Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

186 Presuppositions and Pronouns
represented here by the reference marker p. It is quite obvious, however,
that there are such restrictions (even if they are non-specific and vague, as I
claimed two paragraphs ago), and that they playa a role in the interpretation
of modals. This point will be taken up in the following section, where it is
shown that these restrictions are crucial if we want to get the details of modal
subordination right. But I will ignore them for the time being.
The presupposition of the modal in (26a) could not normally be construed
by means of accommodation, but let us suppose that it is accommodated
nonetheless, so that we can go on with Roberts's example:
(27) A thief might break into the house. He would take the silver.
(= (6))
(28) a. [p,q,r/,q':
12', q':
q = p+[x: thief x, break-in x], pO p q,
q' = p'+ + [1;: [z: take-silver z], p' 0 n q']
b b. . [p, q, p p', ".' , q q': . p p' = q,
q = p+[x: thief x, break-in x], p 0 O q,
q' = p'+[z: +[1;: take-silver z], p' 0 n q']
c. [p, q, p', q': p' = q,
q = p+[x, z: z = x, thief x, break-in x], p 0 O q,
q' = p'+[: + take-silver z], p' 0 n q']
d. [p, q, q':
q = p+[x: thief x, break-in x], p 0 q,
q' = q+[: take-silver(x)], q 0 n q']
Once the first sentence has been dealt with, the DRS representation of (27)
will be (28a). In (28a), there are two relevant presuppositions: the domain of
would, represented by p', and the anaphoric presupposition triggered by the
pronoun he. The presupposed domain can be bound to either p or q. The
binding theory predicts that the latter option is preferred, because this allows
the pronominal anaphor to be bound. For, once p' has been bound to q, as
shown in (28b), x is accessible to z, and we can identify z with x so as to obtain
(28c), which is equivalent with (28d). The meaning of this DRS is the
following:
(29) [(28d)](w,f)=