Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Chapter 6
Category Example given by Clark
Direct reference
Identity I met a man yesterday. He told me a story.
Her house was large. The size surprised me.
Pronominalization Her house was large. That surprised me.
Epitets I ran two miles the other day. The whole stupid business
bored me.
Set membership I met two people yesterday. The woman told me a story.
Indirect reference by association
Necessary parts I looked into the room. The ceiling was very high.
Probable parts I walked into the room. The windows looked out to the bay.
Inducible parts I went shopping yesterday. The climb did me good.
Indirect reference by characterization
Necessary roles John was murdered yesterday. The murderer got away.
Optional roles John died yesterday. The murderer got away.
Reasons, causes, consequences, and concurrences
Reasons John had a suit on. It was Jane he hoped to impress.
Causes John had a suit on. It was Jan who told him to wear it.
Consequences John fell. What he did was break his arm.
Concurrences John is a Republican. Mary is slightly daft too.
Table 10 Varieties of Bridging Inferences, abridged from Clark (1975, p. 414-19)
(3) John fell. What he wanted to do was scare Mary.
The explanation given by Clark for (3) is “John fell for the reason that he wanted to
do something; that something is the Antecedent to what he wanted to do.” (p. 418)
Note that the John wanted to do something is also a presupposition induced by the whcleft.
For all the examples, the element which needs to be understood by a bridging
inference is marked either as anaphoric or as presuppositional. The examples given
under Reasons, causes, consequences, and concurrences are also presupposition triggers (e.g.
it-cleft, wh-cleft and too), where the triggered presupposition has an anchor derived
from the information in the first sentence.
Clark summarized three characteristics he believed to be shared by the group
of bridging inferences he identified. Bridging inferences (from Clark 1975, p. 411-
412):
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1) originate in the Given-New contract between speakers and listeners.
2) ‘draw on ones knowledge of natural objects and events that goes beyond one’s knowledge
of language itself’ (p. 412)
3) ‘are not indeterminate in length but have a well-defined stopping rule’ (p. 412)
The first characteristic refers to the ‘Given-New contract’ between speakers and
listeners, discussed in Haviland & Clark(1974). This is the agreement that speakers
will partition language into identifiably new and identifiably given information to
make interpretation easier. The second characteristic points out that bridging