Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Accommodation and Presupposition
It should be clear that the main problem with Zeevat and Blutner’s
explanation lies in the definition of expression alternatives, in particular the role of
the input context in their identification. If we require the same input context, we
can predict correctly that factives will accommodate, but we will also predict
incorrectly that too should be able to accommodate as well. On the other hand, if
we loosen our requirement on the input context, we can correctly predict that the
presuppositions triggered too will not accommodate, but we now incorrectly predict
that presuppositions triggered by factives should not accommodated either. Even if
we know more about alternatives, I don’t see how we can ever get this explanation
to account for the behavior of factives and too simultaneously.
We saw in the examples in (23) and the OT analysis that the proposal can
explain why definite NPs do not accommodate well, and this explanation predicts
the same result regardless of the effect of the input context on alternatives. If input
contexts affect alternatives, then definite NPs will either be bound or won’t
compete with the indefinite. If we use a looser definition, then the indefinite will
always win because the definite will be penalized by AVOIDACCOMMODATION.
Here the account makes the correct predictions. Unfortunately, big definite NPs
accommodate well, and no matter how we define alternatives in relation to the
input we can’t explain this.
Zeevat recognized this and in order to deal with big definite NPs he develops
a detailed proposal for what constraints are at work in the generation of NP forms.
These depend on the characteristics of the referent of the NP in the context in
which it is used (see Zeevat, to appear) and are in the form of parse constraints.
Parse constraints in OT are constraints that say what features present in the input
must be marked in generated forms. One of the parse constraints he proposes is
PARSEUNIQUE. In generation, PARSEUNIQUE will demand that unique NPs are
marked for their uniqueness, and this is satisfied by using a definite article.
Therefore only non-unique definites have indefinites as assertional alternatives.
This then explains why big definite NPs are able to accommodate easily, because
the additional information that makes them “big”, also makes them unique in their
context, and an indefinite would not be a winning candidate because it wouldn’t
fulfill the parse requirement. Zeevat even explicitly states that only unique definites
can accommodate. 10
This explanation is problematic for two reasons. The first reason is that a
majority of definite NPs refer to referents that are unique in their context, but only
big NPs tend to be used to introduce discourse-new information. With the addition
of this constraint, however, most definite NPs should be able to accommodate,
even small definite NPs. Potentially, we could say that the bigger the NP is, the
more unique it must be because we have more specific information, but this would
seem to be just a reworking of van der Sandt’s descriptive content explanation in
the form of an OT parse constraint. The second reason why this explanation is
10 The ordering for the constraints considered relevant for choices between definite descriptions
and indefinites are PARSEOLD >> PARSEUNIQUE and then AVOIDACCOMMODATION .
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