BRIDGING'
The i m p l i c a t u r e s I am
concerned
with
are
a consequence
of
a speaker-listener
a g r e e m e n t Susan H a v i l a n d and I have
called
the
G i v e n - N e w Contract (Clark and Haviland,
1974, in press; H a v i l a n d and
Clark,
1974).
English
assertions
draw
a distinction
between
two
kinds
of
information
they
convey,
a d i s t i n c t i o n carried by the syntax
and i n t o n a t i o n alone.
The
first
kind
of
information
has
been
called
Given
information,
since
it
is
conventionally
required
to convey i n f o r m a t i o n the listener
a l r e a d y knows; and the second kind has
been
called
New
information,
since
it
is
conventionally
required
to
convey
information
that
the
listener doesn't yet
know but that the speaker would like to
get
across.
The
point
is,
the
Given-New
d i s t i n c t i o n is a syntactic one, i d e n t i f i a b l e
for
sentences
in
isolation,
and
yet
it
serves
a pragmatic
function,
that
of
c o n v e y i n g two types of i n f o r m a t i o n as far as
the
listener
is
concerned.
For
this
distinction
to
be useful as a c o m m u n c a t i v e
device, therefore, the speaker and
listener
must
agree
to
use
it in the c o n v e n t i o n a l
way.
The
speaker
must
agree
to
try
to
construct
his
u t t e r a n c e s so that the Given
i n f o r m a t i o n contains i n f o r m a t i o n he believes
the
listener
already knows and so that the
New
information
contains
information
he
believes the listener doesn't yet know.
The
listener, for his part, agrees to interpret
each
utterance
on
the a s s u m p t i o n that the
speaker is trying to do this.
Herbert H. Clark
Stanford U n i v e r s i t y
Nixon, not long before he was
deposed,
was
quoted
as saying at a news conference,
"I am not a crook." We all
saw
immediately
that Nixon shouldn't have said what he said.
He wanted to assure everyone that he was
an
honest
man,
but the w o r d i n g he used was to
deny that he was a crook.
Why
should
he
deny
that?
He must have believed that his
a u d i e n c e was
entertaining
the
possibility
that
he was
a crook, and he was trying to
disabuse them of this
belief.
But
in
so
doing, h e
was
t a c i t l y a c k n o w l e d g i n g that
peoplewere entertaining
t h i s possibility,
and
this
was
something
he
had
never
a c k n o w l e d g e d before in public.
Here,
then,
was
a
public
admission
that
he was
in
trouble, and this s i g n a l e d a change
in
his
public posture.
My i n f e r e n c e s about Nixon's
u b t e r a n c e stopped about there, but I am sure
that
the
knowledgeable
White
House press
corps went on
drawing
further
inferences.
In any
event
we all took this u t t e r a n c e a
long way.
This is an example par e x c e l l e n c e of
a
basic
problem for theories of u n d e r s t a n d i n g
natural
language:
How
do
listeners
draw
inferences
from
what
they
hear,
what
direction do they take their inferences, and
when
do
they
stop?
In this
particular
example,
at
least
most
listeners
began,
tacitly,
drawing
the
same
llne
of
inferences, but
at
a certain
point,
the
lines diverged and went on to many different
s t o p p i n g points.
But
is
this
description
general?
Could
listeners
go
on
drawing
i n f e r e n c e s ad i n f i n i t u m ? And ultimately,
is
drawing
inferences
as
a
part
of
comprehension
a describable
process,
one
with s p e c i f i a b l e c o n s t r a i n t s ?
C o n s i d e r the s e n t e n c e I t was
M~rY
who
~e~t.
Syntactically,
it
is Given
that
someone left, that is, X left, and it is New
that
that
someone
was
Mary, that is, X =
Mary.
To
deal
with
this
sentence,
the
listener
is
assumed
to
use the f o l l o w i n g
strategy.
(I) He i d e n t i f i e s the
Given
and
the
New.
(2) He r e a l i z e s he is e x p e c t e d to
know a l r e a d y about a unique event of someone
leaving,
and
so he searches back in m e m o r y
for Just such an event.
When he
finds
it,
say
E~I
left
("some
entity
labeled
E31
left"), he calls this the
Antecedent.
