2nd phase

14 12

j 10

Is A

\

1

1

6

1 1 1

8

4-

min2

2 0

-

max °

max2 a

D

ll

1

80

100

\

1

120 Centiseconds

i

140

i

i

160

Figure 7 Focus on 3rd phrase, non-question, central type


16 -

182 Deciding upon the Relevancy oflntonarional Features

20

Average duration (46 cases)

1

18 16

2nd phase

I

1 3rd phase

14 12

J

10

max3

A max2

8 6 4

0 100

120 Centiseconds

140

160

Figure 8 Focus on 3rd phrase, question, central type

(2) Focus on jrd phrase, non-question (Figure 7): the contour is again falling in both phrases (High Low). Max} is about as high as max2; tnin2 and min, do not differ. Comparing the two types, we can say that the absolute values for the features of the 2nd phrase in Figures 5 and 7 do not differ remarkably. It is rather the relative values of the features in comparison with the respective values of the 3rd phrase that marks the Fa. (3) Focus on 2nd phrase, question (Figure 6): the contour is rising in both phrases (Low High). (4) Focus on 3rd phrase, question (Figure 8): in the 2nd phrase, this type has a falling contour comparable to the NQs, whereas in the 3rd phrase, the contour is rising (Low High) Comparing these two types, we can say that the Fo range of the phrase with the Fa is markedly greater than that of the other phrase. In the final phrase, a rising contour (high boundary tone) is used for both types to mark sentence modality. The remaining five cases can be grouped into three marginal types which are displayed in Figures 9-11. To demonstrate the deviations from the central types, the respective average values are projected into the contours of the marginal types: (1) One speaker typically marked Fa in prefinal position with a falling contour (High Low), even in Qs. If one looks at the average feature values for all speakers and for this specific speaker, one could say that this marginal type across speakers is a central type for this speaker (Figure 9).


2

Anton Batliner 183

A verage duration (121 cases)

120 Centiseconds

140

160

Figure 9 Focus on 2nd phrase, question, marginal type

Average duration (121 cases)

-

1

18

i

2nd phase

16

3rd phase

14

maxt a

12

max, a

J 10 : 8

, , (EDB>, , (EDA, Who-X-Y?), Because the aim of agreement is common to both types of games and answering questions furthers this aim we get for competitive games as well as for cooperative games the following frame rule: FR5: The right to answer a question becomes a dialogical obligation

2.5 Yes/no questions Besides wh-questions also yes/no questions fulfil a dialogical function which is connected with intonational focusing. Where in wh-questions the information that is asked for substituted by a question word like 'who' or 'what', which leads the dialogue partner to a certain desired answer, the way question/answer dialogues in which yes/no questions are involved function is somewhat different. Important for our dialogue model is the fact that the search for an answer to a yes/no question is dependent on the placement of intonational focusing, so that by intonational means a certain search strategy can be forced. Suppose that a dialogue participant has in his assumption list the following information: Dali is a painter Beethoven is a composer if he is asked now by his dialogue partner the question (28) 'Is Dali a Icomposer?'


dialogue participant A gets a dialogical consequence the right R6 to use an utterance of the form

270 International Focusing and Dialogue Games

he can say just 'No!', but assuming that he will behave in a cooperative way with the aim to reach an agreement he would answer: (27) 'No, he is a Ipainter.' But if this dialogue participant is asked the question (28) 'Is !Dali a composer?' which differs from the former question just in the placement of intonational focusing, the answer would be (29) 'No, Beethoven is a composer.'

ERO(A XNP[Dali is a X], composer) for Is Dali a [composer? and NP ERO(AX [X is a composer], Dali for Is !Dali a composer? This type of representation shows that the dialogue participant who is going to give an answer to a dialogue, has to check whether the focus fits with the background in order to get a true proposition with regard to his assumptions. If the focus in question does not meet this condition, the dialogue participant can look for an alternative depending on the focus-background structure. We can use these considerations for our dialogue model. This means that apart from surface structures of the form X-A-Y we can deal with semantical


This fact, that intonational focusing can be a means to force search strategies, is interesting, too, if we think of one of the dialogue participants as an information system. The failure to give a positive answer to a yes/no question would trigger a search process depending on intonational focusing which leads to positive alternatives to the rejected prepositional content of the question. So the equivalence between cooperatively answering a yes/no dialogue and corrective focusing is' obvious. Another parallel that becomes obvious is that between intonational focusing and negation on the one hand and intonational focusing and questioning on the other. Intonational focusing marks both times those utterance items which are affected by, say, the operation of negation and questioning. On the level of semantic representation, the negation element and, according to Jacobs (1983), the illocutionary type of dialogues can be represented by an operator which divides propositions in two complementary parts. In this two-place operation the second argument represents the focus which is bound by a A-operator as a variable in the first argument. This first argument represents the so-called background. For example, for the abovecited dialogues we get the following representations:

J. Hoepelman,J. Machate and R. Schnitzer 271

representations. Consequently under these considerations the assumption lists are constituted by propositions and the utterances have to be translated into focus-background structures of the above-cited type.2 For the purpose of our dialogue model simple representations will suffice, and we get the following dialogue rule for answering yes/no questions: DR7: If there is a dialogue situation Do and Do - «A-B-C, INFA(B), SIA> 0), (EDA, X-B-C/D?), (ALB» dialogue participant A gets as a dialogical consequence the right R7 to use an utterance of the form

so that a new dialogue situation Di arises and D, = «A-B-C, INFA(B), SIA, R7>, <EDA, X-B-C/D?), (ALB))

3 H O W TO MAKE THE DIALOGUE STRATEGIES MORE FLEXIBLE The dialogue model as described so far is a strong simplification of natural dialogues. One way to make the dialogue model more natural is to give up the strict distinction between 'cooperative games' and 'competitive games', which are only two extreme possibilities for behaviour in dialogues. One step in the direction of more flexible dialogues could consist in leaving the dialogue participants the decision to realize a dialogical right cooperatively or competitively,, that means that the frame rules are no longer obligatorily determined for the whole dialogue with regard to a certain game that is played. The decision whether a dialogue participant accepts cooperatively the information (30) Dali is a famous musician although he assumes that (31) Dali is a famous painter or whether he realizes the right to use competitively the corrective dialogue move (32) Dali is a famous Ipainter should depend on a criterion other than a fixed type of game. Such a criterion could be, for example, the defence value of the alternative. This defence value could depend on the question whether one dialogue participant regards the


[No, IA-B-C]


Dali is a famous Ipainter we get the representation of possible strategies illustrated in Figure 3.

DO

Dl / Rl [ Dali is a famous Ipainter 1

cooperative move

competitive move

frame rule / cooperative move

frame rule / competitive move

Rl

Rl ->diaJogiea) obligation

D2/0

D2 / "Dali is a famous Ipainter"

Figure 3


other one as being more competent with respect to the controversial information or if he assumes himself to be more competent In the first case the defence value of the alternative is low, the dialogue participant chooses a cooperative move with the corresponding frame rule and the right to use corrective focusing gets lost. In the second case the defence value of the alternative is high; the dialogue participant chooses a competitive move with the corresponding frame rule and the right to use corrective focusing will be realized. The defence value can also help to differentiate between assumptions that count as sure knowledge with a high defence value and those that are rather uncertain with a low defence value. The decision as to which dialogue move should be chosen, i.e. if a competitive move or a cooperative move should be used, could be managed by a special kind of rules which can be called 'decision rules'. If we have a dialogue situation Do which leads to a dialogue situation D, with the dialogical right to use the corrective move:

J. Hoepelman,J. Machate and R. Schnitzer 273

4 IMPLEMENTING DIALOGUE RULES So far, we have described the meaning of intonational focusing within our dialogue model with regard to

But what makes the paradigm of dialogue games interesting to linguistic research is not just its ability to describe human behaviour in dialogues: The rules presented here are suitable to build a basis for the implementation of an intonation interpretation module of a speech-understanding system. It is this task we have dealt with in a project called MAFID which was sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The aim of the project was the integration of both intonational focus recognition and its interpretation in an information system. With a continuous speech recognizer (COSIMA) based on Hidden Markov Modelling and connected to an intonation recognition module, we were able to show the importance of integrating focus intonation in future speech understanding systems. Of course, the dialogue rules which define the rights and duties of two parties having equal rights have to be adapted in a suitable manner. The first condition is naturally that the system's dialogue strategy should be a cooperative one. A competitive strategy would surely decrease the user's acceptance of such a system, since he would always have to ask for more concrete information. The dialogue sequent describing the progress of dialogue steps can be reduced to a triple containing the system's data base, the utterances of the user and the system's responses. A semantic representation which describes an operational semantic and is suitable to be used for integration in the dialogue rules is produced by a parser which supports free constituent order. With the dialogue history mentioned above the system is able to refer to earlier stages of the dialogue. Hence, the assumption list of the system can be derived from its data base and the dialogue history. It is not possible to build an assumption list for the user, since his utterances are the only information the system can rely on. However, if we take as an example a yes/no question with an intonation line indicating the focus of the user's interest, the system is able to produce an appropriate answer with respect to the focused constituent In addition to the interpretation of intonational focus, some rules have been


— the dialogue context which is constituted by the dialogue situations; — the communicative functions of intonational focusing, as e.g. informative and corrective focusing; — the dialogue strategies of the dialogue participants depending on the dialogue situations; — pragmatic considerations concerning the type of the game that is played or the defence value of the information under discussion


defined to enable the system to use intonational focus even by itself. Technically, this is realized by a text-to-speech board with the facility of marking words to get phonetic stress. To conclude, the system which we have briefly described here not only recognizes and interprets focus intonation, but also makes use of it. In this paper we have concentrated on the communicative functions of intonational focusing called informative focusing and corrective focusing and have neglected many other problems. But although the dialogue model and the dialogue rules are still very preliminary we hope we have shown that intonational focusing can be seen as a dialogical phenomenon that is important for the description of discourse strategies.

