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Robyn Carston - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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negation Presupposition and metarepresentation a response to noel burton roberts
Journal of Linguistics, 1999Co-Authors: Robyn CarstonAbstract:Metalinguistic negation (MN) is interesting for at least the following two reasons: (a) it is one instance of the much broader, very widespread and various phenomenon of metarepresentational use in linguistic communication, whose semantic and pragmatic properties are currently being extensively explored by both linguists and philosophers of language; (b) it plays a central role in recent accounts of Presupposition-denial cases, such as ‘The king of France is not bald; there is no king of France’. It is this latter employment that discussion of metalinguistic negation has focused on since Horn (1985)'s key article on the subject. While Burton-Roberts (1989a, 1989b) saw the MN account of Presupposition-denials as providing strong support for his semantic theory of Presupposition, I have offered a multi-layered pragmatic account of these cases, which also involves MN, but maintains the view that the phenomenon of Presupposition is pragmatic (Carston 1994, 1996, 1998a).
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negation Presupposition and the semantics pragmatics distinction
Journal of Linguistics, 1998Co-Authors: Robyn CarstonAbstract:A cognitive pragmatic approach is taken to some long-standing problem cases of negation, the so-called Presupposition denial cases. It is argued that a full account of the processes and levels of representation involved in their interpretation typically requires the sequential pragmatic derivation of two different propositions expressed. The first is one in which the Presupposition is preserved and, following the rejection of this, the second involves the echoic (metalinguistic) use of material falling in the scope of the negation. The semantic base for these processes is the standard anti-Presuppositionalist wide-scope negation. A different view, developed by Burton-Roberts (1989a, b), takes Presupposition to be a semantic relation encoded in natural language and so argues for a negation operator that does not cancel Presuppositions. This view is shown to be flawed, in that it makes the false prediction that Presupposition denial cases are semantic contradictions and it is based on too narrow a view of the role of pragmatic inferencing.
Rob Van Der Sandt - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Presupposition projection as anaphora resolution
Journal of Semantics, 1992Co-Authors: Rob Van Der SandtAbstract:The present paper presents an anaphoric account of Presupposition. It is argued that Presuppositional expressions should not be seen as referring expressions, nor is Presupposition to be explicated in terms of some non-standard logic. The notion of Presupposition should not be relegated to a pragmatic theory either. Instead Presuppositional expressions are claimed to be anaphoric expressions which have internal structure and semantic content. In fact they only differ from pronouns and other semantically less loaded anaphors in that they have more descriptive content. It is this fact which enables them to create an antecedent in case discourse does not provide one. If their capacity to accommodate is taken into account they can be treated by basically the same mechanism which handles the resolution of pronouns. The theory is elaborated in the framework of discourse representation theory. It is shown that pragmatic factors interfere in the resolution of presuppositio nal anaphors. The resulting account can neither be classified as wholly semantic nor wholly pragmatic. Section 1 presents a survey of standing problems in the theory of Presupposition projection and discusses the major competing approaches. An argumentation for a purely anaphoric account of Presupposition is given in section 2. Section 3 presents a coding of Presuppositional expressions in an extension of discourse representation theory. The final section is devoted to a discussion of the constraints which govern the resolution of Presuppositional anaphors.
Florian Schwarz - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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asymmetry in Presupposition projection the case of conjunction
Semantics and Linguistic Theory, 2017Co-Authors: Matthew Mandelkern, Jacopo Romoli, Jeremy Zehr, Florian SchwarzAbstract:Is the basic mechanism behind Presupposition projection fundamentally asymmetric or symmetric? This is a basic question for the theory of Presupposition, and also bears on broader issues concerning the source of asymmetries observed in natural language: are these simply rooted in superficial asymmetries of language use – language use unfolds in time, which we experience as fundamentally asymmetric – or can they be, at least in part, directly referenced in linguistic knowledge and representations? In this paper we aim to make progress on these questions by exploring Presupposition projection across conjunction, which has typically been taken as a central piece of evidence that Presupposition projection is asymmetric. As a number of authors have recently pointed out, however, whether or not this conclusion is warranted is not clear once we take into account independent issues of redundancy. Building on previous work by Chemla & Schlenker (2012) and Schwarz (2015), we approach this question experimentally by using an inference task which controls for redundancy and Presupposition suspension. We find strong evidence for left-to-right filtering across conjunctions, but no evidence for right-to-left filtering,suggesting that, at least as a default, Presupposition projection across conjunction is indeed asymmetric.