(3)
Since
the
listener assumes that X left was
meant to refer to the A n t e c e d e n t
E~I
left,
he
then
replaces
~
in ~ ~ Mary by E31 to
form the new p r o p o s i t i o n E31 ~
Mary.
This
he
places
in m e m o r y
as what the speaker
meant to assert in his utterance.
In this brief paper
I would
llke
to
discuss
a certain
class
of inferences in
c o m p r e h e n s i o n that may provide some
general
lessons
about
the
problem
of
drawing
inferences.
The i n f e r e n c e s I will
discuss
are ones the speaker intends the listener to
draw as an integral part of the message, a n d
so
they
are
a
rather
special
type.
F o l l o w i n g Grice's (1967) terminology, I will
refer
to
them
as implieatures, since they
have
all
the
characteristics
of
other
implicatures.
I will
draw
three lessons
about these implicatures.
One: I m p l i c a t u r e s
of
this
kind
originate
in an
implicit
contract, of quite a specific sort, that the
speaker
and listener have agreed upon about
the way
they
a r e to
converse
with
each
other.
TWO:
These
implicatures,
though
conveyed by language and a n e c e s s a r y part of
the
intended
message,
draw
on
one's
k n o w l e d g e of natural objects and events that
goes
beyond
one's
knowledge
of
language
itself.
Three: These i m p l i c a t u r e s
are
not
indeterminate
in
length,
but
have
a
w e l l - d e f i n e d s t o p p i n g rule.
In the simplest case, the s t r a t e g y Just
given
will work without problems.
Consider
s e q u e n c e I:
I. John
saw
someone
leave
the
party
early.
It was Mary who left.
To s i m p l i f y
things, imagine that
the
listener
hearing
the
second
s e n t e n c e has in episodic m e m o r y
only the i n f o r m a t i o n c o n v e y e d by the
first.
In a p p l y i n g
his
strategy
to
the
second
sentence, the l i s t e n e r will
search
for
an
Antecedent
for X
left,
find
an event of
someone leaving in m e m o r y
from
the
first
sentence,
and
then
integrate
the
New
i n f o r m a t i o n into m e m o r y as he should.
Giveq-New Co~tr~ot
In the more typical case, however,
the
Istener
will fall at Step 2 of the s t r a t e g y
-- he won't find such an A n t e c e d e n t d i r e c t l y
in memory.
When this happens, he is forced
169
Varieties of Imp~icature
to construct an Antecedent, by a series
of
inferences, from something he already knows.
C o n s i d e r sequence 2:
B r i d g i n g from previous k n o w l e d g e to the
intended
Antecedent can take many forms.
I
will here give a brief t a x o n o m y of bridges I
have found in n a t u r a l l y o c c u r r i n g discourse.
As before I will i l l u s t r a t e the bridges with
two
sentence
sequences
in which the first
c o n s t i t u t e s the
entire
episodic
knowledge
available
for b r i d g i n g to the second.
What
I say here, however, is meant to apply
just
as much to episodic i n f o r m a t i o n derived from
non-llnguistlc
sources;
the
two-sentence
sequences
are just an e x p o s i t i o n a l gimmick.
One more caveat.
As with any taxonomy, this
one
is
hardly complete.
Indeed, it cannot
be until one has a theory to account for the
t a x o n o m y itself.
2. In the group
there
was
one
person
missing.
It was
Mary
who left.
In this
s e q u e n c e the first sentence doesn't
mention
anyone s leaving,
so
there
is
no direct
A n t e c e d e n t for the Given i n f o r m a t i o n X
left
of
the
second sentence.
The listener must
t h e r e f o r e bridge the gap from what he
knows
to
the
intended Antecedent.
He might note
that it would follow that one person in
the
group
would
be m i s s i n g if that person had
left.
It
must
be
that
the
speaker
was
referring
to
that
person
by the
Given
i n f o r m a t i o n X l~ft and that the listener was
supposed
to figure this out by drawing this
inference.
In short, the
listener
assumes
the
speaker meant to convey two things: (I)
the i m p l i c a t u r e The Q~e person
was
missin~
because that person left, and (2) the latter
clause contains the intended
Antecedent
of
the Given i n f o r m a t i o n in the second s e n t e n c e
Dire~t
re~erence.