IBM Germany, Scientific Centre, Institutefor Knowledge-based Systems, Wilckensstr. la 6900 Heidelberg Germany

NOTES The set theoretical notation for the information that is now included in SIA would be SIAU{X-Y-D) or in list notation

In DR7 the expression X-B-C/D? corresponds to the focus-background structure ERO(/IXN1)[X-B-C], D).

REFERENCES Barth, E. M. & J. L. Martens (eds) (1982), Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation .

Carlson, L. (1983). Dialogue Games: An Approach to Discourse Analysis. D. Reidel,

Dordrecht. Carlson, L. (1984). Focus and dialogue games: a game-theoretical approach to the interpretation of intonational focusing', in L. Vaina & J. Hintikka (eds), Cognitive Constraints on Communication, Reidel.

Firbas, J. (1975). 'On the thematic and non-

thematic section of sentence', in H. Ringbom el a\ (eds), Style and Text: Studies Presented to N. E. Enkvist.

Gabbay, D. M. & J. Moravcsik (1987). Negation and denial', in F. Guenthner & C. Rohrer (eds), Studies in Formal Semantics.

Hintikka, J. (1976). 'Language games', in E. Saarinen (ed), Game-Theoretical Semantics.

Hintikka, J. & J. Kulas (1985). Anaphora and Definite Descriptions: Two Applications of Game-Theoretical Semantics. Jacobs,J. (1983). Fokus undSkalen — ZurSyntax


Address for correspondence: JAKOB HOEPELMAN

J. Hoepelman, J. Machate and R. Schnitzer 275 undSemantik der Gradpartikeln im Deutschen, Niemeyer, Tubingen. Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Sgall, P., E. Hajicova, & J. Panevova (1986).

'The meaning of the sentence in its semantic and pragmatic aspects', in J. L. Mey (ed.), Language and Discourse: Test and Protest,Benjamins, Amsterdam.



© N.IS Foundation (1991)

Book Review

Eric Reuland and Alice ter Meulen (eds), The Representation of (in)definiteness. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1987. $35.00 (paperback). PETER LUDLOW

(1) (2) (3) (4)

There's a fox in the henhouse. *There's the fox in the henhouse. There are three foxes in the henhouse. *There's every fox in the henhouse.

Misark's (1974) generalization was that the determiners which admit thereinsertion are the weak determiners (found in cardinal NPs) and that those which do not admit there-insertion are strong determiners (found in quantificational NPs). The analysis is often considered purely taxonomic, in that there is no obvious semantic basis for the distinction between cardinal and quantificational NPs. For example, why should 'a man' be classified as a cardinal NP instead of quantificational NP? Barwise and Cooper (1981) attempted to motivate Milsark's analysis by a settheoretic characterization of the strong/weak distinction. A weak determiner is one in which 'DET N are (is) N' is contingent. A strong determiner is one in


It is rather common for edited collections to contain a number of papers which have no coherent theme interweaving them save perhaps that they are all papers falling under the general heading of semantics, or model theory, or syntax. While the individual papers may be good, it is too often the case that the collected whole is weaker than the individual parts. Happily, this volume escapes this common trap, bringing together a number of papers from somewhat different perspectives, but all related to a common theme. The common theme is a loosely grouped class of constructions which are related to the phenomenon of indefmiteness. Among these constructions are those which involve thereinsertion, predication, discourse anaphora, quantifier scope, etc. The papers in this volume all address some portion of this problem space, and some even attempt to provide a unified treatment of the constructions. The point of departure for many of the papers is the definiteness effect, discussed in Milsark (1974), Safir (1982), and Barwise and Cooper (1981). The basic observation, from Milsark, is that there-insertion is only possible with a particular class of determiners. So, for example, one gets the following distribution of facts.

