Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

Modals
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g(q') S(q') = {(v,j) { E e g(q) Ij(x) l;(x) E e Iv(take-silver)} Intake-silver)} &
w(g( Wfe(q)) q» = w(g(q'))} q'»}
It should be noted that this is weaker than the intuitive interpretation of (27),
because (28d) imposes no constraints on the propositional prepositional reference marker
p, save for the fact that it is extended by q. Nonetheless, I maintain that (28d)
is adequate as far as it goes; it is just that it is not a complete representation
of the intended interpretation of (27). (28d) is incomplete for two reasons.
To begin, I have thus far ignored the restrictions which the verb might
imposes on its domain. If I hadn't done so, the semantic representation of
(27) would have been more specific. It wouldn't have been much more
specific, though, because the verb might does not impose very tight
restrictions on its domain, as I pointed out earlier. The crucial constraint on
the interpretation of (27) that I have left out of account is rather that this
sentence would normally be uttered in a context in which the domain of
might can be bound to some salient proposition. I have ignored this because
my principal aim in this chapter is to account for modal subordination, and
therefore I am mainly interested in the relation between the two sentences in
(27). When I assumed that the domain of the first modal is accommodated, it
was merely because I wanted to get it out of the way.
If we want to construct a more specific representation for (27), we need
more information about the context in which this sentence is uttered.
Imagine the following scenario. Fred and Wilma are on their way to the
cinema, when the following conversation unfolds:
(30) Wilma: Fred
Fred:
Yes Dear
Wilma:
Did you check the back door
Fred:
No. Why
Wilma: A thief might break into the house.
Suppose that the reason why Wilma asks Fred if he checked the back door is
that she wants to know if the back door is locked. Fred's negative answer
implies that it hasn't been established yet, at least as far as Wilma is
concerned, that the back door is locked, so for all she knows the back door
might not be locked, and after Fred's last turn in this miniature conversation,
the proposition that the back door is unlocked is salient, and ready to be
picked up to serve as the domain of the verb might.
I prefer not to view (30) as an instance of modal subordination because in
this case linguistic and contextual factors interact in a way that is different
from what one observes in the standard cases of modal subordination.
According to the theory I have proposed, modal subordination occurs
whenever a modal expression sets up an antecedent for another modal
expression; this is what happens in (27), for example, where might sets up an