Given
information
often
makes
direct r e f e r e n c e to an object,
event,
or
state
Just
mentioned.
These
always
force
an
i m p l i c a t u r e of some sort,
even though
it
may
be
trivially
simple.
This class of b r i d g i n g is well known:
l~ft.
Identity:
In its most
general
form,
then,
the
G i v e n - N e w C o n t r a c t goes something llke this:
I. I met a man yesterday.
The
man
told me a story.
2. I ran two miles
the
othe#
day.
The run did me good.
3. Her house was
large.
The
size
s u r p r i s e d me.
G i v e n - N e w Contract: The speaker agrees
to
try
to
c o n s t r u c t the Given and
New i n f o r m a t i o n of each u t t e r a n c e in
context
(a) so that the listener is
able
to
compute
from m e m o r y
the
unique
A n t e c e d e n t that was intended
for the Given information,
and
(b).
so that he will not already have the
New
information
attached
to
the
Antecedent.
Pronominali~ation:
4. I met a man yesterday.
He
me a story.
5. I ran two miles
the
other
It did me good.
6. Her
house
was
large.
s u r p r i s e d me.
The l i s t e n e r in turn knows, then,
that
the
speaker
expects
him
to have the k n o w l e d g e
and
mental
wherewithal
to
compute
the
intended
A n t e c e d e n t in that context, and so
for him it becomes a matter
of
solving
a
problem.
What
bridge can he construct (I)
that
the
speaker
could
plausibly
have
e x p e c t e d him to be able to construct and (2)
that
the
speaker
could
plausibly
have
intended?
The first part makes the l i s t e n e r
assess p r i n c i p a l l y what facts he
knows
and
the
second
what
impllcatures
he
could
p l a u s i b l y draw.
told
day.
That
Epithets:
7. I met
a man
yesterday.
The
bastard stole all my money.
8. I ran two miles
the
other
day,
The w h o l e stupid business bored me.
9. Her
house
was
large.
The
i m m e n s i t y made me Jealous.
The
implicature
for
these
direct
references
is
straightforward.
For
the
identity
in
I,
the
implicature
is
a p p r o x i m a t e l y this:
I ° . The A n t e c e d e n t for
the
man
is
the entity r e f e r r e d to by "a man".
This implicature, though
obvious,
must
be
drawn
for
the
second
sentence in I to be
complete; conceivably, ~ _ g
man
could
have
referred
to
some
other object, and so the
l i s t e n e r is m a k i n g a leap -- perhaps only
a
millimeter
leap
-in
drawing
this
implicature.
The same i m p l i c a t u r e s arise in
2 and 3.
As for the p r o n o m i n a l l z a t i o n in 4,
the p r i n c i p l e is the same, but
the
pronoun
(he)
uses
only
a subset of the p r o p e r t i e s
that c h a r a c t e r i z e the
previously
mentioned
man.
Indeed,
there
is
a continuum
of
p r o n o m i n a l i z a t i o n , as for the noun phrase an
elderly ~
:
~he
el der~y ~ l e m a n ,
the e l d e r l y man, ~he ~
,
the ~ ,
the
oldster, the adult, the oerson, and he.
The
B r i d g i n g -- the c o n s t r u c t i o n
of
these
i m p l i c a t u r e s -- is an o b l i g a t o r y part of the
process
of
comprehension.
The
listener
takes
it
as
a
necessary
part
of
u n d e r s t a n d i n g an u t t e r a n c e in context
that
he
be
able
to
identify
the
intended
referents
(in memory)
for
all
referring
expressions.
All r e f e r r i n g e x p r e s s i o n s are
Given information, and so the listener feels
it
necessary
to
succeed
in
a p p l y i n g the
s t r a t e g y o u t l i n e d above, since it i d e n t i f i e s
the
intended referents.
In most instances,
the success of this
strategy
requires
the
listener
to
bridge,
to c o n s t r u c t c e r t a i n
implicatures,
and
so
he
takes
these
implicatures
too
as
a necessary
part of
comprehension.
In
short,
he
considers
i m p l i c a t u r e s to be intrinsic to the i n t e n d e d
message, since without
them
the
utterance
could not refer.
17o
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
!
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
P r o b a b l e parts:
"pronouns" here range from full
to
sparse
specification, but o t h e r w i s e work like I and
I".
