Polyphony and Argumentative Semantics

Polyphony and Argumentative Semantics Jean-Michel Grandchamp* LIMSI-CNRS B.P. 133 91403 ORSAY CEDEX FRANCE kMevala@limsi.fr Abstract We extract from sentences a superstruc- ture made of argumentative operators and connectives applying to the remaining set of terminal sub-sentences. We found the argumentative interpretation of utterances on a semantics defined at the linguistic le- vel. We describe the computation of this particular semantics, based on the cons- traints that the superstructure impels to the argumentative power of terminal sub- sentences. 1 Introduction Certain utterance structures contain linguistic clues that constrain their interpretation on an argumen- tative basis. The following example illustrates these constraints: I was robbed yesterday... (1) ...but luckily I had little money. (2) ...but luckily I had a little money. (3) ...but unfortunately I had little money. (4) ...but unfortunately I had a little money. We describe and compute the signification of such sentences by specifying how the key words (in italics) constrain the argumentative power of the terminal sub-sentences (TSS) "I was robbed yesterday" and "I had money". They may all be interpreted in a relevant context, but hints for recognizing the need of an "odd" context are given. For instance, in (1) and (2), the robbery is considered bad because of the opposition introduced by "but", to something con- sidered happy because of "luckily". Holding money is considered good in (2) and bad in (1) because of the general structure of the sentence and the oppo- sition between "little" and "a little". In (3) and (4), the robbery is considered good, while in (3) money is normally considered good too, and in (4) (the od- dest) it is considered bad (imagine a speaker who * This research is supported by SNCF, Direction de la Recherche, D6partement RP, 45 rue de Londres, 75379 Paris Cedex 08 France. usually likes to be robbed just to see the disappoint- ment because he holds no money). We see on these examples that TSS's are argumentatively ambiguous and modifiers constrain them. In this paper we propose, for a given utterance, the construction of the signification of the under- lying sentence, which captures its polyphonic and argumentative aspects. The signification of a sent- ence is viewed as the application of an argumentative super-structure to the signification of TSS's, free of operators or connectives. The signification must fi- nally be interpreted in the context of the utterance. 2 Linguistic Background Our model rests on a framework inspired by Ducrot (1980). He defines an utterance as a concrete occur- rence of an abstract entity called a sentence. Under- standing an utterance means computing its meaning, which may be formalized in different contexts (such as speech acts or beliefs). The meaning is built from the context and from the signification of the sent- ence which :lescribes all potential uses of the lin- guistic matter. Ducrot's integrated pragmafics also claims that many phenomena usually described at the pragmatic level, must be described in the signi- fication (such as argumentation). Within Ducrot's framework, we use his theory of polyphony, topoi …

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