278 Book Review


which 'DET N are (is) N' is either tautological or contradictory (positive strong in the former case, negative strong in the latter). Because 'three foxes are foxes' is contingent, it is a weak determiner. 'Every fox is a fox' is tautological, so 'every' is a positive strong determiner, and 'None of the foxes are foxes' is contradictory, so 'none of the' is a negative strong determiner. Barwise and Cooper suggest that constructions of the form 'There is DET N' will be contradictory if DET is negative strong, and tautologous if positive strong, so strong determiners cannot appear in there-insertion contexts. The problem, however, is that being tautological or contradictory does not usually imply being ungrammatical. After all, we do utter completely grammatical contradictions and tautologies. The volume picks up where the above proposals left off—in some cases extending the strong/weak taxonomy to other constructions, and in other cases attempting to refine the taxonomy. It contains a helpful introduction by the editors, and the following papers: 'Where does the Definiteness Effect Apply? Evidence from the Definiteness of Variables', by Irene Heim; 'Indefiniteness and Predication', by Jim Higginbotham; 'What Explains the Definiteness Effect?' by Ken Safir, 'WH-in-Situ: Movement and Unselective Binding', by David Pesetsky; 'Specifier and Operator Binding', by Tanya Reinhart; 'An Indefiniteness Restriction for Relative Clauses in Lakhota', byjanis Williamson; 'The Syntax of Chamorro Existential Sentences', by Sandra Chung; 'Existential Sentences in Chinese and (In)definiteness'( by Jim Huang; 'Definiteness, Noun Phrase Configurationality, and the Count-Mass Distinction', by David Gil; 'The Compositional Nature of (In)definiteness', by Franciska de Jong; and 'A Semantic Definition of "Indefinite NP"\ by Edward Keenan. These papers represent a great variety of research methods and styles. One weakness in the collection qua collection is that the editors could have encouraged the contributors to make their proposals more accessible to a general audience. A number of papers assume a thorough grounding in Government-Binding theory. Other papers assume a thorough grounding in formal semantics. It may well turn out that both syntacticians and semanricists will buy the book, but each will find different portions of the collection accessible. My only other complaint about the collection is that there is no contribution by Milsark, whose (1974) work mapped out a significant portion of the territory explored by the papers in this volume. It would have been interesting to read his views of recent developments. A full analysis of each of the papers in this volume would be impossible, and a short summary of each would be of limited interest, so I will focus my attention on four of the papers which together represent a cross-section of the approaches taken in the volume. In particular, I shall discuss the papers by Heim, Reinhart, Higginbotham, and Keenan. The leadoff paper in the volume is Heim's. She argues that the definiteness

Book Review 279

effect occurs at LF, a level of syntactic representation in which operator scope is explicidy represented. The evidence for this claim is that if one thinks of the trace of a moved operator as something of referring expression (and consequently, as a strong NP), then one would expect the trace of a moved operator to block diere-insertion. For example, (1) exhibits a scope ambiguity which is not found in (2). (1) Ralph believes that a man is spying on him. (2) Ralph believes that there is a man spying on him. The missing ambiguity is predicted by the fact that the wide scope reading for (2) would require an LF representation like that in (3),

which is blocked because [NP e] is a strong NP. The downstairs reading is available when the NP remains in place, as in (4). (4) [s Ralph believes that [s there is [NP a man] spying on him]] There are two worries about the analysis as developed thus far. First, we are given no indication as to how the in-place NP is to be interpreted. If it is a quantifier, then what is it binding? Perhaps the variable is introduced only in the interpretative meta-language, but this is the sort of proposal which needs some explanation of how we might execute it. On the other hand, if the NP is not a quantifier, but is rather a referring expression, then what does it refer to, some vague man? Second, the analysis appears to be inconsistent with the analysis of indefinites proposed in Heim (1982). There Heim suggested that indefinites are free variables which are bound by (sometimes implicit) operators. On such an analysis, following the proposal made by Heim in this volume, every indefinite would be a bound variable, and hence a strong NP. Given the central role that Heim (1982) played at the Groningen conference (on which this volume is based) and in the other papers in the volume, one might have expected her to address this inconsistency, or at least note it. While the relation of Heim's proposals to her (1982) work are unclear, the papers by Reinhart and Pesetsky adopt the basic approach of that analysis and attempt to extend it. Reinhart, for example, discusses donkey anaphora constructions, and suggests a taxonomy of quantifiers which will support donkey anaphora. Specifically, Reinhart maintains that only weak determiners will support donkey anaphora. So for example, the italicised determiners in the (5) below are weak and support donkey anaphora. The italicised determiner in (6) is strong and does not support donkey anaphora. (5) a. Everyone who owns [a donkey]; beats it;. b. Everyone who owns [three donkeys]; beats therrij.


(3) [NP a manjj [s Ralph believes that [s there is[ NP e;] spying on him]]

28o Book Review

(6) *Everyone who owns [every donkey]; beats it;. In this respect, Reinhart's proposal bears certain similarities to an often overlooked aspect of Kamp's (1981/1984) proposal—that the determiners which support donkey anaphora are those which are preserved under model extensions.1 Reinhart's proposal makes different empirical predictions than Kamp's, and is superior in a number of cases. For example, Reinhart's proposal correctly predicts that (7), which contains a weak determiner, will support donkey anaphora. (7) Everyone who owns [few donkeys]; beats therrij.

