Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

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presuppositions already involve a rich variety of lexical items and grammati-
grammatical
constructions. But as I see it the projection problem is even bigger than it
is generally taken to be, for two reasons. To begin with, the binding theory
implies that anaphora is a species of presupposition, so it actually aspires to
be a unified theory of presupposition and anaphora. Furthermore, I maintain
that presuppositions are crucially involved in the interpretation of modals
and attitude verbs, and that, for example, what has come to be known as
'modal subordination' is a quintessential presuppositional phenomenon.
I have a secondary aim, as well. Formulated in the neo-capitalist idiom that
has become de rigueur in recent years: with a view to boosting the Product's
selling power, I will try to show that the Other Product is greatly inferior.
That is to say, I will attempt to refute the satisfaction theory and its semantic
framework. If I attain these objects I will have made a very strong case for
DRT as opposed to dynamic semantics.
The seven chapters of this book fall into three pairs and an extra. In the
first two chapters I introduce the main issues concerning presupposition and
present the binding theory. Then I assume a rather more polemical posture,
and set off on a two-chapter attack on the satisfaction theory and dynamic
semantics. In the third pair of chapters my habitual constructive spirit
prevails once more, when I apply the binding theory to the interplay between
presuppositions and various intensional contexts. The seventh and final
chapter presents a presuppositional analysis of names.
This book is a thoroughly revised, rearranged, and expanded version of my
1995 doctoral dissertation. It still counts as a version, I suppose, because it
preserves almost all the main ideas of its predecessor; I only changed my
mind about disjunctions. The dissertation spawned two articles, which
appeared in Linguistics and Philosophy (Geurts 1996a, 1998b), and which
reappear here, truncated and adapted, as Chapters 3 and 5. Chapters 4 and 7
are based on articles that originally appeared in the Journal of Semantics and
the Zeitschrift fur Sprachwissenschaft, respectively (Geurts 1997c, 1997b).
Various people have influenced the form and content of this book in
various ways. I should like to thank, first and foremost, Hans Kamp and Rob
van der Sandt; and also: Nicholas Asher, Colin Brown, David Beaver,
Siegfried KanngieBer, Emiel Krahmer, Manfred Krifka, Marc Ronthaler,
Robert van Rooy, and Ede Zimmermann.