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Presupposition projection in online processing
Journal of Semantics, 2016Co-Authors: Florian Schwarz, Sonja TiemannAbstract:A central aspect of language comprehension is that hearers integrate incoming linguistic content both with the rest of the current sentence and the larger discourse context. Presuppositions crucially interact with both intraand inter-sentential context in intricate ways, which makes their study especially useful in this regard. We present a series of experiments investigating the time-course of interpreting Presuppositions in online comprehension and the impact that so-called Presupposition projection in cases where Presuppositions appear in embedded environments has on this. We find immediate delays in eye tracking reading times when the Presupposition of German wieder (‘again’) is not supported by the context, but only for unembedded occurrences of wieder. Further evidence from a rating experiment and a stops-making-sense study supports our interpretation of this result to the effect that global Presuppositions of embedded Presupposition triggers are not immediately available in processing. A second reading time experiment explores the effects of embedding further by providing Presuppositional support in different locations in contexts with a more complex structure involving conditionals. We find longer reading times when the support is more distant, measured in terms of the number of projection steps posited by Discourse Representation Theory (DRT). Altogether, the results suggest that Presupposition projection is a cognitively effortful process, and are thus consistent with theoretical accounts that reflect this in terms of the complexity of the representations involved in the different types of contexts, while other accounts that are more neutral in this regard need to be supplemented by additional assumptions or alternative explanations for the observed effects. On the more general level of discourse processing models, these results suggest that there is even more structure relevant to cognitive processes at a level between the surface representation and the purely semantic level (e.g., the commonly assumed level of a text-base) than previously assumed.
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experimental work in Presupposition and Presupposition projection
Social Science Research Network, 2016Co-Authors: Florian SchwarzAbstract:Recent years have seen a surge of experimental approaches to the study of natural language meaning, both to obtain solid data on subtle phenomena that are hard to assess through introspection and to understand how abstract characterizations of linguistic knowledge relate to real-time cognitive processes in language comprehension. This article reviews research in one of the most recent areas to see extensive experimental investigations, namely Presupposition and Presupposition projection. Presuppositions are at the very nexus of linguistically encoded content and contextual information, as they relate directly to the discourse context but also interact in intricate ways with their intra-sentential linguistic environment. They are thus extremely suitable for investigations of the interplay of linguistic and more domain-general processes in language comprehension, as well as for experimental investigations of subtle theoretical phenomena.
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Presupposition processing the case of german wieder
AC'11 Proceedings of the 18th Amsterdam colloquim conference on Logic Language and Meaning, 2011Co-Authors: Florian Schwarz, Sonja TiemannAbstract:Presuppositions are vital for language comprehension, but little remains known about how they are processed. Using eye tracking in reading, we investigated two issues based on German wieder ('again'). First, we looked at the time course of Presupposition processing by testing for processing costs of unsupported Presuppositions. Secondly, we tested whether embedding wieder under negation affected a potential mismatch effect. Presupposition-induced effects showed up immediately after wieder, but only in the unembedded context, suggesting that embedding interferes with the detection of the mismatch. However, judgments in a follow-up rating study indicate that a mismatch is perceived in both the embedded and unembedded conditions when the PSP is not supported by the context. Taken together, these results suggest that detection of the mismatch under embedding is delayed in processing.
Philippe Schlenker - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Triggering Presuppositions
'Ubiquity Press Ltd.', 2021Co-Authors: Philippe SchlenkerAbstract:While Presuppositions are often thought to be lexically encoded, researchers have repeatedly argued for ‘triggering algorithms’ that productively classify certain entailments as Presuppositions. We provide new evidence for this position and sketch a novel triggering rule. On the empirical side, we show that Presuppositions are productively generated from iconic expressions (such as gestures) that one may not have seen before, which suggests that a triggering algorithm is indeed called for. Turning to normal words, we show that sometimes a Presupposition 'p' is triggered by a simple or complex expression that does not even entail 'p': it is only when contextual information guarantees that the entailment goes through that the Presupposition emerges. On standard theories, this Presupposition could not be hardwired, because if so it should make itself felt (by way of projection or accommodation) in all cases. Rather, a triggering algorithm seems to take as an input a contextual meaning, and to turn some contextual entailments into Presuppositions. On the theoretical side, we propose that an entailment 'q' (possibly a contextual one) of an expression 'qq'’ is treated as a Presupposition if 'q' is an epistemic precondition of the global meaning, in the following sense: usually, when one learns that 'qq'’ (e.g. 'x stops q-ing'), one antecedently knows that 'q' (e.g. 'x q-ed'). Presuppositions thus arise from an attempt to ensure that information that is cognitively inert in general experience is also trivial relative to its linguistic environment. On various analyses, 'q' is trivial in its linguistic environment just in case 'q' is entailed by its local context; this provides a direct link between Presupposition generation and Presupposition projection. (An appendix discusses the relation between this proposal and an alternative one in terms of entailments that are in some sense counterfactually stable.
