Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Chapter 7
behave quite similarly to discourse anaphora. But the extent to which the
presuppositions induced behave like pronominal anaphors is determined by the
particular trigger. We can still see discourse effects similar to anaphora in all the
trigger types studied here, but they have functions beyond pronominal anaphors,
even for the abstract triggers.
Another conclusion is that presuppositions are not homogeneous. The
presuppositions induced by the triggers studied here all varied in the frequence with
which they were used with the different types of resolution. Most lexical and
structural triggers generally share the logical characteristics that are associated with
presuppositions and recognized by all theories. But the tendency with which the
the triggered information to be used by speakers with a certain resolution differs
according to the particular trigger type. This empirical result supports many of the
theoretical ideas regarding the heterogeneity of presupposition triggers discussed in
the work of Henk Zeevat (e.g. Zeevat 1992, 1999, 2000, to appear).
It is not clear what lies at the root of the tendency to be bound,
accommodated, or to be used with hearer-new or hearer-old information. I offered
several explanations in the earlier chapters, but I will summarize them here. The
function that the presuppositional expression of a particular trigger can have in
discourse is one of the main factors affecting the type of resolution with which
presupposed information will tend to be used. This function is in turn intimately
connected to the semantic type of the triggered presupposition. Semantic objects of
different types have different inherent qualities that affect when and how we refer
to these objects in discourse. These effects then carry over to presupposed
information depending on its type. If we can identify the characteristics of different
types of semantic objects, and how they can be referred to and used linguistically, I
think we will be able to see the effect that these characteristics have on the way we
refer to these objects in discourse. This can then give us an explanation for the
different tendencies we see in presupposition usage.
Another implication of the heterogeneous nature of presuppositions is that
in examining a certain characteristic related to a presupposition trigger of a certain
type, we should always complement our study by looking at examples of other
triggers as well. Finding a certain behavior in a trigger is no guarantee that we will
find it in others.
I examined only a small subset of all the lexical and syntactic items identified
as presupposition triggers. It is therefore not at all clear that the results here are
relevant for other triggers. In particular, lexical presupposition triggers seem to be
quite different and there seems to be no need to consider them anaphoric. Take for
example bachelor, which is often argued to presuppose that its referent is unmarried
and male. It is necessary that the information predicated about an individual be
consistent with earlier information. However, I do not see any advantage in trying
to treat them as anaphors. In fact, I doubt that they should be treated as
presupposition triggers at all. And while I have not conducted any corpus study, I
am quite skeptical that we would ever find instances of the presuppositional
information already given in the discourse with any of the characteristics typical of
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