Exhaustivity and anti-exhaustivity in the Rational Speech Act framework #
A listener who hears A where A and B was available infers that B is false. In the baseline Rational Speech Act model a prior biased towards the world of both A and B reverses the inference: the listener is anti-exhaustive exactly when the log odds of the prior exceed the cost disadvantage of A and not B over A and B, whatever the rationality. Lexical uncertainty over free strengthenings and the wonky-world models stay anti-exhaustive for suitable priors, while grammatical lexical uncertainty, the lexical-intentions speaker and the supervaluationist speaker keep the posterior of both below the prior whenever A and B costs no more than A and not B. The experiment finds no anti-exhaustivity.
We state each model on the substrate's kernel face and prove the paper's conditions on reals
for an arbitrary prior, rationality and costs. The lexical-uncertainty models and the Bayesian
wonky model are given in the paper both as a joint posterior over worlds and a latent and as the
inverse of the speaker averaged over the latent, and the two agree (luJointListener_fst,
bayesWonkyJointListener_fst).
TODO #
- The non-Bayesian wonky model's limits in the prior and the Bayesian wonky model's wonkiness threshold are not derived.
References #
- A. Cremers, E. G. Wilcox, B. Spector, Exhaustivity and anti-exhaustivity in the RSA framework (2023)
- M. C. Frank, N. D. Goodman, Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games (2012)
- J. Degen et al., Wonky worlds (2015)
- B. Spector, The pragmatics of plural predication (2017)
- L. Bergen, R. Levy, N. D. Goodman, Pragmatic reasoning through semantic inference (2016)
- M. Franke, L. Bergen, Theory-driven statistical modeling for semantics and pragmatics (2020)
Worlds, messages and interpretations #
In one world only A is true, in the other both A and B are.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.instDecidableEqWorld x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.instDecidableEqMessage x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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The literal meaning of each message.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.truth CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Message.a x✝ = true
- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.truth CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Message.aAndB CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World.wab = true
- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.truth CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Message.aAndB CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World.wa = false
- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.truth CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Message.aAndNotB CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World.wa = true
- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.truth CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Message.aAndNotB CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World.wab = false
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A has the scale-mate A and B as its alternative.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.alternatives x✝ = [CremersWilcoxSpector2023.truth x✝]
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The exhaustified meaning, by innocent exclusion of the alternatives.
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Exhaustification reads A as A and not B.
A and B has no stronger alternative.
A and not B has no stronger alternative.
An interpretation function under which every message is true somewhere and every world is described by some message, so that the literal listener and the speaker are defined.
The truth value of a message at a world.
Every message is true somewhere.
Every world is described by some message.
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The extension of a message.
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- m.extension u = {w : CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World | m.sat u w = true}
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The literal interpretation.
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The exhaustified interpretation, A read as A and not B.
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The anti-exhaustive interpretation of the free lexical-uncertainty model, A read as A and B.
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The two grammatical interpretations, literal and exhaustified.
- lit : Interpretation
- exh : Interpretation
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.instDecidableEqInterpretation x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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The meaning of a grammatical interpretation.
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The three interpretations of the free lexical-uncertainty model.
- lit : FreeInterpretation
- exh : FreeInterpretation
- antiExh : FreeInterpretation
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.instDecidableEqFreeInterpretation x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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The meaning of a free interpretation.
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The wonky-world listener considers two backgrounds, in which the speaker assumes a uniform prior or the measured one.
- wonky : Background
- measured : Background
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.instDecidableEqBackground x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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The question under discussion asks whether A holds, which the two worlds answer alike, or which world obtains.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.instDecidableEqQUD x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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A sum over the three messages.
A sum over the two grammatical interpretations.
A sum over the three free interpretations.
A sum over the two backgrounds.
A sum over the two questions.
Priors and parameters #
A model is fixed by the prior probability of both A and B, the rationality, and the costs of the two conjunctions, A itself costing nothing.
- p : ℝ
The prior probability of the world where both A and B hold.
- lam : ℝ
The rationality, the paper's λ.
- cAndB : ℝ
The cost of A and B.
- cAndNotB : ℝ
The cost of A and not B.
- p_pos : 0 < self.p
The world of both has positive prior probability.
- p_lt_one : self.p < 1
The world of A alone has positive prior probability.
- lam_pos : 0 < self.lam
The rationality is positive.
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The cost of a message.
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The cost factor of a message is the exponential of its cost scaled by the rationality.
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- s.costFactor u = ENNReal.ofReal (Real.exp (-(s.lam * s.cost u)))
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The paper's f_λ is the logistic function with rate the rationality.
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The weight of a world under the measured prior.
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- s.priorWeight CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World.wa = ENNReal.ofReal (1 - s.p)
- s.priorWeight CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World.wab = ENNReal.ofReal s.p
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The measured prior over the two worlds.
