Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

190 Presuppositions and Pronouns
(cf. § 2.5), the binding theory predicts the contrast between these sentences.
Roberts's theory, on the other hand, would allow the presupposition to be
bound in both cases, and therefore it doesn't account for the unacceptability
of(35b).
6.3 Constraints on modal subordination
The semantics of the modal predicates '' and '0' 'n' as defined in (25) is
essentially the classical one, but our account of modal subordination doesn't
stand or fall with this interpretation. We have seen that the domain of a
modal expression is determined by contextual factors, and have argued that
this context dependence is of a presuppositional nature: modals presuppose
their domains. Kratzer (1981, 1991) observes, however, that modals are
context sensitive in a further respect. Namely, the interpretation of a modal
may be dependent upon the internal structure of its domain. Kratzer offers
several arguments why this should be so, but the easiest and probably most
convincing way of appreciating this point is by noting that modality is very
often a matter of degree: a proposition can be more or less likely, a course of
action more or less desirable, and so on. A sentence of the form 'It is likely
that