What is Pragmatics?
Grice and the Cooperative Principle
Implicature
Deixis
“What does this verb mean, everywhere?”
“What is always true about the relation between”up” and “down”?”
“What is always true about Y, given X?”
“Can you see?”
“I’m open”
“Take that”
“I feel you”
The study of meaning in a discourse context
It considers the current conversation
It assumes things about the current world
It uses elements of our situation to ‘fill in the blanks’
Conversation and linguistic interaction
We have conversations with goals in mind
Social goals
Practical goals
Informational goals
… and we assume some cooperation
“I will try to act in such a way as to help the exchange of information, rather than hinder it”
This is not a rule in the sense of grammatical rules, but a guiding principles
It can be broken down into four maxims, developed by H. Paul Grice
Few things anger humans faster than uncooperative systems!
“Tell the truth and give accurate information”
Do not say things you believe to be false
Do not say things you don’t know (or have evidence to believe) to be true
“Give enough information, but not too much”
Be as informative as required, but not more so
It’s just as uncooperative to give too much information as to give too little
“Give relevant information and only relevant information”
“Be as clear as you can be”
Don’t be obscure when you can avoid it
Avoid ambiguous words or phrasings
Avoid unnecessary wordyness
Organize your thoughts
Alexa, how long does it take to drive from UCSD to UCLA?
“Tell the truth and give accurate information”
Do not say things you believe to be false
Do not say things you don’t know (or have evidence to believe) to be true
“Give enough information, but not too much”
Be as informative as required, but not more so
It’s just as uncooperative to give too much information as to give too little
“Give relevant information and only relevant information”
Your responses should have something to do with the matter under discussion
“Be as clear as you can be”
Don’t be obscure when you can avoid it
Avoid ambiguous words or phrasings
Avoid unnecessary wordyness
Organize your thoughts
It allows us to get a lot more done.
Less confirmation, clarification
More efficiency
Actually being uncooperative by failing to follow these guidelines
Violating maxims actually messes up conversations
Intentionally violating a maxim in a way that the listener can detect to express a specific meaning
This carries meaning in the conversation
It can have great comedic effect
Unless it’s undetected, the conversation is not messed up at all
“Oh, yes, Taco Bell is truly gourmet cuisine” (it is clearly not)
“Is this going to be on the test?” “That’s a good question.”
“How does my hair look?” “We haven’t been to a cat show in a while.”
Each and every Gricean maxim is in play for Human-Computer Interaction
Violations of the maxim on either side are problematic
“Tell the truth and give accurate information”
How is this useful when Siri’s talking?
How is this useful when talking to Siri?
“Give enough information, but not too much”
How is this useful when Siri’s talking?
How is this useful when talking to Siri?
“Give relevant information and only relevant information”
How is this useful when Siri’s talking?
How is this useful when talking to Siri?
“Be as clear as you can be”
How is this useful when Siri’s talking?
How is this useful when talking to Siri?
“John was alone in the room… or so he believed”
“Karl, who was absolutely not a lizard-person, went to the store”
“Marvin left at 5:44 and 30 seconds.”
“Did Ramchand ever work with Sam?” “He hates dogs.”
“Did Sarah buy chicken?” “I think so”.
What is suggested, but not expressed or entailed, by an utterance.
Mary didn’t have one before
She’d needed one for a long time
Her computer wasn’t backed up
Mary owns a computer
Mary is Icelandic
Mary owns a Mac
She went to Costco for the hard drive
… everything else
Mary didn’t have one before
She’d needed one for a long time
Her computer wasn’t backed up
Mary owns a computer
We can draw implicatures because we think people are cooperating
We are trying to find a way that the other person’s phrasing is in accordance with the maxims
“Ian and Steven sure have been hanging out a lot”
“CAPS is just down the way in Gailbraith Hall”
“Was this before or after your conviction for armed robbery?”
“Lots of folks wear deodorant”
“Alexa, make me leave at 4:58”
Implies that the speaker is unsure whether Robert ate the cookie.
If the cookie is known to have been eaten by Robert, this is a Quality violation.
Implies Bub didn’t eat them all
If she did, this statement is a Quantity violation
Implies that John might, in fact, be a lizard person
If he is not, this statement is a Relevance violation
Implies reason to believe that Robert might have stolen the cookie
If not, this statement is a Relevance violation
It’s everywhere!
It can be intentional or unintentional
They can even be deceptive
It requires you to understand the maxims, then act accordingly
We’ll solve many problems before we solve this one.
Words whose meaning depends on the conversational context
Pronouns: Me, Us, Him, Her, It, Them
Temporal Expressions: Today, Next Month, Now, Then, Soon
Locatives: Here, there, close, across the street
Demonstratives: This, That, The other, those
“Rick and Graham had their wedding there.”
“I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”
“Mahesh will see to it next week.”
“Sally took the students out to dinner at a Sushi restaurant.”
“John saw a coffee shop across the parking lot.”
This is a big problem in natural language processing
“Jian will meet you here.”
“Ron scheduled her for two weeks out”
“She’ll need to come back for a consult shortly”
“Mark’s parked across the street from there.”
Yep, deixis.
We’re doing deixis all over the place in NLP!
“What’s the temperature?” (Here)
“What’s my last appointment?” (Today)
“Set a Lyft to pick me up” (at the nearest street)
“Turn off the lights” (now)
NLP needs to understand both meaning, and meaning in context
Gricean Maxims help virtual assistants interact with us properly
Implicature is really difficult, but pretty important
Deixis needs to be understood