In this paper, we explore the interaction between lexical semantics and pragmatics. 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, pragmatics is open-ended and involves arbitrary knowledge. Two axioms specify when pragmatic defaults override lexical ones. We demonstrate that modelling 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.
@inproceedings{lascarides:copestake:1995,
author = {Alex Lascarides and Ann Copestake},
title = {Pragmatics and Word Meaning},
booktitle = {Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT-5)},
year = {1995},
}