In learning language, children have to acquire not only words and constructions, but also the ability to make inferences about a speaker’s intended meaning. For instance, if in answer to the question, ‘what did you put in the bag?’, the speaker says, ‘I put in a book’, then the hearer infers that the speaker put in only a book, by assuming that the speaker is informative. On a Gricean approach to pragmatics, this implicated meaning – a quantity implicature – involves reasoning about the speaker’s epistemic state. This thesis examines children’s development of implicature understanding. It seeks to address the question of what the relationship is in development between quantity, relevance and manner implicatures; whether word learning by exclusion is a pragmatic forerunner to implicature, or based on a lexical heuristic; and whether reasoning about the speaker’s epistemic state is part of children’s pragmatic competence. This thesis contributes to research in experimental and developmental pragmatics by broadening the focus of investigation to include different types of implicatures, the relationship between them, and the contribution of other aspects of children’s development, including structural language knowledge. It makes the novel comparison of word learning by exclusion with a clearly pragmatic skill – implicatures – and opens an investigation of manner implicatures in development. It also presents new findings suggesting that children’s early competence with quantity implicatures in simple communicative situations belies their ongoing development in more complex ones, particularly where the speaker’s epistemic state is at stake. I present a series of experiments based on a sentence-to-picture-matching task, with children aged 3 to 7 years. In the first study, I identify a developmental trajectory whereby word learning by exclusion inferences emerge first, followed by ad hoc quantity and relevance, and finally scalar quantity inferences, which reflects their increasing complexity in a Gricean model. Then, I explore cognitive and environmental factors that might be associated with children’s pragmatic skills, and show that structural language knowledge – and, associated with it, socioeconomic status – is a main predictor of their implicature understanding. In the second study, I lay out some predictions for the development of manner implicatures, find similar patterns of understanding in children and adults, and highlight the particular challenges of studying manner implicatures experimentally. Finally, I focus on children’s ability to take into account the speaker’s epistemic state in pragmatic inferencing. While adults do not derive a quantity implicature appropriately when the speaker is ignorant, children tend to persist in deriving implicatures regardless of speaker ignorance, suggesting a continuing challenge of integrating contextual with linguistic information in utterance interpretation.

Nesta tese, explicitamos os mecanismos de produção de sentido que discursivizam a Bíblia Sagrada como Palavra Revelada de Deus. Mostramos como o texto bíblico, na qualidade de enunciado marcado por pessoa, tempo e espaço definidos, constrói para si o sentido de discurso omnipessoal, omnitemporal e omniespacial promovendo o processo de significação e de permanência que o qualifica como texto fundador do cristianismo. Defendemos a tese de que o texto bíblico discursiviza de modo peculiar o mundo divino e seus atores e produz, em termos de presença, um impacto que mobiliza o enunciatário, como corpo sensível, a um fazer interpretativo que o sanciona e acolhe o conhecimento apresentado como Palavra Revelada de Deus. Dessa maneira, o discurso promove uma transformação no estado epistêmico do enunciatário e demanda dele uma resposta cognitiva e ética orientada pela axiologia cristã. Discutimos a formação e a delimitação do corpo actorial nas narrativas bíblicas do Evangelho de Lucas e em Atos dos Apóstolos. Utilizando o conceito de narratividade da enunciação, defendemos que esses textos constroem, por meio da enunciação enunciada, uma peculiar cena enunciativa em que o enunciador é o sujeito de uma performance que constitui o mundo divino, em que Deus é o arquienunciador e o Destinador transcendente. Esse movimento promove o estabelecimento de um contrato de veridicção também peculiar que faz com que o sobrenatural seja a expectativa do gênero e o meio de configuração e confirmação da presença divina. O deslocamento actancial do enunciador para um destinador compatível com a Palavra Revelada funda-se no conceito greimasiano de Destinador transcendente. Permeiam, pois, os movimentos de garimpo feito da discursivização da Palavra Revelada a Semiótica de raiz greimasiana e, a partir do instrumental da Semiótica tensiva, descrevemos os efeitos subjetais promovidos pela discursivização da presença divina no texto bíblico. O encadeamento de programas narrativos promove um ritmo assomo-resolução que mantém a tensão e o impacto sensível ao longo do texto. É um ritmo que gera também no enunciatário um esforço em busca da reorganização afetiva, o que é descrito como um pervir sensibilizado que ampara a transformação do estado epistêmico do sujeito. Por fim, entendemos ter comprovado que é possível e é viável examinar a Bíblia como um discurso entre outros, de modo que essa transformação epistêmica seja o fundamento para uma série de mudanças cognitivas e éticas que dão suporte a práticas cristãs como a própria leitura bíblica, a que sucedem a memorização de passagens, a participação em estudos bíblicos e sermões e a divulgação do conteúdo e da ética cristã a não crentes. / In this thesis we have specified the mechanisms of production of meaning that put The Holy Bible as discourse making it the Revealed Word of God. We show how the biblical text, as utterance marked by person, time and space set, builds for itself the sense of omni personal, omni