Incompatibility in context: A diagnosis of correction

Abstract

Presupposing the Logical Description Grammar of van Leusen & Muskens (2003), we present an analysis of corrections in discourse. In line with Asher (1995) it is argued that the defining characteristic of corrections is incompatibility: corrections require the presence of a contextually supported alternative to the corrective claim such that the two are inconsistent in the context of interpretation. A large range of accommodation and pragmatic strengthening effects is accounted for in terms of this requirement. We examine the relation between incompatibility, the update effect of corrections, felicity conditions on informative, consistent, and local updating, and focus interpretation. Corrections induce nonmonotonic updates of the context. Allowing the update effect of discourse contributions to be underspecified, we argue that the nonmonotonicity of updates induced by corrections is a consequence of the interaction of the incompatibility requirement and the general felicity conditions on updating. Furthermore, we propose that under certain assumptions about focus interpretation, incompatibility in corrections can be taken to be established via information structural constraints.