Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Chapter 2
representation in some cases. It can therefore be extended to cover other
relationships if they are of a similar type.
Van der Sandt (1992) argued that the procedure for resolving
presuppositional expressions can be seen as parallel to anaphoric binding. First, the
presupposed information as it is understood without a context or without
embedding is identified. This information is stored in a temporary DRS, called an
alpha-structure. Information in the alpha-structure is information that has to be
processed, and one way for it to be processed is to find an antecedent. If an
antecedent that is compatible is found, then the presupposed information in the
alpha-structure is bound with this information. The descriptive information
associated with the presupposed information is then moved to the binding site. The
alpha-structure then becomes empty, and can then be removed from the
representation.
Let’s look at one of the earlier examples with a definite NP and see how this
would work. (45)b below shows the representation of the first sentence in (45)a.
The alpha-structure is written as an italicized DRS prefixed with α, e.g. here α[ z :
bicycle(z), z =?]. In (45)c we can see the alpha-structure with the presupposed
information triggered by the definite description in the second sentence. The
reference marker z in the alpha-structure can be identified with the reference
marker y in the main DRS. Then the descriptive information associated with the
presupposition can be moved as well. Finally, as seen in (45)e, the redundant
information in the representation can be removed.
(45) a. Julia has a bicycle. The bicycle is red. 10
b. [x, y : Julia(x), bicycle(y), x owns y]
c. [x, y : Julia(x), bicycle(y), x owns y, α[ z : bicycle(z), z =?], red(z)]
d. [x, y, z : Julia(x), bicycle(y), x owns y, bicycle(z), z = y, red(z)]
e. [x, y : Julia(x), bicycle(y), x owns y, red(y)]
Note that the representation in (45)e is the same as the representation we got for (34)
above, i.e. we cannot tell from the final representation whether the new descriptive
content that the bicycle was red was able to be associated with the bicycle
introduced in the first sentence because it was linked to it via a presuppositional
expression as in (45)a or via an anaphoric expression as in (34). But this shouldn’t
be a problem because we understand (34) and (45) a to communicate the same
information, both should be true in the same situations, and this is correctly
reflected in that they are both given the same representation. There is however a
difference between the two cases in how this representation was reached. In some
cases, the input context will differ, but the resulting representation, the output
context, in both cases will have the same truth-conditions. Note that because
10 Examples like these described in the earlier literature on presupposition would be spoken about
in different terminology. We would say that the presupposition does not project, and the reason
for this in e.g. Karttunen (1973) would be because the presupposition of the second conjunct is
entailed by the first conjunct.
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