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<Paper uid="P90-1012">
  <Title>NORMAL STATE IMPLICATURE</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="89" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> In the right situation, a speaker can use an unqualified indefinite description without being misunderstood. For example, a typical customer in a typical pet shop who said (la) in response to the clerk's question in (1) would expect to be understood as meaning (lb). The goal of this paper is to formally describe such uses of language. 1 1A similar use of language is noted in \[McC87\]. Mc-Carthy (pp. 29-30) discusses the problem of brid~ng the gap between a &amp;quot;rather direct \[translation\] into first order logic&amp;quot; of a statement of the Missionaries and Cannibals puzzle, and a representation suitable for devising a solution to the puzzle. For example, if the puzzle statement mentions that '% rowboat that seats two is available&amp;quot; and doesn't say that anything is wrong with the boat, the problem-solver may assume that the boat doesn't leak, has oars, etc. Mc-Carthy proposes a general-purpose method for formalizing common sense reasoning, &amp;quot;circumscription&amp;quot;, to solve the problem.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Also, a similar use of language is described in \[GriT5\] (p. 51): &amp;quot;A is standing by an obviously immobilized car and is approached by B; the following exchange takes place: A: I am out of petrol.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> B: There is a garage round the corner.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> ... \[B\] implicates that the garage is, or at least may be open, \[has petrol to sell\], etc.&amp;quot; That tiffs use of language  1. (Clerk A:) May I help you? a. (Customer B:) I'd like to see a parrot.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> b. I \[the speaker\] would like to see a live parrot.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> One problem is that (la) (i.e. its putative representation in (lc)) does not entail (lb) (i.e. its putative representation in (ld)). 2 Another problem is the context-dependence, both spatio-temporal and linguistic, of the relationship of (lb) to (la). In a different spatic~temporal context, such as in a china shop, a speaker might use (la) to convey  (2) rather than (lb).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> 2. I \[the speaker\] would like to see a porcelain  parrot.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> In a different linguistic context, such as if the customer had said (3a) following (la), she would not involves the use of language I have illustrated in (1) can be seen by considering a situation identical to the above except that the dialogue consists of just A's saying &amp;quot;I need a garage.&amp;quot; In other words, Grice's example is of a situation where B has anticipated a request from A which is the same kind of request as (la).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> 2The customer's use of (la) is an indirect speech act, namely, a request to be shown a parrot; other possible realizations of this request include &amp;quot;Show me a parrot&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Can you show me a parrot?&amp;quot;. (The derivation of representations of indirect speech acts has been treated elsewhere \[PAS0\] and is not a concern of this paper.) (Ic) is intended to represent that request by means of a first order language extended with hlgher-order operators such as REQUEST. Also, indefinite descriptions are represented as in \[Web83\]. The status of the existence of the parrot in the real world or discourse context (and the related question as to the proper scope of the existential quantifier), is not relevazlt to the concerns of this paper. My point is that the usual treatments employing a one-to-one translation from surface structure to logical form without consideration of other information will not he able to explain the relationship of (lb) to (1@ normally expect the clerk to think she had meant (lb). A related question is why it would be appropriate (non-redundant) for the customer to say (3b) following (la) if the customer believed that the clerk might mistakenly believe that the customer wanted to see a dead parrot.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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