Context change potential

In formal semantics, context change potential (CCP) is the way new information reshapes existing understanding. It is a real feature of natural language observed, modeled and predicted by researchers. As speakers use natural language, they offer and interpret new contributions in the context of what has already passed in their discourse.

(1a) A: You didn't get to yesterday's out-of-town meeting. [context]

(1b) B: So far.

(2a) A: It's a lovely day. [context]

(2b) B: So far.

In the example dialogue fragments, although the same phrase so far is offered in both replies, the prior contexts establish different analyses of the meanings of the phrase. In the first example, the reply (1b) modifies the prior context (1a) by providing an explanation: B did not make the meeting because it was too far to travel. In the second example, the reply (2b) also modifies the prior context (2a): B agrees with A that the day has been lovely up to this point, but appears to implicate concern about the future. In either case, after B has contributed a reply, there is now a new, different context against which future contributions to the dialogue must be analysed to establish their meaning.

(1a) A: You didn't get to yesterday's out-of-town meeting. [context]

(1b) B: So far. [context]

(1c) A: It started early. [you slept in?]

(1d) B: No car. [no]

As a discourse progresses, the "picture" provided by the context is "filled in". Sometimes parts of the picture are "erased" then "redrawn" in alternative ways. The insight of CCP analysis of discourse is that language use doesn't simply function to denote reference to the objective world directly, significantly it also functions by constructing and modifying a context shared by discourse participants.

CCP is the foundation of dynamic semantics, giving rise to the slogan "meaning is context change potential". Earlier work in semantics attempted to show how the meaning of many sentences could be directly represented by logical models of the objective world. Finding a way of representing the meaning of difficult sentences led to seeing the need for accounting for CCP. Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) did this by viewing successive contributions to discourse as dynamically modifying a model of the world—the changing context.

See also

• Hans Kamp
• Lambda calculus
• Montague grammar
• Possible world
• Robert Stalnaker

Bibliography

• Blutner, Reinhard. "Some aspects of optimality in natural language interpretation". Journal of Semantics 17 (2000): 186–216.
• Chierchia, Gennaro. "Towards a dynamic theory of propositions and properties". Journal of Logic, Language and Information 3/2 (1994): 141–168.
• McNally, Louise. "Bare plurals in Spanish are interpreted as properties". Catalan Journal of Linguistics 3 [The Semantics of Nominals] (2004): 115–133.
• Peregrin, Jaroslav and Klaus von Heusinger. "Dynamic semantics with choice functions". In Urs Egli and Klaus von Heusinger (eds). Choice Functions in Natural Language Semantics. Arbeitspapier 71. Universität Konstanz (2003): 43–67.