Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

40 Presuppositions and Pronouns
initial DRS of the discourse. The complex condition in this structure is
interpreted as follows: if / f is to be an embedding function for (b 1 ), then it
must map x onto an individual called 'Leo', and every extension of/which
f embeds (b 2 ) must itself be extendable to a verifying embedding of (b 3 ). It
follows from this that (b 1 ) is accessible to (b 2 ), which in its turn is accessible
to (b 3 ), and therefore v may be linked up to x (accessibility being a transitive
relation) and w to y. The result is (7c), which is equivalent to (7d), and the
meaning of either of these is the same as that of the following formula in
predicate logic:
(8) 3x[Leo x /\ L \fy[[squirrel y L /\ x chased y] ~ x x caught y]]
To round out our inventory of complex DRS-conditions, we turn to
disjunctive sentences.
(9) a. Leo chased and caught a squirrel. He either handed it over to
a policeman or he took it home with him.
b. [ 1 h x, y: Leo x, squirrel y, x chased y, x caught y,
b [ 2 z, y: policeman z, x handed over v to z] v
b [ 3 ~: w: x took w home]]
c. [ 1 h x, y, v, w: v = y, w = y,
Leo x, squirrel y, x chased y, x caught y,
b [ 2 z: policeman z, x handed over v to z] v
[3[ 3 : x took w home]]
d. [ 1 [1 x, y: Leo x, squirrel y, x chased y, x caught y,
[2[ 2 z: policeman z, x handed over y to z] v
b: [ 3 : x took y home]]
We start out from the DRS in (9b), in which the pronoun he has already been
resolved. Note that the conjunction in the first sentence of (9a) is represented
in (9b) simply by merging the DRSs correlated with the two conjuncts. The
interpretation of disjunctive DRS-conditions is straightforward: an
embedding function verifies a condition of the form '(j '