Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

184 Presuppositions and Pronouns
adopt such a powerful antecedent generator as the one proposed by Roberts
it is hard see how we can avoid having to stipulate these constraints.
6.2 Modals presuppose their domains
This slogan sums up the hypothesis that I want to consider in the remainder
of this chapter. We have seen that the context dependence of modal domains,
which is the key element in Roberts's theory, is widely recognized in the
literature on modality. If my hypothesis is correct this context dependence
can be captured as follows: modals are presuppositional expressions, and
modal domains are presupposed. This hypothesis has repercussions for the
construal of presuppositional expressions that occur in the scope of modals,
in the following way. If a modal expression \If \|/ presupposes its domain, it
makes sense to say that it can link up to another modal