The semantics and pragmatics of presupposition
| Abstract | In this paper, we offer a novel analysis of presuppositions, paying particular attention to the interaction between the knowledge resources that are required to interpret them. The analysis has two main features. First, we capture an analogy between presuppositions, anaphora and scope ambiguity (cf. van der Sandt, 1992), by utilising semantic underspecification (cf. Reyle, 1993). Second, resolving this underspecification requires reasoning about how the presupposition is rhetorically connected to the discourse context. This has several consequences. First, since pragmatic information plays a role in computing the rhetorical relation, it also constrains the interpretation of presuppositions. Our account therefore goes beyond existing ones, and provides a forum for analysing problematic data, that require pragmatic reasoning. Second, binding presuppositions to the context via rhetorical links replaces accommodating them, in the sense of adding them to the context (cf. Lewis, 1979). Thus, unlike previous theories, we don't resort to interpretation mechanisms that are peculiar to presuppositions. Rather, they are handled entirely in terms of the discourse update procedure. We formalise this approach in SDRT (Asher 1993, Lascarides and Asher 1993), and demonstrate that it provides a rich framework for interpreting presuppositions, where semantic and pragmatic constraints are integrated. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,711 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesMichael Blome-Tillmann (2012). Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism and the Problem of Known Presuppositions. In Jessica Brown & Mikkel Gerken (eds.), New Essays on Knowledge Ascriptions. OUP.
Emar Maier (2009). Proper Names and Indexicals Trigger Rigid Presuppositions. Journal of Semantics 26:253-315.
Philippe Schlenker (2010). Local Contexts and Local Meanings. Philosophical Studies 151:115--142.
Christopher Gauker (2008). Against Accommodation: Heim, van der Sandt, and the Presupposition Projection Problem. Noûs 42 (1):171 - 205.
Robyn Carston (1998). Negation, `Presupposition' and the Semantics/ Pragmatics Distinction. Journal of Linguistics 34:309-350.
Kjell Johan Saeboe (1996). Anaphoric Presuppositions and Zero Anaphora. Linguistics and Philosophy 19 (2):187 - 209.
Friederike Moltmann (2006). Presuppositions and Quantifier Domains. Synthese 149 (1):179 - 224.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads47 ( #23,170 of 551,007 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,807 of 551,007 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
