Definite Descriptions and the Dynamics of Mental States
Massimo Poesio · 1993
I propose a situation-theoretic formalization of the organization of information in the common ground which makes it possible to formulate principles about (i) the way an interpretation for definite descriptions is chosen, and (ii) how the information used for interpreting definite descriptions changes during the conversation. 1 INTRODUCTION Interpreting definite descriptions requires using information about different mental attitudes---in particular, attention, intention, and (shared) belief ---and keeping track of the evolution of this `mental state' [Hobbs, 1979; Heim, 1982; Cohen, 1984; Grosz and Sidner, 1986] . I propose to characterize the reasoning processes involved in the interpretation of definite descriptions using a Situation Theoretic logic called Episodic Logic [Hwang and Schubert, 1993; Hwang, 1992] and adapting Perrault's action-based model of belief update [Perrault, 1990] . The main ideas I discuss here are: . Following Hawkins [Hawkins, 1978] and Barwise and Perry ...