The epithets, on the
other
hand,
add
information
about
the
referent, as in the
i m p l i c a t u r e for 7:
7". The a n t e c e d e n t for
the
bastard
is
the
entity
referred
to by "a
man"; that entity is also a bastard.
Epithets
are
surprisingly
restricted
in
productivity, for not Just a n y t h i n g will do,
Replace the bastard in 7 by the rancher,
or
even by the robber, and the b r i d g i n g doesn't
go through; the cancher and robber
seem ,to
refer to someone other than the man.
16. I w a l k e d
into
the
room.
The
windows looked out to the bay.
17. I went shopping yesterday.
The
walk did me good.
18. I left at 8 p.m.
The
darkness
made me jumpy.
There is no
guarantee
that
the
room
has
windows,
that going shopping means walking,
or that it is dark at 8 p.m., but these
are
all
probable
or at least reasonable.
The
i m p l i c a t u r e of 16 is simply this:
16". The room m e n t i o n e d has windows;
they
are
the
Antecedent
for
the
windows,
One can also make direct
reference
to
one
or more
members of a set, as in these
examples:
There a r e , however,
associated
parts
that one would n o r m a l l y not think of and are
only induced by the need for an Antecedent:
Set membership:
10. I met two people yesteday.
The
woman told me a story.
11. I met
two
doctors
yesterday.
The tall one told me a story.
12. I swung three times.
The
first
swing m i s s e d by a mile.
Inducible
19. I walked
into
the
room.
The
c h a n d e l i e r s s p a r k l e d brightly.
20. I went s h o p p i n g yesterday.
The
climb did me good.
21. I left at 8 p.m.
The haste
was
n e c e s s a r y given the circumstances.
Here the Given i n f o r m a i o n has an
Antecedent
that
must
be
picked
out
uniquely from a
p r e v i o u s l y m e n t i o n e d set,
and
to
pick
it
out,
one
must
draw
an
implieature
with
several parts.
For 10, the
implicature
is
a p p r o x i m a t e l y this:
10". One of the entities referred to
by
"two
people" is a w o m a n and the
other is
not;
this
woman
is
the
Antecedent of the woman.
The listener of 10 infers
that
the
other
person is not a woman since that is the o n l y
way the speaker could have picked
out
"the
woman"
uniquely.
There
are
similar
i m p l i c a t u r e s for 11 and 12.
Here we come to
infer
that
the
room
had
chandeliers,
that
going
shopping i n c l u d e d
some climbing, and that the d e p a r t u r e
at
8
p.m.
was
hasty,
but these were c e r t a i n l y
not
necessary
parts
of
these
objects,
events,
or states.
For 19, the i m p l i c a t u r e
would be this:
19". The
room
mentioned
had
chandeliers; they are the A n t e c e d e n t
for the ~
.
Here, then is a clear
case
in which
the
search
for
an
Antecedent
induced
the
p r o p o s i t i o n that a p a r t i c u l a r part
must
be
present.
In
normal
comprehension,
after
reading ~ w a l k e ~ into ~ h e room, we
wouldn't
spontaneously
think
of a c h a n d e l i e r in the
room.
The first part of
19"
clearly
only
arises because of the second s e n t e n c e in 19.
On the other hand, notice
that
19"
is
an
implicature
of
precisely
the same form as
16".
It is Just that the first half of
the
implicature
in 19" cannot be assumed either
a u t o m a t i c a l l y or even probably.
Indirect
reference
by
association.
Given
information
often
has
as
its
A n t e c e d e n t some
piece
of
information
not
directly
mentioned,
but closely a s s o c i a t e d
with
the
object,
event,
or
situation
mentioned
(see
Chafe,
1972).
These
"associated" pieces of i n f o r m a t i o n
vary
in
their p r e d i c t a b i l i t y from the object, event,
or s i t u a t i o n m e n t i o n e d
-from
absolutely
n e c e s s a r y to quite u n n e c e s s a r y -- a l t h o u g h I
will list only three levels:
I n d i r e c t r e f e r e n c e by c h a r a c t e r i z a t i o n "
Often
the Given i n f o r m a t i o n c h a r a c t e r i z e s a
role that s o m e t h i n g i m p l i c i t l y plays ~ in
an
event
or c i r c u m s t a n c e m e n t i o n e d before, and
these
have
a tremendous
variety.
