The book offers an original theory of meaning in discourse that combines a dynamic representation of discourse with an intentional explanation of processing. It contains an exposition of a theory of default semantics and its application to a range of language constructions. Default semantics provides cognitive foundations of discourse interpretation and does so in a broadly conceived truth-conditional framework where truth conditions are applied to utterances. The theory combines the subject matter of post-Gricean ‘truth-conditional pragmatics’ with the formalism and semanticization of meaning ... More

The book offers an original theory of meaning in discourse that combines a dynamic representation of discourse with an intentional explanation of processing. It contains an exposition of a theory of default semantics and its application to a range of language constructions. Default semantics provides cognitive foundations of discourse interpretation and does so in a broadly conceived truth-conditional framework where truth conditions are applied to utterances. The theory combines the subject matter of post-Gricean ‘truth-conditional pragmatics’ with the formalism and semanticization of meaning found in discourse representation theory (DRT). It is assumed that pragmatic information can contribute to the truth-conditional representation of an utterance. This information can have the form of (i) conscious inference, or it can have a form of default interpretation conceived of as (ii) cognitive defaults and (iii) social-cultural defaults. From DRT, it borrows the idea of dynamic semantics as context change implemented in semantic representation and the idea that meaning in discourse will, somehow or other, turn out to be compositional, that is, it will turn out to be a function of the parts and the structure. In short, default semantics combines two seemingly incompatible assumptions that (i) pragmatic input contributes to the truth conditions and (ii) the theory of meaning of utterances and discourses is a compositional, semantic theory. Such semantic representations are called merger representations in that they combine (merge) information from word meaning, sentence structure, pragmatic inference, and various kinds of defaults. Predicating compositionality of such merger representations aided by using an extended and amended language of DRT allows for the semanticization of the account of discourse meaning. The book is divided into two parts. Part I contains theoretical foundations and addresses the questions of the semantics/pragmatics boundary, underspecification, logical form, levels of representation, default meanings, and ‘pragmatic’ compositionality of merger representations. Part II contains some applications of the theory, including definite descriptions, propositional attitude reports, temporality, presupposition, sentential connectives, and number terms.