Arthur Merin & Christine Bartels
Decision-Theoretic Semantics for Intonation
Arbeitspapiere des SFB 340, Bericht Nr. 88 (1997), 17pp.
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Abstract
We propose a decision-theoretically grounded, transcontextual
semantics for intonation contours of natural languages, in
particular, of English. We critically examine a recent set of
proposals for a tonal semantics (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990;
Hobbs 1990) which identifies smallest independently meaningful units
with level tone phonemes and, like other current approaches (e.g.
Gussenhoven 1984), finds denotata in epistemic and discourse
relations. Retaining the now standard autosegmental description for
intonation phonology (Pierrehumbert 1980) that underlies these
discourse-epistemic accounts of tonal meaning, we propose instead a
domain of possible denotata in a space of elementary social
relations characterizing negotiation (Nash 1953) of joint
deontic-boulomaic or epistemic commitments between cooperating
autonomous agents (Merin 1994). Intonational morphemes are
tone-level transitions, coding ostensible allocation of power of
choice of negotiable situational parameters. The basic symbolism is
iconic of ontogenetically salient associations of pitch and social
power; standard default associations of preference and initiative
parameters engage `emotive', `discourse-anaphoric' and, via
Peirce/Hintikka games, `logical' concomitants. We exemplify with a
variety of classic examples (questions, negation scope) including
the so-called Contradiction Contour (Liberman & Sag 1974) familiar
to a wider audience from Johnson-Laird (1988).
Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft
Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen
Wilhelmstraße 113
72074 Tübingen
Germany
arthur@ims.uni-stuttgart.de
bartels@darkwing.uoregon.edu