Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

138 Presuppositions and Pronouns
presupposes %, X, and that the inference to 'a '0 believes that %' X' is to be accounted
for in another way. One of my arguments in favour of this position is that
such an account is in fact easy to provide, whereas it is much harder, if not
impossible, to come by an inferential schema that runs in the opposite
direction, which is what Heim requires.
Prima facie, it would seem that the e-principle is corroborated by (9a) and
falsified by (9b), whereas with the i-principle it is the precisely the other way
round:
(9) a. If Louise has a niece, then she believes that her niece lives in
Leeds.
b. If Louise believes that she has a niece, then she also believes
that her niece lives in Leeds.
The i-principle predicts that in the consequent of both (9a) and (9b) the
presupposition will be triggered that Louise believes that she has a niece.
This presupposition will be bound in (9b), which is intuitively correct.
However, in (9a) this presupposition will not be bound, so we predict that
this sentence presupposes that Louise believes that she has a niece, which is
false. In short, the i-principle gives the right prediction for (9b) but fails with
(9a). Exactly the converse holds for the e-principle: it delivers the desired
result for (9a), but also predicts that (9b) presupposes that Louise has a
niece, which is just as false. One of my aims in this chapter will be to explain
away this 'paradox'.
Another puzzle that I will try to solve is the following. Speaking in terms
of the binding theory, (9a, b) suggest that a presupposition triggered in a
belief context may be bound within as well as outside of that belief context.
However, the data are more complex than this pair of examples suggests, as
witness:
(10) a. Barney {\ believes} , h \ that Fred will WIll . agree, and he hopes that
opes
Wilma will agree too.
b. Barney hopes that Fred will agree, and he believes that
Wilma will agree, too.
(lOa) shows that a presupposition triggered within a context created by the
verb hope may be bound within a preceding hope or believe context, or
within a believe context, and (lOb) corroborates the asymmetry between
believe and non-believe contexts that we observed earlier on, for apparently
a presupposition triggered in a believe context cannot without further ado
pick up an antecedent from a hope context.
The examples discussed in the foregoing are obviously related to the
phenomenon of 'intentional identity', which has been an unfailing source of
controversy ever since Geach published his famous Hob-Nob sentence: