Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

Attitude reports
173
(74) c. [p,p',q',r,r':r p ",q ,r, r '.. r = q, q', ,
K believes p & p', p' = p+[x: ghost x, x shadows K],
K prefersp' , q',
q' = p'+[y, z: z = y, book y, K writes y about x],
K considers r, K prefers r
r',
r' = r+[: K dedicates z to PM]]
d. [p, P ,p',q',r':
K believes p & p', p' = p+[x: ghost x, x shadows K],
K preferspl , q', q' = p'+[y: book y, K writes y about x],
K prefersql , r', r' = q'+[: K dedicates y to to PM]]
The results of our analysis of want may be summed up in four points:
• First, it predicts that presuppositions may be bound in believe-want
sequences, as in (71a). (Via).
• Secondly, it accounts for the fact that presuppositions may be bound in
want-want sequences, as when (71a) is followed by (74a).
• Thirdly, a presupposition may be bound beyond the confines of a want
context, as in (72b).
• Fourthly, if a presupposition triggered in a want context cannot be
bound it will in general be accommodated at top level, as in (73).
The binding theory doesn't account for all inferences that may be associated
with presuppositional expressions in want contexts.
(75) a. Ralph wants to inform against the man he saw at the beach.
b. Ralph wants to inform against an individual whom he believes
to be a man that he saw at the beach.
Typically, an utterance of (75a) would be taken to imply that the speaker
holds (75b) to be true, as well. I agree with this observation, but I am bound
to deny that this inference is a presupposition. According to the analysis that
I have presented, (75a) presupposes (in the absence of contextual
information to the contrary) that Ralph saw a man at the beach. This is
intuitively correct, or at least it accounts for an inference that would normally
be licensed by an utterance of this sentence. The additional inference
yielding (75b) is not something a theory of presupposition can explain, but in
the last section we have seen how such inferences can be secured in the case
of believe. What I said there applies here, too: there is an independently
motivated plausibility inference that, on the basis of an external construal
of the presupposition triggered by the definite NP in (75a), yields the
conclusion that (75b) is true, as well. As in the case of believe, this
independent evidence is furnished by anaphoric pronouns and specific
indefinites occurring in attitude contexts.