(8) *Everyone who owns [no donkey]; beats it;. There are also cases which are strong determiners but which do seem to be perfectly acceptable cases of donkey anaphora. Examples include the following. (9) a. Everyone who saw [the donkey to his left]; beat it;. b. Everyone who saw [every third donkey]; beat it;. It has recently been suggested that any determiner can support donkey anaphora in the right context. So, for example, we find the following sorts of cases discussed in Neale (1990). (10) a. Everyone who saw [none ofthe women]; concluded they; hadn't come. b. Everyone who donated [no organs]; kept them; instead. c. Everyone who interviewed [every candidate]; evaluated him/her; too. So far I have not explained the mechanics of Reinhart's proposal. The point of departure is Heim's (1982) proposal that the indefinite determiner is a free variable which can be bound by the specifier of the containing NP (or a sentential operator, etc.). So, for example, in (5)a, the specifier 'every' binds the free variable in 'a donkey' and the pronoun 'it'. The result is something like the following. (11) Every (x, y) (person x & x owns y & donkey y) (x beats y)2 One of the problems with Heim's proposal was that it only works in a very narrow class of constructions. One construction where it fails is when the specifier of the containing NP is, for example, 'most'. Heim's analysis would render (12) as (13), which does not deliver the correct truth conditions. (12) Most people who own a donkey beat it. (13) Most (x, y) (person x & x owns y & donkey y) (x beats y)


There are troubles with Reinhart's proposal, however. One obvious example is the case of'no' which is a weak determiner but which usually is not thought to support donkey anaphora.

Book Review 281

The problem is that (13) could be true in the case where one individual owns 50 donkeys and beats them, and 20 other people who own but one donkey each, and don't mistreat their donkeys. (13) is true under such circumstances because there are 50 pairs of owners/donkeys in which the former beat the latter, even though only one of the 20 donkey owners is a donkey beater. Reinhart's proposal is that the second variable be construed as a set variable, the restriction on set membership being fixed by the weak NP. An example might help illustrate the idea. (14) Most (x, Y (person x & Y — {z| donkey z & x owns z)) (x beats Y)3

(15) Most persons who own more than two donkeys beat them. (16) Most (x, Y) (person x & Y - {z| donkey z & x owns z} & |Y| >2) (x beats Y) One worry with this proposal is that it drives a wedge between donkey anaphora and cross-sentential anaphora, assimilating the first case to a form of binding, and leaving the latter unexplained. If the first donkey pronoun in (17) is within the scope of the specifier 'Most', the second pronoun surely isn't. The two pronouns in (17) do not seem so different that one would expect different explanations of what is going on in each case. (17) Most persons who own a donkey feed it. However, they beat it too. There is a proposal due to Evans (1977), Parsons (1978), Cooper (1979) and Davies (1981), which unifies these accounts of anaphora and which avoids the pitfalls of the Heim (1982) analysis, and does so without violence to binding theory. The idea, simply put, is that the donkey pronouns stand proxy for definite descriptions (or, in Evans's case, have their content fixed by description).4 The analysis of (17) might be glossed as follows. (18) [Most persons who own a donkey]; feed the donkey (or donkeys) that they; own. However, [the persons who own and feed a donkey]; beat the donkey (or donkeys) that they; own and feed too. Whatever the ultimate merits of these descriptive pronoun solutions, they really deserved to be addressed. Higginbotham's paper tries to give a unified account of a number of natural language constructions (all generally considered to be cases of the indefiniteness phenomenon), including there-insertion, predicative nominals, donkey anaphora, cleft constructions, and quantifier interdependence. The common thread in these constructions is the notion of an adjectival quantifier, where an adjectival quantifier is defined as one which is symmetric. 'Det A are B' is true just in case 'Det B are A' is true. 'A man is a lawyer' will be true just in case 'A lawyer is


The determiner of the weak NP fixes the cardinality of the set. So, for example, (15) may be rendered as in (16).

282 Book Review

a man' is true, so it is adjectival. On the other hand, there are circumstances in which 'Every man is a lawyer' is true, while 'Every lawyer is a man' is false. Consider the predicate nominal construction discussed in Williams (1983). Higginbotham argues that only some NPs appear in predicational position (as defined in Williams (1980)) and those which do cannot be thought of as truly quantificational. So, for example, the following contrast shows that only some determiners can appear in predicative position: (19) John is a lawyer. (20) *John is every lawyer.

