Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

CHAPTER 3
The satisfaction theory
Currently, the most popular accounts of presupposition projection are the
binding theory and the satisfaction theory. Prima facie, these two theories
are rather similar, and it has even been suggested that they are essentially
equivalent (Zeevat 1991, Heim 1992). In this chapter it will be shown,
however, that there are real and important differences between these two
accounts.
The ideas underlying the satisfaction theory are often traced back to
Stalnaker (1973, 1974) but properly seen Karttunen (1974) is the theory's
founding father; Stalnaker's views are more in line with the binding account.
Karttunen's ideas were shaped into an explicit theory by Heim (1983), which
was subsequently taken up by Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet (1990), van
Eijck (1993), Beaver (1992, 1993, 1994), Heim (1992), Krahmer (1993),
Krifka (1993), and Chierchia (1995). In the following I will mainly criticize
the satisfaction theory on the grounds that its predictions are too weak. I feel
justified in referring to the satisfaction theory of presupposition because my
objections apply to all varieties that I know of. In fact, they apply to many
other theories besides, such as Karttunen and Peters's (1979) and some
logical presupposition theories (for example, van Fraassen 1969), but these
fall outside my target area. 1
The satisfaction theory has been attacked before, especially by Gazdar
(1979) and van der Sandt (1988), but up to a point I concur with Soames's
(1982) and Heim's (1983) judgment that these criticisms have been
inconclusive. Furthermore, many of the arguments that have been launched
against the satisfaction theory have become outdated because they are
based upon assumptions that aren't generally accepted anymore, such as the
idea that presupposition projection should be explained by a single set of
rules or principles: as it is now widely agreed that any viable explanation of
the presuppositional facts will be a hybrid one, at least some of the
arguments that were aired in the seventies have lost their potency. The
1
1 Conceptually, the theory proposed by Karttunen and Peters (1979) is quite different from
Karttunen's 1974 theory (and much more in the spirit of his 1973a theory), which I consider to
be the first representative of the satisfaction theory. Empirically, however, the two theories are
equivalent, and consequently they are often treated on a par, for example, by Gazdar (1979).
PRESUPPOSITIONS AND PRONOUNS, Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface, Vol. 3
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