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<Paper uid="P85-1025">
  <Title>Some Pragmatic Issues in the Planning of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="198" type="abstr">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> In this paper we examine the pragmatic knowledge an utterance-planning system must have in order to produce certain kinds of definite and indefinite noun phrases. An utterance.planning system, like other planning systems, plans actions to satisfy an agent's goals, but allows some of the actions to consist of the utterance of sentences. This approach to language generation emphasizes the view of language as action, and hence assigns a critical role to pragmatics. null The noun phrases under consideration in this paper are those that presuppose the existence of an individual that could be described by the description D. In other words, when a speaker uses a noun phrase with description P, it makes sense to ask the question &amp;quot;Which x is P? ~ This criterion includes more than strictly referential uses of noun phrases, because it is not necessary for the speaker or hearer to k'now what individual is described by D -- it is merely necessary that the existence of such an individual is presupposed. Consider the attributive description in sentence (l}: The runner who wins tomorrow's race will qualify (I) for the semifinals.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The description &amp;quot;runner who wins tomorrow's race&amp;quot; cannot be referential, because, under ordinary circumstances, the speaker could not possibly know who it is that wouid fit the description. Nevertheless, it is still reasonable to ask which runner will win tomorrow's race, because the description is objectively true of some individual.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> This qualification excludes noun phrases whose referents are bound within the scope of a universal quantifier, such as &amp;quot;the woman ...&amp;quot; in (2) Every man wants to meet the woman of his dreams.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> For a similar reason, indefinites within the scope of a sentential negation axe excluded because they introduce an existential quantifier, which, under the scope of negation, is really a universal quantifier. Therefore, &amp;quot;a screwdriver&amp;quot; in  (3) John does not have a screwdriver.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> is excluded because, under most circumstances of its use, there is no screwdriver that the description in sentence (3) denotes. Predicate nnminal~ are excluded, as in the sentence null (4) John wants to be a doctor.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> because one would not ask the question &amp;quot;Which doctor does  John want to be?* The choice of this particular class of noun phrases is motivated by considerations relevant to planning. When a speaker communicates with a hearer, he often intends the hearer to hold some attitudes toward individuals in the domain. This is particularly true in task-oriented dialogues where the hearer may have to locate and manipulate things in his environment.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> The theory of utterance planning assumed for the purpose of this analysis is the one embodied in KAMP lAppelt, 1985). Individuals are represented by terms in an intensional logic of knowledp~e and acti,m. A metalanguage is used to axiomatize the relationship that holds between the terms and the individuals they denote. The terms can consist of predicates combined with an iota operator, as in</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> The predicates O~ are called descriptor.9, and their conjunction. D, is called a description. Because most noun phrases employ terms that are constructed from ;x description, often the words &amp;quot;term&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;description ~ aro ,,sed interchangeably. null The propositional content ~,f the spe;~ker'~ ~ltterance is represented by a sentence in the intensi~,nal \[ogm involving the terms discussed above. Uttering a sentence entails performing a number of actions, called concept activation actions, which result in the terms constituting the proposition receiving a special status called &amp;quot;active. &amp;quot; The proposition  that the speaker intends to convey is a predication involving the active terms. Referring is a particular type of concept activation action with relatively strict conditions on what must be mutually believed by the speaker and hearer for the action to succeed. Searle {1969) presents an analysis of referring as a speech act and dismisses many uses of noun phrases as nonreferring. Such nonreferring noun phrases occur very frequently, and the considerations that underly their planning share much in common with those that underly actual referring. Therefore, the concept activation action provides a suitable generalization that allows a plan-based treatment of many more uses of noun phrases.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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