First
there are the n e c e s s a r y roles:
N e c e s s a r y Darts:
13. I looked
into
the
room.
The
ceiling was very high.
14. I hit a home run.
The swing had
been a good one.
15. I looked
into
the
room.
The
size was overwhelming.
ees
~
roles:
20. John was
murdered
yesterday.
The m u r d e r e r got away
"
21. I went ~s h o p p i n g yesterday.
The
time I started was 3 p.m.
22. I trucked the goods to New York.
The truck was full.
In 13, since all rooms
have
ceilings,
and
only
one
ceiling
each, the ceiling can be
definite with the f o l l o w i n g implicature:
13". The
room
mentioned
has
a
ceiling;
that
ceiling
is
the
A n t e c e d e n t of the ceiling.
Next c o n s i d e r a s s o c i a t e d
only probable:
p~rts:
The i m p l i c a t u r e for these is u n c o m p l i c a t e d ,
as i l l u s t r a t e d for 20:
20". Some
one
person
performed
John's
murder;
that
person is the
A n t e c e d e n t for the murderer.
parts that are
171
class
of
Antecedents
gives
reasons
for,
causes
of,
c o n s e q u e n t s to, or c o n c u r r e n c e s
of p r e v i o u s l y m e n t i o n e d events or states.
The first s e n t e n c e in 20 does not claim that
there
was only one murderer, but the second
sentence
forces
this
implicature.
Similarly,
the
verb
trucked in 22 doesn't
say there is only one truck, but the
second
sentence, as part of its implicature, forces
this to be the case.
The first class are reasons:
Reasons:
26. John fell, what he wanted to
do
was scare Mary.
27. John came to the party.
The one
he e x p e c t e d to m e e t was Mary.
28. John had a suit on.
It was Jane
he hoped to impress.
Then come the s t r i c t l y optional roles:
Optional
rolgs:
23. John
died
yesterday.
The
m u r d e r e r got away.
24. John
was
murdered
yesterday.
The knife lay nearby.
25. John went walking at noon.
The
park was beautiful.
In each case the
Antecedent
of
the
Given
information
in
the
second
sentence
is
c o n t a i n e d in a reason for the
first
event.
So
the i m p l i c a t u r e for 26 is s o m e t h i n g like
this:
In 23, the
implicature
is
something
like
this:
23". Some one person caused John
to
die;
that
one
person
is
the
A n t e c e d e n t of the murderer.
In 24, the
implicature
is
that
John
was
stabbed
to
death
with
a knife,
the
i n s t r u m e n t r e f e r r e d to by the knife, and
in
25
the
i m p l i c a t u r e is that where Jo~n went
w a l k i n g was in a park, the place referred to
by the park.
26". John fell for the
reason
he w a n t e d
to
do
something;
s o m e t h i n g is the A n t e c e d e n t to
he w a n t e d t_go do.
that
that
what
Reasons • always
answer
the
question
"what
for?"
and
the A n t e c e d e n t s in 26 through 28
all make use
of
this
kind
of
reason
to
bridge
from
the
first s e n t e n c e ' s event or
state.
These two c a t e g o r i e s -necessary
and
optional
roles
-cover
a lot of ground.
Most
noun
phrases,
for
example,
are
c h a r a c t e r i z i n g , in that they contain as Raft
of their s p e c i f i c a t i o n how
they
relate
to
other
events.
I have given u n a d o r n e d noun
phrases here, but of course they can
become
quite
elaborate.
The m u r d e r e r could have
been
the
person
whQ
murdered
John;
the
knife,
which
is
implicitly
defined
as a
tool, could have been t~e knife
with
which
it
was do~e; and so on.
English contains a
range of cleft
and
pseudo-cleft
sentences
that often fill Just this purpose, as in The
one that m u r d e r e d John £o~ away, and It was
that
man who m u r d e r e d John.
A d j e c t i v e s can
carry out this c h a r a c t e r i z i n g
funcion
too,
as in The g q i l t v party g_q~ away.
What these
a d j e c t i v e s (e.g.