temporal and omni spatial speech promoting the process of signification and residence that qualifies it as a founding text of Christianity. We defend the thesis that the biblical text put in discourse in a peculiar way the divine world and his actors and it produces, in terms of a presence, an impact that mobilizes the enunciatary, as sensitive body, to make the interpretive act that sanctions and receive the knowledge submited as Revealed Word of God. In this way, the discourse promotes a transformation in the epistemic state of enunciatary and demand a cognitive and ethical response guided by Christian axiology. We discuss the formation and delimitation of the actorial body in biblical narrative from the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Using the concept of narrativity of enunciation, we demonstrate that, by means of the enunciate enunciation, this texts builds a peculiar enunciative scene in which the enunciator is the subject of a performance. This performance sets up the divine world where God is the arquienunciator and the Transcendent Destinador. This movement promotes the establishment of a peculiar veridiction contract that makes the supernatural to be installed as the expectation of the genre and the means of setting and confirming the divine presence. That actancial displacement of the enunciator to a destinator compatible with the Revealed Word is based on the greimasian concept of Transcendent Destinador. The moviments of minning done on the discourse of the Revealed Word permeate the greimasian semiotics and from the instrumental of the tensive semiotics, we describe the subjectals effects promoted by the constructed discourse of the divine presence in the biblical text. We demonstrate that the chaining of narrative programs promotes an astonishment-resolution rhythm that keeps the tension and the sensitive impact throughout the text. Its a rhythm who generates also in the enunciatary an effort in search of affective reorganization described as a sensibilized exercise that holds the transformation of the epistemic status of the subject. Finally, we understant to have confirm that is possible e viable to examine the Bible as a discourse among others, for what we show that this epistemic transformation is the basis for a series of cognitive and ethical changes that support Christian practices like reading the Bible, the memorization of passages, participating in Bible studies and sermons and the dissemination of Christian content and of ethics to non-believers.

Nesta tese, explicitamos os mecanismos de produção de sentido que discursivizam a Bíblia Sagrada como Palavra Revelada de Deus. Mostramos como o texto bíblico, na qualidade de enunciado marcado por pessoa, tempo e espaço definidos, constrói para si o sentido de discurso omnipessoal, omnitemporal e omniespacial promovendo o processo de significação e de permanência que o qualifica como texto fundador do cristianismo. Defendemos a tese de que o texto bíblico discursiviza de modo peculiar o mundo divino e seus atores e produz, em termos de presença, um impacto que mobiliza o enunciatário, como corpo sensível, a um fazer interpretativo que o sanciona e acolhe o conhecimento apresentado como Palavra Revelada de Deus. Dessa maneira, o discurso promove uma transformação no estado epistêmico do enunciatário e demanda dele uma resposta cognitiva e ética orientada pela axiologia cristã. Discutimos a formação e a delimitação do corpo actorial nas narrativas bíblicas do Evangelho de Lucas e em Atos dos Apóstolos. Utilizando o conceito de narratividade da enunciação, defendemos que esses textos constroem, por meio da enunciação enunciada, uma peculiar cena enunciativa em que o enunciador é o sujeito de uma performance que constitui o mundo divino, em que Deus é o arquienunciador e o Destinador transcendente. Esse movimento promove o estabelecimento de um contrato de veridicção também peculiar que faz com que o sobrenatural seja a expectativa do gênero e o meio de configuração e confirmação da presença divina. O deslocamento actancial do enunciador para um destinador compatível com a Palavra Revelada funda-se no conceito greimasiano de Destinador transcendente. Permeiam, pois, os movimentos de garimpo feito da discursivização da Palavra Revelada a Semiótica de raiz greimasiana e, a partir do instrumental da Semiótica tensiva, descrevemos os efeitos subjetais promovidos pela discursivização da presença divina no texto bíblico. O encadeamento de programas narrativos promove um ritmo assomo-resolução que mantém a tensão e o impacto sensível ao longo do texto. É um ritmo que gera também no enunciatário um esforço em busca da reorganização afetiva, o que é descrito como um pervir sensibilizado que ampara a transformação do estado epistêmico do sujeito. Por fim, entendemos ter comprovado que é possível e é viável examinar a Bíblia como um discurso entre outros, de modo que essa transformação epistêmica seja o fundamento para uma série de mudanças cognitivas e éticas que dão suporte a práticas cristãs como a própria leitura bíblica, a que sucedem a memorização de passagens, a participação em estudos bíblicos e sermões e a divulgação do conteúdo e da ética cristã a não crentes. / In this thesis we have specified the mechanisms of production of meaning that put The Holy Bible as discourse making it the Revealed Word of God. We show how the biblical text, as utterance marked by person, time and space set, builds for itself the sense of omni personal, omni temporal and omni spatial speech promoting the process of signification and residence that qualifies it as a founding text of Christianity. We defend the thesis that the biblical text put in discourse in a peculiar way the divine world and his actors and it produces, in terms of a presence, an impact that mobilizes the enunciatary, as sensitive body, to make the interpretive act that sanctions and