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- s.prior = ∑ w : CremersWilcoxSpector2023.World, s.priorWeight w • MeasureTheory.Measure.dirac w
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The prior is positive on both worlds.
The wonky prior is uniform over the two worlds.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.wonkyPrior = ProbabilityTheory.uniformOn Set.univ
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The wonky prior gives each world a half.
The wonky prior is positive on both worlds.
The wonky prior of a world, as a real.
The literal listener and the speaker under an interpretation (eqs. 1 to 3) #
The literal listener conditions the prior on the message's extension (eq. 1).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.L0 P m = RSA.listener P (RSA.truthful m.extension)
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The speaker is the softmax of the literal listener's log probability less the cost, scaled by the rationality (eqs. 2 and 3).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.speaker P m s = RSA.speaker s.lam s.cost (⇑(CremersWilcoxSpector2023.L0 P m)) MeasureTheory.Measure.dirac
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The weight of a message is finite.
A message true at one world only puts all its mass there.
On reals, the weight of a message true at a world is the exponential of the paper's scaled utility.
Between two messages true at a world, the speaker prefers the one of higher utility.
When exactly two messages are true at a world, the speaker's use of one is the logistic function of the utility difference.
The literal listener with the measured prior.
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- s.L0 m = CremersWilcoxSpector2023.L0 s.prior m
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The speaker with the measured prior in the literal listener.
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- s.speaker m = CremersWilcoxSpector2023.speaker s.prior m s
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Closed forms: the speaker's use of A is a logistic function #
In the world of both, the literal speaker's use of A is the logistic function of the cost of A and B plus the log prior (eq. A.3).
In the world of A alone, the use of A is the logistic function of the cost of A and not B plus the log prior (eq. A.2).
Under the exhaustified interpretation A is as informative as A and not B in the world of A alone, so its use is the logistic function of the latter's cost.
Under the exhaustified interpretation A is false in the world of both.
Under the anti-exhaustive interpretation A is as informative as A and B in the world of both.
Under the anti-exhaustive interpretation A is false in the world of A alone.
The baseline model (§3) #
In the world of both, the speaker prefers A to A and B exactly when the information A and B would add, the negated log prior, does not exceed its cost (6a).
In the world of A alone, the speaker prefers A and not B to A exactly when the negated log prior exceeds its cost (7).
The pragmatic listener (eq. 4).
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The listener is anti-exhaustive, the posterior of both A and B exceeding the prior, exactly when the speaker uses A more in the world of both than in the world of A alone (A.4).
The listener is anti-exhaustive exactly when the log odds of the prior exceed the cost disadvantage of A and not B over A and B, whatever the rationality (6b).
Lexical uncertainty (§4.3) #
The listener holds independent priors over worlds and interpretation functions, infers both from the message and marginalizes on the interpretation, which is to invert the speaker averaged over the interpretations (item 4). The grammatical version (EXH-LU) has the literal and the exhaustified interpretations, and the free version (FREE-LU) adds the anti-exhaustive one.
The speaker marginalised over equiprobable interpretation functions (item 4 of the §4.3 model).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.luSpeaker s meaning = ∑ i : I, (ProbabilityTheory.uniformOn Set.univ) {i} • s.speaker (meaning i)
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Every message is used somewhere, so is heard with positive probability.
The Bayesian inverse of the averaged speaker (item 4 of the §4.3 model).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.luListener s meaning = RSA.listener s.prior ⇑(CremersWilcoxSpector2023.luSpeaker s meaning)
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The joint posterior over worlds and interpretation functions, under independent priors over the two.
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The joint posterior marginalized on interpretation functions is the listener of item 4: the two descriptions of the model in §4.3 agree.
Grammatical lexical uncertainty blocks anti-exhaustivity whenever A and B costs no more than A and not B. The exhaustified interpretation never uses A in the world of both but uses it in the world of A alone more than the literal interpretation uses it in the world of both.
Free lexical uncertainty is anti-exhaustive exactly when the literal and anti-exhaustive uses of A in the world of both outweigh the literal and exhaustified uses in the world of A alone.
With equal costs, free lexical uncertainty is anti-exhaustive exactly when the baseline is, namely for a prior biased towards the world of both.
Lexical intentions (§4.4) #
The literal listener of a message under a chosen interpretation (item 1 of the §4.4 model).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.liL0 s = RSA.listener s.prior (RSA.truthful fun (x : CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Message × CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Interpretation) => x.2.meaning.extension x.1)
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The speaker over messages and interpretations (item 3 of the §4.4 model).
