A wide variety of linguistic forms and constructions have been seen not as contributing to semantic content, but rather as helping to determine how that content is used. In this paper, we will examine three such forms: vocatives, topics, and force markers. (1) a. Mary, what’s that you’re eating? b. Mary, please have a seat. (2) a. MARY, I like a lot, but JOHN, I hate. b. Mary, I like her a lot. (3) a. IMP [sit down]! b. Q [does Mary like John]? c. ASSERT [John likes Mary]. In informal terms, a vocative identifies to whom the sentence’s content is addressed, a topic informs the addressee what it’s about, and a force marker says how the speaker wishes to use it to update the conversational context. I include all of these functions under the broad label “instructions for interpretation”, and in this paper I will pursue the idea that they should be studied within a single theoretical framework. The main idea of my analysis are as follows:
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