Asher, N. and A. Lascarides [2001] Indirect Speech Acts, Synthese, 128(1--2), pp183--228, Kluwer Academic Press.
In this paper, we address several puzzles concerning speech acts, particularly indirect speech acts. We show how a formal semantic theory of discourse interpretation can be used to define speech acts and to avoid murky issues concerning the metaphysics of action. We provide a formally precise definition of indirect speech acts, including the subclass of so-called conventionalized indirect speech acts. This analysis draws heavily on parallels between phenomena at the speech act level and the lexical level. First, we argue that, just as co-predication shows that some words can behave linguistically as if they're `simultaneously' of incompatible semantic types, certain speech acts behave this way too. Secondly, as Horn and Bayer (1984) and others have suggested, both the lexicon and speech acts are subject to a principle of blocking or ``preemption by synonymy'': Conventionalised indirect speech acts can block their `paraphrases' from being interpreted as indirect speech acts, even if this interpretation is calculable from Gricean-style principles. We provide a formal model of this blocking, and compare it with existing accounts of lexical blocking.
@article{asher:lascarides:2001,
author = {Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides},
year = {2001},
title = {Indirect Speech Acts},
journal = {Synthese},
volume = {128},
number = {1--2},
pages = {183--228}
}