(19') (3x: lawyer x) [John is x] for if it did have such an analysis, we would expect (21) to have the analysis given in (21'). (21) John is not a lawyer. (21') (3x: lawyer x) [John is not x] (21') cannot have the same truth conditions as (21), however, for (21') can be true in cases where John is a lawyer. Higginbotham's analysis is that only determiners which are adjectival in character may appear in predicate position. Higginbotham goes on to suggest that only adjectival determiners will give rise to there-insertion, and that only adjectival monotone increasing quantifiers will support donkey anaphora. While ambitious, Higginbotham's proposal is problematic at points. First of all, there are troubles with the analysis of predicative nominals. The problem with (20) goes much deeper than simply that NPs like 'every lawyer' cannot appear in post-copular position. It is observed in Ludlow (1985) for example, that (20') is just as bad. (20') [Every lawyerjj is such that John is him^. Moreover, there is an alternative explanation (due to Lasnik (p.c.)) for why (21) cannot be interpreted as (21'). Namely, that negation serves as something of a scope island for operators. Thus consider the following examples, discussed in Ludlow (1985). (22) a. Not everyone went to the party. b. * [everyone] j NEG e( went to the party


Notice that (20) is problematic even ifJohn is the only lawyer.5 Higginbotham follows an argument he attributes to Emmon Bach and suggests diat 'a lawyer in (19) cannot be quantificational, i.e. it cannot have the following analysis suggested by (e.g.) Montague,

Book Review 283

(23) a. b. (24) a. b.

I don't always go to parties, * [always] NEG I go to Parties Waldo doesn't love everyone. * [everyone]; NEG Waldo loves e;

(25) Many people that I know are in the garden. (26) There are many people that I know in the garden. According to Higginbotham, (25) can be true if I don't know many people, just so long as many of the people that I know are in the garden. (26), on the other hand, is supposed to be false under the same circumstances. The point is that it is only the absolute sense of'many' which appears in there-insertion constructions, and it is the absolute sense which seems to be adjectival. Keenan argues that the quantifiers which support there-insertion are precisely the existential ones—where 'existential' is defined as follows: a. A basic determiner is called existential if it is always interpreted by an existential function, where b. A function/from properties to sets of properties is existential if for all properties p, q,p zf(q) iff 1 ef(q

A p)

Less formally, the idea is that a determiner DET will be existential just in case (27) and (28) have the same truth conditions. (27) DET X are (is) Y (28) DET X who are (is) Y exist Kccnan claims that (29) and (30) cannot vary in truth value so 'some' is existential. —


The (a) examples simply cannot have the same interpretation as the (b) examples. With respect to donkey anaphora, as examples (7) and (9) above show, it is not correct that only adjectival monotone increasing quantifiers will support donkey anaphora. It is an interesting question as to how Higginbotham's analysis fares with there-insertion constructions. The interesting cases are 'many' and 'few', which clearly support there-insertion, but which are not clearly adjectival. It seems, for example, that 'Many humans swim' is true, though 'Many swimmers are human' is false. But Higginbotham argues that there is an absolute sense of 'many' which might be used in sentences like the above. If'many' is understood in the absolute sense, then the two sentences will have the same truth conditions. He then suggests that it is this absolute sense of 'many' which is found in there-insertion constructions. Thus there is argued to be a contrast between (25) and (26)

284 Book Review

(29) Some men are bald. (30) Some men who are bald exist. On the other hand, (31) and (32) have different truth conditions, so 'every' is not existential. (31) Every man is bald (32) Every man who is bald exists.

(33) a. Fewer than zero dollars are in my checking account. b. Fewer than zero dollars that are in my checking account exist. (34) Fewer than zero dollars are dollars. As I noted, the evidence is subtle, and not everyone will be comfortable hanging their choice of explanation on such evidence. So far we have seen Keenan's argument that the relevant generalization must be that the quantifiers that admit of there-insertion are the existential ones. The question remains as to why only the existential ones permit there-insertion. An answer to this question is advertised in section 12.3.1 of the paper, but the explanation is difficult to locate. Keenan's argument proceeds in two steps. First, he argues that the structure of a there-insertion sentence like 'there is a man in the garden' is as follows. (35) [S[NP m e r e ] [VP [v is] [NP a

man

] [XP i n

me

g a r <M]]

Let us grant this step in the argument. The second step is to suggest that strict compositionality demands that the only way to interpret a structure like the above would be to say that the denotation of the predicate IMP (QNP) has the property expressed by the XP (pXp)- In short, Q NP e p x p . Let us grant this step in the argument as well. Does it follow that only existential NPs will be able to appear in these constructions? It is hard to see why. On generalized quantifier theory, an NP formed from a non-existential determiner will not differ in any interesting way from one formed from an existential determiner—both will denote a set-theoretic object which will have the property expressed by the NP (i.c. QNP).


The first question to consider is whether this proposal is empirically distinguishable from Barwise and Cooper's. Put another way, are there any cases of weak determiners which are not existential, or of strong determiners which are existential? Keenan suggests that there are, and suggests further that the existential/ non-existential distinction is a better predictor of there-insertion possibilities. Keenan suggests that the determiner 'fewer than zero' (which admits thereinsertion) will be existential, yet strong positive. The evidence is subtle. First we must convince ourselves that the pair of sentences in (33) have the same truth conditions. Then we must convince ourselves that (34) is a tautology.