receive the knowledge submited as Revealed Word of God. In this way, the discourse promotes a transformation in the epistemic state of enunciatary and demand a cognitive and ethical response guided by Christian axiology. We discuss the formation and delimitation of the actorial body in biblical narrative from the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. Using the concept of narrativity of enunciation, we demonstrate that, by means of the enunciate enunciation, this texts builds a peculiar enunciative scene in which the enunciator is the subject of a performance. This performance sets up the divine world where God is the arquienunciator and the Transcendent Destinador. This movement promotes the establishment of a peculiar veridiction contract that makes the supernatural to be installed as the expectation of the genre and the means of setting and confirming the divine presence. That actancial displacement of the enunciator to a destinator compatible with the Revealed Word is based on the greimasian concept of Transcendent Destinador. The moviments of minning done on the discourse of the Revealed Word permeate the greimasian semiotics and from the instrumental of the tensive semiotics, we describe the subjectals effects promoted by the constructed discourse of the divine presence in the biblical text. We demonstrate that the chaining of narrative programs promotes an astonishment-resolution rhythm that keeps the tension and the sensitive impact throughout the text. Its a rhythm who generates also in the enunciatary an effort in search of affective reorganization described as a sensibilized exercise that holds the transformation of the epistemic status of the subject. Finally, we understant to have confirm that is possible e viable to examine the Bible as a discourse among others, for what we show that this epistemic transformation is the basis for a series of cognitive and ethical changes that support Christian practices like reading the Bible, the memorization of passages, participating in Bible studies and sermons and the dissemination of Christian content and of ethics to non-believers.

The ability to change one's beliefs in a rational manner is one of many facets of the abilities of an intelligent agent. Central to any investigation of belief change is the notion of an epistemic state. This dissertation is mainly concerned with three issues involving epistemic states: 1. How should an epistemic state be represented? 2. How does an agent use an epistemic state to perform belief change? 3. How does an agent arrive at a particular epistemic state? With regard to the first question, note that there are many different methods for constructing belief change operations. We argue that semantic constructions involving ordered pairs, each consisting of a set of beliefs and an ordering on the set of "possible worlds" (or equivalently, on the set of basic independent bits of information) are, in an important sense, more fundamental. Our answer to the second question provides indirect support for the use of semantic structures. We show how well-known belief change operations and related structures can be modelled semantically. Furthermore, we introduce new forms of belief change related operations and structures which are all defined, and motivated, in terms of such semantic representational formalisms. These include a framework for unifying belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning, new versions of entrenchment orderings on beliefs, novel approaches to withdrawal operations, and an expanded view of iterated belief change. The third question is. one which has not received much attention in the belief change literature. We propose to extract extra-logical information from the formal representation of an agent's set of beliefs, which can then be used in the construction of epistemic state. his proposal is just a first approximation, although it seems to have the potential for developing into a full-fledged theory. / Computing / D.Phil.(Computer Science)

The ability to change one's beliefs in a rational manner is one of many facets of the abilities of an intelligent agent. Central to any investigation of belief change is the notion of an epistemic state. This dissertation is mainly concerned with three issues involving epistemic states: 1. How should an epistemic state be represented? 2. How does an agent use an epistemic state to perform belief change? 3. How does an agent arrive at a particular epistemic state? With regard to the first question, note that there are many different methods for constructing belief change operations. We argue that semantic constructions involving ordered pairs, each consisting of a set of beliefs and an ordering on the set of "possible worlds" (or equivalently, on the set of basic independent bits of information) are, in an important sense, more fundamental. Our answer to the second question provides indirect support for the use of semantic structures. We show how well-known belief change operations and related structures can be modelled semantically. Furthermore, we introduce new forms of belief change related operations and structures which are all defined, and motivated, in terms of such semantic representational formalisms. These include a framework for unifying belief revision and nonmonotonic reasoning, new versions of entrenchment orderings on beliefs, novel approaches to withdrawal operations, and an expanded view of iterated belief change. The third question is. one which has not received much attention in the belief change literature. We propose to extract extra-logical information from the formal representation of an agent's set of beliefs, which can then be used in the construction of epistemic state. his proposal is just a first approximation, although it seems to have the potential for developing into a full-fledged theory. / Computing / D.Phil.(Computer Science)