Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Chapter 5
In the case of aspectual verbs I think it is more correct to consider their
presuppositions to be preconditions in a way quite different from the factives and
presupposed material triggered by other expressions. The hearer doesn’t have to
agree with or believe a presupposed fact in order to understand that the subject
noticed, regretted or knew it. But the hearer has to accept the truth of an aspectual
presupposition to make any sense of the rest of the information associated with it,
i.e. I have to accept that John used to smoke to make any sense of the information
that he quit.
Others have pointed out that the presuppositions of aspectual verbs are
somewhat different, and Zeevat (1992) argues that they could be classified like
lexical triggers like bachelor, and that their presuppositions seem to be easier to
describe in terms of satisfaction than the binding theory. 21 They seem to be more
of a sortal restriction on using the word with the assertional meaning. Another way
in which they differ is that it is nearly impossible to locally accommodate them in
the scope of negation unless you are dealing with true denial. The reason for this is
because denying the presupposition makes the asserted material uninformative as
well. This is arguably quite different than other cases of local accommodation. They
can however be locally accommodated under other types of embeddings. For
example, when they are induced by a trigger in a long hypothetical discussion,
illustrated in the example below. This is another way in which negated contexts
differ from other embedded contexts.
(49) it is not working now with an Austrian University (LOCAL) (1-2@ 649)
Speaker B when we’ve got a bit more [inf] information, [@] and if we’ve . seen a
pattern that begins to work…[@m] with [@m] with an Austrian
university .#|
B and A are discussing setting up some kind of program between their university
and universities abroad. Up until line 650 they are discussing which Italian
universities could be partners and line 651 continues an unspecified sentence that
“first with Italian universities and then when we’ve seen a pattern that begins to
work” with and Austrian University. Here it is necessary to read a great deal of the
previous context to understand that the pattern referred to is being developed in
Italian universities and “with an Austrian university” is not a clause in any way
attached to the preceding sentence.
Why do the induced presuppositions of aspectual verbs behave this way? It
could have something to do with the role that presupposed information associated
with aspectual verbs has. These presuppositions are usually not new information
that the speaker wants to present as a fact and have accepted, but relatively
unimportant though necessary background information/pre-conditions for the
main point, whether the asserted information is negated, conditional or
hypothetical. This is also why aspectual verb presuppositions are generally rather
boring and seldom controversial, e.g. someone used to do something, someone
21 Note however that Zeevat (1992) also places factives in this same category.
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