Probabilistic pragmatics, or why Bayes’ rule is probably important for pragmatics

Abstract

Probabilistic pragmatics aspires to explain certain regularities of language use and interpretation as behavior of speakers and listeners who want to satisfy their conversational interests in a context that may contain a substantial amount of uncertainty. This approach differs substantially from more familiar approaches in theoretical pragmatics. To set it apart, we here work out some of its key distinguishing features and show, by way of some simple examples, how probabilistic pragmatics instantiates these.

Keywords

• pragmatic reasoning
• context
• experimental data
• referential descriptions
• scalar implicatures
• speech acts