Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics
Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics
Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics
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Presupposition 15<br />
b. If Barney took care of the manager, then it was Fred who shot<br />
the porter.<br />
(33) a. Someone shot the porter, <strong>and</strong> it was Fred who shot the porter.<br />
b. If someone shot the porter, then it was Fred who shot the<br />
porter.<br />
Each of these sentences contains a cleft sentence which triggers the<br />
presupposition that someone shot the porter, but while a speaker who<br />
uttered any of the sentences in (31) or (32) would be required to make this<br />
presupposition, he would not be taken to presuppose this if he uttered either<br />
of the sentences in (33). In the case of (33a) we would say that it had been<br />
asserted rather than presupposed that someone shot the porter, <strong>and</strong> (33b)<br />
doesn't imply in any way that the porter has been shot. Intuitively it is<br />
obvious why the presupposition is blocked in (33) but not in (31) or (32).<br />
Apparently, if the second half of a conjunction or conditional is of the <strong>for</strong>m<br />
CP{X}, j{x}, <strong>and</strong> X x is entailed by the first half, then the presupposition will be<br />
blocked; otherwise it will go through. So the following generalizations seem<br />
to hold: 7<br />
(34) a. 'CP{X} 'j{x} <strong>and</strong> ",' y' requires the presupposition that xX<br />
'cp '(j <strong>and</strong> y{x}' ",{X}' requires the presupposition that x, X, unless x X is<br />
entailed by cp j<br />
b. 'if CP{X} j{x} then ",' y' requires the presupposition that xX<br />
'if cp j then y{x}' ",{X}' requires the presupposition that X, x, unless X x is<br />
entailed by cp j<br />
Suppose now that it is suggested that these are not just empirical<br />
generalizations, but lexical rules: (34a) is part of the lexical meaning of <strong>and</strong>,<br />
<strong>and</strong> (34b) is part of the lexical meaning of if. . ... . then. There are several<br />
problems with this suggestion. First, if we just postulate that (34a, b) are<br />
lexical rules, we don't have much of an explanation to boast of; we have<br />
merely codified our observations in the lexicon. Secondly, if we just say these<br />
generalizations are accounted <strong>for</strong> by lexical rules, <strong>and</strong> leave the matter at<br />
that, it is implied that these are purely conventional regularities, <strong>and</strong> that<br />
doesn't seem to right, since it is intuitively obvious that these generalizations<br />
hold <strong>for</strong> a reason. Thirdly, <strong>and</strong> this is what Stalnaker (1973, 1974) worries<br />
about, this proposal entails that the meanings of the connectives are much<br />
more complex than they ought to be, intuitively speaking. In particular, it<br />
7<br />
7 These are Karttunen's (1973a) initial filtering conditions <strong>for</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> if.. . ... then. Karttunen<br />
shows that these conditions are not quite adequate, <strong>and</strong> ends up proposing rather more<br />
sophisticated rules, but these fine points need not concern us here.
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