Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

98 Presuppositions and Pronouns
(16) a. It is possible that Fred has diabetes and must eat his regular
diet.
b. Fred has diabetes ~ —» Fred must eat his regular diet
It seems possible to read (15a) as implying that Fred has a wet suit, no matter
what. But it is certainly more natural to merely infer from (15a) that (15b) is
true, which is what the satisfaction theory predicts. 6 And for (16a), too, it
seems that the satisfaction theory produces an adequate prediction.
Therefore, these examples present no problems to the theory, but it should
be noted that the support that they offer is more apparent than real. To see
why, consider the following variation on (15):
(17) a. If Fred is a scuba diver and wants to impress his girlfriend,
then he will bring his wet suit.
b. (Fred is a scuba diver /\ A Fred wants to impress his girlfriend)
~ —> Fred has a wet suit
(17a) is the result of strengthening the antecedent of (15a), and intuitively
this has no consequences for the presuppositions that this sentence gives rise
to: if the favoured presupposition of (15a) is (15b), then the same
presupposition should be associated with (17a). However, in this case the
satisfaction theory cannot offer more than (17b), and I find it difficult to
understand why a theory that makes correct predictions about (15a) should
fail to make sufficiently strong predictions about (17a), unless of course the
correct predictions are simply due to a fortuitous coincidence.
The proviso problem isn't restricted to the satisfaction theory: it also arises
in Karttunen and Peters's (1979) system and in various presuppositional
logics. If we construe, say, strong Kleene logic as a presupposition theory,7
7
we find again that q> (p ~ —> 'V{x} \j/{%} presupposes q> (p ~ —» X. %. Predictably, therefore, the
problem hasn't gone unnoticed, but although the proviso problem has often
been mentioned in the literature, I know of only two attempts at solving it. 8
One proposed solution, first suggested by Karttunen and Peters, will be
discussed in the remainder of this section and in § 3.3; the second proposal is
the subject of § 3.4.
Karttunen and Peters maintain that there is really nothing wrong with the
predictions that the satisfaction theory makes: it is correct that 9 q> —> ~ 'V{x} \j/{%}
6
6 This particular prediction is pre-empted by the fact that (15b) is already entailed by (15a),
anyway, but that doesn't hold for the next example.
7 Quite apart from the problem noted here, this would be a rather unfortunate decision. See
Karttunen and Peters (1979) and Krahmer (1993) for discussion.
8 See Karttunen and Peters (1979), Gazdar (1979), Soames (1979,1982), 1982), Heim (1983), van der
Sandt (1988), Krahmer (1993), and Beaver (1993).