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The speaker's messages, the interpretations marginalised (item 5 of the §4.4 model).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.liMessageSpeaker s = (CremersWilcoxSpector2023.liSpeaker s).map Prod.fst
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The lexical-intentions speaker's use of a message sums its two interpretations.
The lexical-intentions speaker's use of a message, on reals.
The weight of a message under an interpretation is finite.
In the world of both, the lexical-intentions speaker uses A, under its literal interpretation only, against the two interpretations of A and B.
In the world of A alone, the lexical-intentions speaker uses A under both interpretations, the exhaustified one as informative as A and not B.
A message true at a world is used there under its literal interpretation.
Every message is used somewhere, so is heard with positive probability.
The pragmatic listener of the lexical-intentions model (item 6 of the §4.4 model).
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The lexical-intentions model blocks anti-exhaustivity whenever A and B costs no more than A and not B, since A is never likelier in the world of both than in the world of A alone.
The supervaluationist model (§4.2) #
The coarse question puts both worlds in one cell, and the fine one distinguishes them.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.QUD.coarse.cell x✝ = Set.univ
- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.QUD.fine.cell x✝ = {x✝}
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The literal listener's mass, under an interpretation, on the cell of a world in a question (item 3 of the §4.2 model, conditioned on the question).
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.cell s i q u w = ((s.L0 i.meaning) u) (q.cell w)
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The coarse question has one cell, which carries all the mass.
The fine question's cells are the worlds.
The supervaluationist weight is the geometric mean over the two interpretations, taken equiprobable, of the literal listener's mass on the cell, raised to the rationality, times the cost factor. The prior of the question, common to every message, is left out (item 4 of the §4.2 model).
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The supervaluationist speaker, at a world and a question (item 5 of the §4.2 model).
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Under the coarse question every message is true on the one cell, so the speaker does not depend on the world.
The joint prior over worlds and questions, independent.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.svJoint s Q = s.prior.prod Q
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The pragmatic listener, jointly over worlds and questions (item 6 of the §4.2 model).
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The posterior of both A and B falls below its prior, for every prior in the open interval, every prior on the questions that gives the fine one positive probability, and every cost, since the fine question contributes a use of A in the world of A alone and none in the world of both (Appendix A.3, the listener).
The wonky-world models (§4.1) #
The speaker's prior is uniform in the wonky background and the measured one otherwise.
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The speaker under a background, with the background's prior in the literal listener (items 1 to 3 of the §4.1 model).
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The wonky speaker uses A in the world of both with the logistic function of the cost of A and B less the log of two.
The wonky speaker uses A in the world of A alone with the logistic function of the cost of A and not B less the log of two.
The measured speaker's use of A in the world of both.
The measured speaker's use of A in the world of A alone.
The wonky background has weight the wonkiness ω, and the measured one 1 - ω.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.bgWeight ω CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Background.wonky = ENNReal.ofReal ω
- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.bgWeight ω CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Background.measured = ENNReal.ofReal (1 - ω)
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Some background has positive weight.
The prior on backgrounds puts ω on the wonky background and 1 - ω on the measured
one.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.bgPrior ω = ∑ b : CremersWilcoxSpector2023.Background, CremersWilcoxSpector2023.bgWeight ω b • MeasureTheory.Measure.dirac b
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The speaker marginalised over the listener's uncertainty about the speaker's prior (item 5 of the §4.1 model, the Bayesian version).
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The Bayesian wonky speaker on reals.
Without wonkiness the Bayesian wonky speaker is the baseline speaker.
Every message is used somewhere under a positively weighted background, so is heard with positive probability.
The Bayesian wonky listener, with the measured prior (item 5 of the Bayesian §4.1 model).
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The joint posterior over worlds and the speaker's background, with the measured prior on worlds independent of the prior on backgrounds (item 4 of the Bayesian §4.1 model).
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The joint posterior marginalized on backgrounds is the listener of item 5.
Anti-exhaustivity exactly when the wonkiness-weighted excess of the use of A in the world of both over its use in the world of A alone is positive (Appendix A.2, the Bayesian model).
The world given the background.
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- CremersWilcoxSpector2023.worldKernel s = ProbabilityTheory.Kernel.ofFunOfCountable (CremersWilcoxSpector2023.worldPrior s)
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The prior of the non-Bayesian model draws the background, then the world under it (item 4 of the §4.1 model).
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The speaker of the non-Bayesian model, at a background and a world.
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A message true at a world is used there under either background.
Every message is used somewhere under a positively weighted background, so is heard with positive probability.
The non-Bayesian listener, uncertain about the background and the world jointly (item 4 of the §4.1 model).
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The non-Bayesian model is anti-exhaustive with respect to the measured prior exactly when the prior times the marginal use of A falls below the background-weighted use of A in the world of both; the paper resolves this inequality numerically (A.5a).