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maximize Presupposition and gricean reasoning
Natural Language Semantics, 2012Co-Authors: Philippe SchlenkerAbstract:Recent semantic research has made increasing use of a principle, Maximize Presupposition, which requires that under certain circumstances the strongest possible Presupposition be marked. This principle is generally taken to be irreducible to standard Gricean reasoning because the forms that are in competition have the same assertive content. We suggest, however, that Maximize Presupposition might be reducible to the theory of scalar implicatures. (i)First, we consider a special case: the speaker utters a sentence with a Presupposition p which is not initially taken for granted by the addressee, but the latter takes the speaker to be an authority on the matter. Signaling the Presupposition provides new information to the addressee; but it also follows from the logic of Presupposition qua common belief that the Presupposition is thereby satisfied (Stalnaker, Ling Philos 25(5–6):701–721, 2002). (ii) Second, we generalize this solution to other cases. We assume that even when p is common belief, there is a very small chance that the addressee might forget it (‘Fallibility’); in such cases, marking a Presupposition will turn out to generate new information by re-establishing part of the original context. We also adopt from Raj Singh (Nat Lang Semantics 19(2):149–168, 2011) the hypothesis that Presupposition maximization is computed relative to local contexts—and we assume that these too are subject to Fallibility; this accounts for cases in which the information that justifies the Presupposition is linguistically provided. (iii) Finally, we suggest that our assumptions have benefits in the domain of implicatures: they make it possible to reinterpret Magri’s ‘blind’ (i.e. context-insensitive) implicatures as context-sensitive implicatures which just happen to be misleading.
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incremental vs symmetric accounts of Presupposition projection an experimental approach
Natural Language Semantics, 2012Co-Authors: Philippe Schlenker, Emmanuel ChemlaAbstract:The Presupposition triggered by an expression E is generally satisfied by information that comes before rather than after E in the sentence or discourse. In Heim’s classic theory (1983), this left-right asymmetry is encoded in the lexical semantics of dynamic connectives and operators. But several recent analyses offer a more nuanced approach, in which Presupposition satisfaction has two separate components: a general principle (which varies from theory to theory) specifies under what conditions a Presupposition triggered by an expression E is satisfied; and an ‘incremental’ component specifies that the principle must be checked on the basis of information that comes before E. Several researchers take this incremental component to be a processing bias, which can be overcome at some cost. If so, it should be possible, though costly, to satisfy Presuppositions ‘symmetrically’, i.e. by taking into account linguistic material that comes both before and after the Presupposition trigger. We test this claim with experimental means. Using inferential (and to some extent acceptability) tasks involving the anaphoric trigger aussi (‘too’) in French, we argue that symmetric readings are indeed possible (albeit degraded) in environments involving the connectives if, or, and unless.
Manuel García-carpintero - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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On the Nature of Presupposition: A Normative Speech Act Account
Erkenntnis, 2020Co-Authors: Manuel García-carpinteroAbstract:In this paper I provide a new account of linguistic Presuppositions, on which they are ancillary speech acts defined by constitutive norms. After providing an initial intuitive characterization of the phenomenon, I present a normative speech act account of Presupposition in parallel with Williamson’s analogous account of assertion. I explain how it deals well with the problem of informative Presuppositions, and how it relates to accounts for the Triggering and Projection Problems for Presuppositions. I conclude with a brief discussion of the consequences of the proposal for the adequacy of Williamson’s account of assertion.
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Accommodating Presuppositions
Topoi, 2014Co-Authors: Manuel García-carpinteroAbstract:In this paper I elaborate on previous criticisms of the influential Stalnakerian account of Presuppositions, pointing out that the well-known practice of informative Presupposition puts heavy strain on Stalnaker's pragmatic characterization of the phenomenon of Presupposition, in particular of the triggering of Presuppositions. Stalnaker has replied to previous criticisms by relying on the well-taken point that we should take into account the time at which Presupposition-requirements are to be computed. In defense of a different, 'semantic' (in a sense) account of the phenomenon of Presupposition, I argue that that point does not suffice to rescue the Stalnakerian proposal, and I portray Lewisian 'accommodation' as one way in which speakers adjust themselves to one another in the course of conversation
