eprintid: 1470274 rev_number: 31 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/01/47/02/74 datestamp: 2015-08-19 15:23:59 lastmod: 2020-02-12 14:35:29 status_changed: 2017-07-25 16:14:51 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Rothschild, DH creators_name: Yalcin, S title: On the Dynamics of Conversation ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: A01 divisions: B03 divisions: C01 divisions: F16 note: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Rothschild, DH; Yalcin, S; (2015) On the Dynamics of Conversation. Noûs, which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nous.12121. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving (http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-828039.html#terms). abstract: There is a longstanding debate in the literature about static versus dynamic approaches to meaning and conversation. A formal result due to van Benthem (1986, 1996) is often thought to be important for understanding what, conceptually speaking, is at issue in the debate. We introduce the concept of a conversation system, and we use it to clarify the import of van Benthem’s result. We then distinguish two classes of conversation systems, corresponding to two concepts of staticness. The first class, the strongly static conversation systems, corresponds to a generalization of the class of systems that van Benthem’s result concerns. The second class, the weakly static conversation systems, corresponds to a broader class, one permitting a certain commonly recognized form of context sensitivity. In the vein of van Benthem’s result, we supply representation theorems which independently characterize these two varieties of conversation system. We observe that some canonically dynamic semantic systems correspond to weakly static conversation systems. We close by discussing some hazards that arise in trying to bring our formal results to bear on natural language phenomena, and on the debate about whether the compositional semantics for natural language should take a dynamic shape. date: 2017-03 official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nous.12121 vfaculties: VARTS vfaculties: VARTS oa_status: green full_text_type: other language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green article_type_text: Article verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1045170 doi: 10.1111/nous.12121 lyricists_name: Rothschild, Daniel lyricists_id: DROTH58 actors_name: Rothschild, Daniel actors_id: DROTH58 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Noûs volume: 51 number: 1 pagerange: 24-48 issn: 1468-0068 citation: Rothschild, DH; Yalcin, S; (2017) On the Dynamics of Conversation. Noûs , 51 (1) pp. 24-48. 10.1111/nous.12121 <https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12121>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1470274/1/nousrewrite.pdf