WHO:	Craige Roberts , Department of Linguistics, Ohio State University
TOPIC:	Information Structure in Discourse: A Basic Pragmatic Framework
ABSTRACT:	This talk will give an introduction and overview of my on-going work on Information Structure, a framework for interpretation based on the way that interlocutors' shared information is organized and evolves in the course of interpretation. Central to thi s framework are three elements, brought together from other lines of investigation: 1) the view of discourse as a game, 2) the view of discourse as cooperative inquiry, and 3) the view of discourse interpretation as organized and driven by the interlocuto rs' mutually recognized plans and the intentions that underlie them. I argue that all the central phenomena generally recognized as pragmatic can find integrated explanations in such a framework: conversational and conventional implicature, focus, topich ood, and speech acts. Even rhetorical relations and turn-taking can be naturally explicated in such a framework. Contra other work, I do not take information structure to be a level of linguistic representation; rather, I conjecture that it is an interf ace between specifically linguistic processes and more general cognitive structures. Ãô
WHEN:	1/28/2003 3:30:00 PM
WHERE:	Gamble Room Rush Rhees Library

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