Lascarides, A. and A. Copestake [1998] Pragmatics and Word Meaning, Journal of Linguistics, 34(2), pp387-414, Cambridge University Press.
In this paper, we explore the interaction between lexical semantics and pragmatics. We argue that linguistic processing is informationally encapsulated and utilises relatively simple `taxonomic' lexical semantic knowledge. On this basis, defeasible lexical generalisations deliver defeasible parts of logical form. In contrast, pragmatic inference is open-ended and involves arbitrary real-world knowledge. Two axioms specify when pragmatic defaults override lexical ones. We demonstrate that modeling this interaction allows us to achieve a more refined interpretation of words in a discourse context than either the lexicon or pragmatics could do on their own.
@article{lascarides:copestake:1998,
author = {Alex Lascarides and Ann Copestake},
title = {Pragmatics and Word Meaning},
journal = {Journal of Linguistics},
year = {1998},
volume = {34},
number = {2},
pages = {55--105},
topic = {pragmatics;lexical-semantics;}
}