Glossary

The thesis that semantic value is fully determined by the semantic value of expressions in the utterance. Extra-linguistic context plays no role in fixing the meaning of an utterance. Usually contrasted to contextualism.

A pragmatic device whereby a presupposition (or some other pragmatic content) that is needed to render an utterance interpretable or felicitous is incorporated automatically by the interpreter.

A conversational contribution that adds information to the common ground (either provisionally or automatically). An interlocutor undertakes certain commitments related to the truth of the content asserted in offering this contribution.

Integration among utterances in a discourse. Coherence is related to truth conditional content and anaphora resolution in that language users have intutions about discourse coherence. Coherence is a gradeable concept.

Integrated action of two or more individuals engaged in a joint activity. Each person provides an essential element to the contribution.

The sum total of information taken for granted by participants to a discourse, perhaps with the addition of structural elements to organize the information. Cooperative discourse both responds to and amends the common ground.

An utterance that constitutes the closing phase of a contribution to inquiry. A completion is paired with an initiation, and the resulting discourse pair provides the contribution to the inquiry.

A conversational move that initiates an uncertain but potentially viable proposal for further investigation in the inquiry.

The thesis that semantic value is, at least occasionally, determined in some way by the context of the speaker of an utterance. May encompass the broader thesis that semantic value is determined by features of context generally. Usually contrasted to relativism and absolutism.

An information structural element located within the topic of a sentence that sets its scope in contrast to a (commonly contextually determined) set of alternatives.

Any linguistic performance, or the semantico-pragmatic structure associated with it, that advances the inquiry realized by the discourse of which it is a part.

Alignment of the contributions of two or more individuals engaged in a joint activity. Each person ensures that their contribution accords with the contributions that have come previously and anticipates contributions to come.

An utterance that initiates a coherent discourse involving correction.

An attempted contribution to inquiry that involves a *denial* of some element of the preceding attempted contribution to discourse and a *positive contribution* that is related in a salient way to the preceding attempted contribution.

An aggregation operation, which takes one table and returns the number of tuples satisfying some condition. Conditions are usually specified in terms of values for certain attributes and are optionally restricted by a grouping operation.

A collection of data structured by a series of tables

A communicative exchange among two or more people.

The goal state of the process of inquiry, generally resolution of the issue(s) for which the inquiry was undertaken, as well as any sub-issues raised during course of the inquiry.

A pragmatic judgement that an utterance is approapriate in the discourse context.

An information structuring device of natural language. It serves to divide the content conveyed into parts based on the role they play in the broader dicourse. A principle such division is between given and new information. In English, focus is usually realized as intonational stress.

An operation that takes one table and returns the same table with tuples organized by the values of selected attributes.

Any bit of data about the world (an event or state-of-affairs) that is communicable and available to cognition. Also, the content of a contribution in discourse.

An utterance that constitutes the opening phase of a contribution to inquiry. An initiation is paired with a completion, and the resulting discourse pair provides the contribution to the inquiry.

The enterprise of forming, testing, and revising beliefs.

Any participant in a discourse.

An uncertainty within the common ground. A bit of information that is lacking. A set of alternatives none of which is settled upon as correct.

The portion of the semantic machinery that assigns elements from the extra-linguistic context to variables in the representation of utterances.

An operation that takes two tables as input and outputs a table whose header is the union of the input headers and whose body includes the union of all tuples with shared values from each table. In addition, a tuple from a preferred table that has no overlap with any tuple from the other table is included with NULL values inserted for the attributes specific to the preferred table. In a

The structure of issues and proposals governing the inquiry at hand. The POI places constraints on appropriate future moves; in order to be relevant, they must fit into the plan in some way.

The domain of linguistic interpretation pertaining to the features of the meanings of expressions that is derived from their use in conversation. Pragmatic meanings are usually given by reference to extra-linguistic context of the utterance.

Selection of a subset of attributes from a header and presentation of the resulting restricted table.

A semantic element that fills out a propositional radical to turn it into a semantically interpretable proposition. Generally supplied by extra-linguistic context.

A semantically incompled or underspecified sentence content. The content requires filling out in order to be interpreable. Generally, the extra-linguistic context serves to complete the radical.

A conversational contribution that adds an issue to the common ground with the implication that the issue is to be resolved in the course of the inquiry. Acceptance of the question commits interlocutors to providing contributions that offer at least partial answers to it.

The governing issue for the inquiry at hand. The QUD places constraints on appropriate future moves; in order to be relevant, they must at least partially resolve the issue.

A connection among ideas in which the second idea highlights an over-looked distinction within the domain of the first idea. Belongs to the class of relative generality connections.

The thesis that semantic value is, at least occasionally, determined in some way by the context of the interpreter of an utterance. Usually contrasted to contextualism and absolutism.

An opertaion that updates a table by changing the name of one or more of its attributes.

A linguistic move to attempt to highlight and adjust for a failure in uptake of a previous element of discourse. Frequently used to accommodate a missing presupposition.

The structural recording platform for the semantico-pragmantic features of a conversation. Interpretation in discourse takes place relative to a scoreboard, and dicourse contributions serve to update the scoreboard. Scoreboards may be accessable to a single discursant, or they may be shared.

The domain of linguistic interpretation pertaining to the core meaning of expressions and their means of combination into larger expressions, independent of their use in conversation.

Any action performed by way of uttering meaningful words in discourse.

A structural element of a database that represents interrelations between points of data. A table consists of a header, which is a set of attributes, and a body which is a set of tuples of values for each of the attributes.

Any of a family of theories of formal semantics that treat contributions in discourse as ordered sets of additions to and operations on the discourse platform.

A virtual table, which presents information culled from a database and allows a user to make use of that information without impacting the underlying structure of the database.

Elements of the meaning of expressions that belong to different interpretive modules but that nevertheless stand in dependency relations to each other.

Mental content that essentially involves a part of the mind-external world.