Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

70 Presuppositions and Pronouns
counterexample against their theory. However, the purpose of this example
was not so much to prove that standard DRT is wrong as to explain why the
binding mechanism that I propose deviates from the standard account.
2.4.2 Denials
In § 2.3, it was shown how the binding theory deals with examples like the
following:
(62) a. Harry is a bachelor, so it wasn't Harry's wife who shot the
burglar. (= (48a» (48a))
b. It wasn't Harry's wife who shot the burglar: Harry is a
bachelor.
In (62a) the presupposition triggered by Harry's Harry'S wife. This presupposition is
accommodated in its home DRS, because if it would be accommodated in
the main DRS the resulting reading would violate the consistency constraint.
Formulated in Heim's terminology, the presupposition is construed by way
of local accommodation. Essentially the same analysis applies to (62b). The
only difference between (62a) and (62b) is the order in which they present
their information. As a consequence, (62a) violates the informativeness
constraint, as we have seen, while (62b) does not.
Statements like (62b) are sometimes called 'denials'. Denials present
problems to many theories of presupposition, and occasionally it is suggested
that they are fundamentally different from ordinary (read: less problematic)
instances of presupposition projection, and that, accordingly, their treatment
is not so urgent. In the more recent literature, this suggestion tends to be
accompanied by a further suggestion to the effect that Horn's (1989) work on
'metalinguistic negation' confirms that presupposition theorists need not
worry about denials.13 According to Horn, (62b) is just an instance of a much
more general phenomenon, which has nothing to do with presupposition
projection as such. The following examples (from Horn 1989: 371) are all
instances of metalinguistic negation alongside cases of presuppositional
denial like (62b)::
(63) a. He didn't call the POlice, he called the poLICE.
b. I didn't manage to trap two monGEESE -— I managed to trap
two monGOOSES.
13 13 For extensive discussion of denials, see Horn (1989a), van der Sandt (1991), Carston (1994),
and Geurts (1998a). The suggestion that metalinguistic negation offers solace to the
presupposition theorist troubled by denials has been made, apart from Horn himself, by Beaver
(1992), Krifka (1994), Chierchia (1995), and, interestingly, van der Sandt (1991).