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Presuppositions and common ground

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Abstract

This paper presents problems for Stalnaker’s common ground theory of presupposition. Stalnaker (Linguist and Philos 25:701–721, 2002) proposes a 2-stage process of utterance interpretation: presupposed content is added to the common ground prior to acceptance/rejection of the utterance as a whole. But this revision makes presupposition difficult to distinguish from assertion. A more fundamental problem is that the common ground theory rests on a faulty theory of assertion—that the essence of assertion is to present the content of an utterance as new information. Many examples are presented of utterances which are felicitous but not informative in this way.

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  1. Department of Linguistics and Languages, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 6339 E. Horn Rd., Lake Leelanau, MI, 49653-9708, USA

    Barbara Abbott

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  1. Barbara Abbott
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Correspondence to Barbara Abbott.

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Abbott, B. Presuppositions and common ground. Linguist and Philos 31, 523–538 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-008-9048-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-008-9048-8

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