Book Review 285

I hope by examining some of the proposals in the volume I have given some indication of the complexity and pervasiveness of these problems, and of how intricately interwoven they are. Once again, I think this is a very strong collection, not merely because it has brought together a number of papers by the leading figures in the field, but because the papers all address some portion of an interesting and important problem space. One can only wish that more edited volumes provided the same service.

NOTES 1 Kamp(io84),p. i6.Seealsofn. i8.Theidea is that if 'a donkey is tired' is true and the model is extended to include other donkeys, the truth of the sentence is preserved. If 'every donkey is tired' or 'no donkey is tired' is true, and the model is extended to include other donkeys, there is no guarantee that the truth of the sentence will be preserved. (The passage wasfirstbrought to my attention by Jim Higginbotham.) 2 The truth conditions for structures like (11) are not given, but they appear to be those standardly given in generalized quantifier theory.

3 The truth conditions for '(x beat Y)' will presumably be something like the following: '(x beat Y)' is true iff x beat all the members of Y. 4 For a discussion of these proposals, and a modification to them, see Neale (1990). 5 One cannot say things such as 'John is everything his mother wanted him to be' but the standard rebuttal to this observation is that some form of quantification over properties is taking place.

REFERENCES Philosophy, 7,467-5 36. Reprinted in Evans, Barwise.J. & R. Cooper (1981), 'Generalized Collected Papers, Oxford University Press quantifiers and natural language'. Linguis(1985), Oxford. tics and Philosophy, 4, 159-219. Cooper, Robin (1979), 'The interpretation of Heim, I. (1982). 'The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases', doctoral pronouns', in Heny and Schnelle (eds), dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Syntax and Semantics, vol. 10, Academic Amherst. Press, New York. Davies, Martin (1981), Meaning, Necessity and Kamp, H. (1981/1984), 'A theory of truth and Quantification, Routledge & Keegan Paul, semantic interpretation', inj. Groenendijk London. el al. (eds), Formal Methods in the Study of Natural Language, Amsterdam Centre Evans, Gareth (1977). 'Pronouns, quantifiers, (1981). Reprinted in J. Groenendijk, T. and relative clauses (I)', Canadian Journal of


Department ofPhilosophy State University ofNew York at Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 117Q4 USA

286 Book Review Janssen and M. Stokhof (eds), Truth, Interpretation, and Information,

Foris (1984),

Dordrecht, 1-4.1. Ludlow, P. (1985), 'The syntax and semantics of referential attitude reports', doctoral dissertation, Columbia University. Milsark, G. (1974). 'Existential sentences in English', doctoral dissertation, MIT. Neale, Stephen (1990), Descriptions, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Parsons, Terence (1978), pronouns as para-

phrases', MS, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Safir, K. (1982). 'Syntactic chains and the definiteness effect', doctoral dissertation, MIT. Williams, E. (1980), 'Predication', Linguistic Inquiry, 11: 203-38. Williams, E. (1983). 'Semantic vs. syntactic categories', Linguistics and Philosophy, 6: 423-46.



© N.I.S. Foundation (1901)

Book Review

Deborah Schiffrin. Discourse Markers. Cambridge University Press, 1987. 364 pages, £30 (paperback). GILLIAN BROWN


This book seems at first glance to relate to a descriptive tradition established in the last fifteen years, which relies on a large corpus of conversational data and examines the distribution of discourse particles of one kind or another •within the corpus, states the distribution, and then attempts to give some functional/ notional account of the 'meaning' of the particle in the different contexts in which it occurs. Schiffrin is, however, attempting to do more than this: she is trying to develop a theoretical model which will permit a principled account of the way a range of different types of discourse particles contribute to the coherence of conversational discourse—in particular how the same item has to be understood differently, depending on its role at a particular point in the conversation. Her account is based on data derived from a series of sociolinguistic interviews which she conducted among Jewish families in an area of Philadelphia. The data appear to be quite restricted, since the same chunks of transcription frequently reappear to illustrate the use of yet another discourse marker. This is not particularly harmful except when she wishes to make a quantitative point about some aspects of her data and we find for example, a total of six instances representing 66 per cent of the total (Table 4.3). It would be sensible not to attempt a quantitative statement when the sample is so small. What does need to be made clear is that whereas many features of her data appear to be characteristic of conversations appearing in other, much larger, corpora, some features may be restricted to particular speakers. I was struck by the high incidence of rhetorical questions in the middle of a speaker's turn (often prefaced by 'now' as in 'Now what's two hundred as against six thousand years?' (240)). This may be an ethnicity feature (though it is not mentioned in Tannen's account of New York Jewish speech (1981)). Since the data are based on a questionnaire, it is obvious that the recorded conversations will have a high incidence of questions in them in any case. Schiffrin offers an extended justification of the 'usefulness' of her data (43) in terms of the possible objections arising from her own participant-observer role: a more important issue seems to me to be that of how representative of conversation in general this data can be held to be. The position to take is surely that it is an interesting small corpus and generalisations

