Context

Abstract

This book is an exploration of the notion of the context in which speech takes place: its role in the interpretation of what is said in context, and in the explanation of the dynamics of discourse. Two different notions of context are distinguished, but the main focus is on the notion of context as common ground, where the common ground is an evolving body of background information that is presumed to be shared by the participants in a conversation. The common ground is the information that is presupposed by speakers and addressees, and a central concern of the first half of the book is with the notion of presupposition, and with the interaction of compositional structure with discourse dynamics in the explanation of presuppositional phenomena. The second half of the book is concerned with information in the common ground that is about the evolving discourse itself, and about the attitudes of the participants in the discourse, including who and where they are, and what they agree and disagree about. It considers the problem of representing self-locating information, of explaining how it can be shared and communicated, and of the way it evolves over time. It discusses the semantic and pragmatics of conditionals and epistemic modals, and their role in representing agreement, disagreement, and the negotiation about how a context should evolve.