Language and Equilibrium

Cover......Page 1
Title Page......Page 5
Contents......Page 11
List of Figures......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 15
1.1 Brief Background......Page 17
1.2 The Origins of Symbols......Page 24
1.3 Information and Meaning......Page 26
1.4.1 Reference......Page 30
1.4.2 Use......Page 34
1.4.3 Indeterminacy......Page 39
1.4.4 Equilibrium......Page 41
1.5 The Scope of Game Theory in Language......Page 48
1.6 A Note to the Reader......Page 50
2.1 The Informational Space......Page 53
2.2 Situation Theory......Page 57
2.3 The Space of Infons......Page 62
2.3.1 A Lattice of Infons......Page 64
2.3.2 Conditioned Infons......Page 66
2.3.3 A New Operation......Page 69
2.3.6 Infons and Shannon’s Information Theory......Page 74
2.3.7 Questions and Commands......Page 76
2.4 Ontological Maps......Page 77
2.5 Agents......Page 78
2.6 Language and its Situations......Page 79
2.7 An Example......Page 82
2.8 Language and World......Page 84
3 Situated Choice......Page 87
3.1 Choice in General......Page 88
3.2 Choice in Language......Page 99
3.2.2 The Informational Constraint I......Page 101
3.2.3 The Flow Constraint F......Page 103
3.3 A Closer Look at Games of Partial Information......Page 113
3.3.1 The Form of the Game Tree in g₁......Page 114
3.3.2 Benefits and Costs......Page 116
3.3.3 Probabilities......Page 118
3.3.4 Common Knowledge and Subjective Games of Partial Information......Page 121
3.3.5 Perfect Bayesian Equilibrium and Other Solution Concepts......Page 126
3.3.6 The “Glocal” Game......Page 136
4 Equilibrium Semantics......Page 139
4.1 Aspects of Meaning......Page 140
4.2.2 The Conventional Constraint......Page 141
4.2.3 The Informational Constraint......Page 143
4.2.4 The Flow Constraint......Page 146
4.3 SCIF: Equilibrium Semantics and Locutionary Meaning......Page 161
4.4 S(C)IF: Equilibrium Semantics and Illocutionary Meaning......Page 166
4.4.1 Enrichment......Page 168
4.4.2 The Resolution of Issues......Page 171
4.4.3 The Identification of Issues......Page 176
4.4.4 Implicature......Page 178
4.5 Meaning and the Gricean Properties......Page 181
4.6 The Interdependence of Locutionary and Illocutionary Meanings......Page 184
4.7 Propositions......Page 188
4.8 Computing Meaning......Page 189
4.9 A Garden Path Sentence......Page 192
4.9.1 The Syntactic Constraint......Page 194
4.9.2 The Conventional Constraint......Page 195
4.9.4 The Flow Constraint......Page 196
4.9.5 The Equilibrium Semantics of the Garden Path Sentence......Page 198
4.10 Structural Ambiguity......Page 200
4.11 The Universality of Games of Partial Information......Page 202
4.12 Strategic Inference......Page 206
5 Indeterminacy......Page 211
5.1 The Role of Intentions......Page 212
5.2 Probabilistic Communication......Page 214
5.3 Speaker Meaning and Addressee Meaning......Page 219
5.3.1 An Example......Page 220
5.3.2 Subjective Games......Page 221
5.5 Implicit Illocutionary Games......Page 224
5.6 Meaning and Truth......Page 225
5.7 The Ambiguity of Texts......Page 228
5.9 Generalized Content......Page 232
5.10 Defining Communication and Speaker Meaning......Page 234
5.11 Recapitulation......Page 245
6 Noun Phrases......Page 247
6.1 Definite Descriptions......Page 249
6.1.1 The Core Account......Page 252
6.1.2 Comparing Russell + Grice with My Account......Page 259
6.1.3 The Multiple Uses of Definite Descriptions......Page 261
6.1.4 Deriving the Content of Definite Descriptions......Page 262
6.1.5 Misdescription......Page 275
6.1.6 Kripke’s Arguments Against Donnellan......Page 278
6.1.7 Definite Descriptions and Discourse Anaphora......Page 283
6.2 Indefinite Descriptions......Page 284
6.3 Names......Page 285
6.4 Generalized Quantifiers......Page 287
6.5 Resource Situations......Page 293
7 Conclusion......Page 299
7.1.1 The Syntactic Constraint S......Page 300
7.1.2 The Conventional Constraint C......Page 307
7.1.3 The Informational Constraint I......Page 311
7.1.4 The Flow Constraint F......Page 312
7.2 Discourse......Page 313
7.3 The Semantics of Formal Languages......Page 314
7.4 How We Compute Meaning and Structure......Page 315
7.5 Symbol Systems and Equilibrium......Page 317
7.6 Metaphysics and Equilibrium......Page 318
Appendix A: The Mathematical Model......Page 319
A.1 The Background......Page 325
A.2 Some Prior Basic Elements......Page 327
A.3 Games of Incomplete Information......Page 329
A.4 Games of Partial Information......Page 330
A.6 Solution Concepts......Page 341
Appendix B: An Exercise......Page 343
References......Page 345
Index......Page 355