288 Book Review


based on it should be extrapolated from with caution to other types of conversation and to other groups of speakers. Schiffrin devotes a chapter each to a variety of discourse markers, ranging from those judged to have minimal linguistic meaning ('oh' and 'well'), through the discourse connectives, 'and, but, or', the complements 'so, because', the temporal adverbs 'now, then', to two markers 'whose literal meanings directly influence their discourse use' (267) ('y'know' and 'I mean'). She discusses each of them within a model which is intended to give an account of discourse coherence. This presupposes a particular speaker and (at least one) particular hearer who participate in the conversation by relating to each other and to what they are talking about, and an information state in which speakers make judgments about their hearer's and their own current state of knowledge (a state which evolves as the interaction proceeds). The conversation itself consists of a series of utterances which can be analysed in terms of their ideational structure (propositional content), their action structure (the sequence of acts, what is being done by uttering a particular proposition), and, finally, their exchange structure which is concerned with the management of the interaction, the handing-over of turns, the indication that the current speaker intends to continue speaking, the provision of supportive feedback to the current main speaker and so on. Schiffrin proposes that discourse coherence can be discerned not only by relationships between items at one level of structure, an attractive and potentially constrainable position, but between successive items of different levels of structure, which does permit a large number of possible relationships. A crucial problem with undertaking an analysis of the kind Schiffrin proposes is determining the scope of the relation of each marker to the chunk of conversation in which it occurs. Schiffrin considers the range of possibilities and eventually concludes (37) that markers will have to be defined in relation to 'units of talk', which cannot be independently defined in terms of syntactic or phonological features. This position, taken together with the freedoms holding between different levels of analysis in the model of discourse coherence, leads to a highly complex and necessarily somewhat unconstrained analysis. In her final chapter, Schiffrin records her struggles with these extremely complex data, and points out how much she was obliged to rely on her personal knowledge of individual speakers and of their 'positions on controversial issues' (313) in reaching first an interpretation of what was said, and then an analysis of the forms used to say it. In spite of the fact that as soon as you attempt to give an account of how you understand a chunk of real human interaction, you have to call, it seems, on a multiplicity of strands of knowledge whose interrelationship is far from easy to determine, Schiffrin does produce a great deal of interesting detailed discussion which seems fully justified in terms of her data. Some of her findings are not

Book Review 289

University of Cambridge Centre of English as an International Language Keynes House Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 tQA England


unfamiliar, for instance, that 'oh', used as a response, denies the correctness of the speaker's presupposition (or part of it) (87). Some draw the reader's attention to systematic differences in the use of these discourse markers and to differences in nuances of meaning which I have not encountered before, for instance, that the primary use of 'oh' lies in the management of information, marking shifts in the speaker's orientation to information. However, I do find the analysis she offers for this less than compelling in terms of her model. If its function is to mark shifts in information state in order to display these to the listener, then it seems that it functions mainly at the level of exchange structure to alert the hearer to the speaker's change in information state—it does not itself contribute to a change at the level of information structure. Schiffrin's own position on this does not seem entirely clear in the final sentence of the chapter when she writes 'Although oh is a marker of cognitive tasks, its use may have pragmatic effects in interaction' (101). This rather surprising outcome islniaintained when she contrasts 'oh' with 'well': 'The main difference is that well marks responses at an interactional level, and oh marks responses at a cognitive level'(127). Working within a model, however evolutionary, and however complex and unconstrained, does permit Schiffrin to make generalisations of a kind which are not available to the simple taxonomist who assumes that all instances of a form are to be forced into one level of analysis. Her systematic examinations of the effect of varying the discourse marker used, or of excising it from the transcript, draw attention to the different levels of function of the various markers. Her conclusion, that the context of utterance constrains the likely interpretation of the relationship between utterances, and that the speaker, by choosing to use a discourse marker further constrains the range of possible interpretations (319), seems sensible and correct. It is an attractive book, frankly recognising the difficulties raised by the methodologies adopted, discussing the drawbacks fully and also weighing up the drawbacks of other possible solutions to the problem. One of its major strengths lies in these careful, well-informed, methodological discussions. It would be unfair, however, to suggest that it does not also make a useful contribution to the vast and complex undertaking of coming to grips with how participants in a conversation structure their contributions, bully each other, try to impose their own opinions, try to come by information, repeat themselves, and try to find out what other people think.

2oo Book Review

REFERENCE Tannen, D. (1981), 'New York Jewish conversational style', International Journal ofthe Sociology of Language, 30: 3 3-9.


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