Presuppositions and Pronouns - Nijmegen Centre for Semantics

84 Presuppositions and Pronouns
sense, and those which do might be classified as anaphors in a derivative
sense. But the same will hold true of semantically attenuate full NPs, like
the thing or the animal.
Given the right kind of context, even the poorest pronouns can be
interpreted by way of accommodation (§ 2.4.3). But such cases are
exceptional: pronouns and other semantically attenuate definites are
generally anaphoric. Many definite NPs are not like this. Descriptions like
the German president and the moon, to name only two examples, are specific
enough not to be restricted for their reference to those entities which are in
focus. It might be thought that at least some of these expressions are
problematic for the binding theory. For it seems that the theory predicts that
in a discourse in which the moon (or a moon) has not been mentioned yet,
the definite NP the moon would have to be construed via accommodation.
But this conclusion is unacceptable, for surely the moon will normally be
used to refer to the moon. There is no deep problem here, however, for as we
have already seen in § 2.4.3, the universe of a DRS need not be restricted to
objects which have been introduced explicitly and by linguistic means. Since
a DRS is a representation of the speaker's commitment slate, it is natural to
assume that it may also contain information which derives from other
sources. Most speakers may be assumed to know that there is a moon, so we
can maintain after all that, as a rule, the definite NP the moon is construed by
way of binding rather than accommodation.
Some presuppositions are easier to accommodate than others. While
pronominal presuppositions are usually bound, the presuppositions
triggered by certain factive verbs or definite NPs are quite readily
accommodated. Van der Sandt (1992) suggests that such differences
correlate with the descriptive richness of presuppositions: pronouns are
semantically attenuate expressions, and therefore must be bound, whereas
the presuppositions triggered by factives may be quite specific, and therefore
can be accommodated. This explanation is a plausible one, but it is
incomplete. For instance, it seems that the presuppositions triggered by too
may be as specific as factive presuppositions, but nonetheless the latter are
easily accommodated, while the former are not. Compare:
(87) a. Fred doesn't know that someone tried to steal his lawn mower, mower.
b. Barney tried to steal Fred's lawn mower too.
The factive in (87a) triggers the presupposition that someone tried to steal
Fred's lawn mower. (87b) has almost the same presupposition; assuming that
the focus is on Barney, the presupposition triggered is that someone other
than Barney tried to steal Fred's lawn mower. This is, if anything, more
specific, but nonetheless the first presupposition is easily accommodated,
while the second one must be bound. Or compare: