Warm (for Winter): Inferring Comparison Classes in Communication

Abstract

The meanings of natural language utterances depend heavily on context. Yet, what counts as context is often only implicit in conversation. The utterance it's warm outside signals that the temperature outside is relatively high, but the temperature could be high relative to a number of different comparison classes: other days of the year, other weeks, other seasons, etc. Theories of context sensitivity in language agree that the comparison class is a crucial variable for understanding meaning, but little is known about how a listener decides upon the comparison class. Using the case study of gradable adjectives (e.g., warm), we extend a Bayesian model of pragmatic inference to reason flexibly about the comparison class and test its qualitative predictions in a large-scale free-production experiment. We find that human listeners infer the comparison class by reasoning about the kinds of observations that would be remarkable enough for a speaker to mention, given the speaker and listener's shared knowledge of the world. Further, we quantitatively synthesize the model and data using Bayesian data analysis, which reveals that usage frequency and a preference for basic-level categories are two main factors in comparison class inference. This work presents new data and reveals the mechanisms by which human listeners recover the relevant aspects of context when understanding language.