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<Paper uid="P89-1008">
  <Title>CONVERSATIONALLY RELEVANT DESCRIPTIONS</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="61" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
3 Implicature
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Why should we think that whenever a conversationally relevant description is used an implicature always exists? The reason for this has to do with the fact that discourse is something more than a simple sum of the isolated sentences that constitute its parts. Discourse consists of a sequence of utterances that are tied together in ways that make sere. Typically, there are m~o~uf why a speaker says what he says in the order and manner that he says it, and in general a hearer must have a clue as to what these reasons are (this is why plan recognition is so important for plan-based theories of speech acts). Of course, the hearer cannot hope to know or even guess all of the reasons that led the speaker to participate in the discourse, but he can, indeed must, recognize aome of them. As ALlen, Cohen, Gross, Perranlt, and Sidner have pointed out \[Allen 1978; Perranlt and Cohen 1978; Alien and Perranlt 1978; Allen and Perranlt 1980; Gross and Sidner 1986; Sidner 1983; Sidner 1985\], the recognition of what the speaker is &amp;quot;up to e contributes to coherence and comprehensibility of the discourse and is essential for the hearer's generation of an appropriate response.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Now, the unstated reasons whose recognition is required for discourse coherence are by de~nition implicated, since they must be inferred in order to preserve the assumption that the speaker is being cooperative. This is precisely what an implicature is. Moreover, turning to conversationally relevant descriptions, we should observe that by their very nature, they cannot be merely functionally relevant.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> That is, the assumption that they are intended merely as tools for identification is not enough to make the discourse coherent. This, after all, is pre.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> cisely what distinguishes functionally relevant descriptious from the conversationally relevant ones.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Hence, additional assumptions are required in order to make sense of the way the speaker uses the latter descriptions. These assumptious themselves must be implicated.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Thus, in using a conversationally relevant description, the speaker implicates something. The content of implicatures that accompany such descriptions depends on circumstances, but they all share a rather specific form. My method in uncovering this form is this: taking the heater's perspective, I begin by postulating that if the referring expremion used by the speaker is merely functionally relevant, the speaker must be viewed as uncooperative. I then outline a sequence of deductions that eliminate the apparent conflict between what the speaker says and the assumption of his cooperation.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="61" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.1 Recognition
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> The general mechanism for the recognition of a conversationally relevant description follows the familiar Gricean path. The hearer begins by assuming that the referring expression is only functionally relevant, and then gets into diflicnlties. An obvious strategy is illustrated by Example (3) above.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> At first glance it appears that the mayor violated the third maxim of manner ('Be briei~): he used  a long and cumbersome description ('the city with the largeat Jewish couunltym), although a much shorter and functionally superior one is available ('New York'}. However, a hearer can easily make sense of the mayor's behavior by assuming that the referring expression is not merely a tool for identification. That is, it must be conversationally relevant. Another strategy for letting the hearer recoga conversationally relevant description is illustrated by &amp;quot;Smith's murderer ~ (interpreted &amp;quot;attributively'). There, the assumption that the description is only functionally relevant would lead to an inexplicable violation of the second maxim of quality.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> It is obvious that no one knows yet who murdered Smith. Thus, if the description is only functionally relevant, the hearer would be pussled as to how the speaker could form an opinion about the sanity of a person whose identity is unknown to him.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="61" end_page="61" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
3.2 Asserted universality
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> When a conversationally relevant description is used (or implied), the proposition which the speaker is trying to express lends itself to the Russellian analysis. Thus, if a speaker asserts a statement of the form</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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