~uiltv), relative
clauses
(e.g.
th~$
murdered
John),
and
derived
nouns (e.g.
the m u r d e r e r ) do
is
pick
out
the
role
the
i n t e n d e d A n t e c e d e n t plays in
the p r e v i o u s l y named events.
Unlike
reasons,
q u e s t i o n "How come?"
causes
answer
the
C~qses:
29. John fell.
What he did was trip
on a rock.
30. John came to the party.
The one
who invited him was Mary.
31. John had a suit on.
It was Jane
who told him to wear it.
The i m p l i c a t u r e in 29
goes
something
like
this:
29". John
fell
because
he
did
something;
that
something
is
the
A n t e c e d e n t for what h e dld.
This type of i m p l i c a t u r e works for 30 and 31
as well.
In
each
case we infer a causal
r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n the
event
presupposed
by
the Given i n f o r m a t i o n of the second s e n t e n c e
and
the
event
mentioned
in
the
first
sentence.
It is not easy to separate "parts" from
"roles" in every instance.
For example, the
knife in 24 is c o n c e i v e d of not as a part of
the action of murdering, as, say, "stabbing"
would be,
but
rather
as
a role
in
the
action, as an instrument.
I have c o n s i d e r e d
the word knife to have
implicit
within
it
the
notion
that it is an instrument, so it
is a c h a r a c t e r i z i n g noun, like murderer, not
s i m p l y a name of a n o n - f u n c t i o n a l class llke
man.
Ultimately, however, this
distinction
may be i m p o s s i b l e to maintain.
Then there are c o n s e q u e n c e s :
Conseouences:
32. John
fell.
What
he
did
was
b r e a k his arm.
33. John came to
the
party
early.
The one he saw first was Mary.
34. John met Sally.
What he did was
tell her about Bill. '
The a p p r o x i m a t e i m p l i c a t u r e
for
32
is
as
follows:
32". John did s o m e t h i n g
because
he
fell;
that
something
is
the
A n t e c e d e n t to what he did.
The s e q u e n c e s in
33 and
34 have
similar
implicatures,
ones
that also depend on the
A n t e c e d e n t ' s being taken as the
consequence
of
the
event
mentioned
in
the
first
Reasons.
causesL
conseouences.
~q~
concurrences.
The
A n t e c e d e n t to the G i v e n
i n f o r m a t i o n of a s e n t e n c e is often an
event
and
not
an
object,
and
then
it
plays
different types
of
rols
with
respect
to
previous
events.
Instead of being agents,
objects, or i n s t r u m e n t s
characterized
with
respect to p r e v i o u s l y m e n t i o n e d events, this
172
I
1
I
i
i
I
i
i
il
!
II
i
|
I
|
I
I!
ii
i
to a party
he gets
drunk,
for
this
implicature makes the fewest assumptions yet
is consistent
with
previous
knowledge
of
parties;
dringking,
and
even
Alex.
In
short, the listener takes
as the
intended
implicature the one that requires the fewest
assumptions, yet whose
assmptions
are all
plausible
given the listener's knowledge of
the speaker, the situation, and facts
about
the world.
sentence.
Last of all are the concurrences:
ConcurreDces:
33. John is a R e p u b l i c a n .
Mary
is
slightly daft too.
34. John
is a Republican.
Mary
isn't so smart either.
35. Alex went to a party last night.
He's
going
to get
drunk
again
tonight.
The implicatures I have discussed
here
differ
from the inferences
we drew from
N!xon's "I am not a crook" in one
important
way.
The
implicatures
I took up were
intended b y t h e speaker to be constructed by
the l i s t e n e r ,
whereas
the inferences from
Nixon's
blunder
were
not.
With
the
implicatures,
as with every other intended
meaning, the speaker had a unique bridge
in
mind,
and
so the
listener
had something
unique
to try
to
figure
out.
But
for
Nixon's
bobble,
after the first unique and
legitimate inference -- denials
presuppose
that the audience does or could believe what
iS being
denied
-- the
inferences
were
completely
unauthorized by the speaker.
So
bridging
is determinate
with
a definite
stopping
rule,
whereas
Unauthorized
inferences typically are not.
For 33 the implicature is approximately this
(see Lakoff, 1971):
33". All
Republicans
are
slightly
daft;
therefore,
John
is slightly
daft, which is the Antecedent to the
Given information someone other than
Mary is slightly daft.
