In this talk, I will use implemented prototypes to describe some of the characteristic features of meaning in conversational language for which there has been significant recent progress, including: - the signals and feedback that keep conversations going; - the collaborative context that informs language understanding and generation; - the coordination that allows one interlocutor to signal her expectations for the conversation, and another interlocutor to meet them.
An important common theme in these developments is a rejection of a static view of linguistic semantics as a predefined system of logical translation or formal truth-conditions, in favor of a collaborative view of meaning: As language users, we construct the meanings of our utterances, through the collaborative decisions we take as we draw on the rules of language to make ourselves understood.