In all three
of these
sequences,
the
listener is expected to draw the implicature
that being in one state, or doing one event,
necessarily
entails
the c o n c u r r e n c e
of
another state, or event.
These are four general ways,
then,
in
w h i c h the listener can bridge from an event
or state mentioned in the first sentence
to
an Antecedent in the second.
These bridging
relations
turn
out
to be very
common~
especially
in narratives.
The most common,
perhaps, is the consequence, which
pops
up
between one sentence and the next every t i m e
chronological order is conveyed.
The Given
information
of the second sentence is taken
as a consequence to the event
mentioned
in
the first.
This brings US, finally, to the
issue
of forward
vs.
backward inferences.
When
we hear the phrase the room in
19, we may
begin
imagining
all
sorts of things about
this room, some necessary, but many
others
optional.
A l l but the n e c e s s a r y l n f e r e n c e s
here, of course,
are unauthorized.
These
"forward"
inferences
differ radically from
the
"backward"
inferences
forced
by the
phrase the f
~
in 19, for the speaker
intended the listener to infer that the room
had a chandelier.
Both types of inferences
occur, I'm sure, but only
the
latter
type
are
fully
determinate,
I suggest that we
might
do well
to study
the determinate
Inferences
first, for'they may well give us
a clue as to what
sorts
of unauthorized
Inferences
would
be likely to be drawn for
the typical utterance.
.
Det~rmlnacv i n ~ / . l ~
In principle,
bridges
n e e d . not
be
deteminate.
One could, if one had the time
and inclination, build
an infinitely
long
bridge,
or sequence of assumptions, to link
one event to the Antecedent of the next.
In
35,
for example# we a s s u m e d t h a t every time
Alex goes to a party he gets drunk.
But w e
could h a v e assumed instead that every time
he goes to a party he meets women, a n d ,all
women
speak in high voices, and high voices
always
remind
him of his
mother,
and
thinking
about
hhs mother always makes him
angry, and whenever he gets angry,
he gets
drunk,
It takes very llttle imagination to
add span after span to a bridge
of this
type.
REFERENCES
Chafe, W.
D i s c o u r s e structure
and
human
knowledge.
In J.B.
Carroll and R.O.
Freedle (eds.),
LanRua~e
ComDrehenslon
and
the
~
of Knowledg@.
Washington: Winston and Sons, 1972.
Yet in a natural discourse, bridges are
always
determinate.
Indeed, I suggest that
they have
a stopping
rule
that
goes
something
llke this:
Build
the shortest
possible bridge that is consistent with
the
Given-New
Contract.
The listener assumes,
based on this
contract,
that
the speaker
intended
him to be able to compute a unique
bridge from his previous
knowledge
to the
intended
antecedent
of the present Given
information.
If the speaker was
certain
that
the
listener
could
do this, he must
have
intended
the
listener
to take
the
shortest
possible
bridge
consistent
with
previous knowledge, for that would make
the
bridge
unique,
as required.
So in 35 the
listener assumes the speaker intended him to
infer no more than that every time Alex goes
Clark,
H.H.,
Psychological
explanation.
Washington:
1974.
and
Haviland,
S.E.
processes
as
llnguistic
In
D.
Cohen
(ed.),
~
Phenomena.
Hemisphere Publishing Corp.,
Clark,
H.H.
and
Haviland,
S.E.
Comprehension
and
the
Given-New
Contract.
In
R.
Freedle
(ed.)
Discourse
~
and ~ / I ~ U ~ .
Hillslde
NJ:
Lawrence
Erlbaum
Associates, in press.
Haviland, S.E.
and Clark, H.H.
What's new?
Acquiring
new
information as a process
173
in comprehension.
Journal
of Verbal
Learning
and Verbal Behavior, 1974, I~,
512-521.
Grice,
H.P.
Logic
and
conversation.
William
James
Lectures,
Harvard
University, 1967.
In P. Cole and
J.L.
Morgan (eds.), Studies in SYntax, Volume
III.
New York: Seminar Press, 1975.
Lakoff,
G.
The
role
of
deduction
in
grammar.
In C.J.
Fillmore
and D.T.
Langendoen
(eds.),
Studies
'in
Linguistics
Semantics.
New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1971.
174