Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Approaches to Presupposition
the predicates in which they appear as arguments. The second category is the nonanaphoric
referential triggers that includes particles like too, also, and even as well
as intonationally marked topics. These triggers generally do not accommodate
easily. The third category are the lexical presupposition triggers which includes
lexical items that are associated with requirements, and would include words like
bachelor. Zeevat (to appear) also expands on Blutner’s (2000) Bi-OT treatment by
giving a more detailed explanation of what types of constraints will be necessary in
order to predict the form of generated NPs for referring to semantic objects with
different statuses in the discourse, for example if the referent is old, salient or
unique. He also discusses at length the explanation that accommodation is only
licensed when there is no non-presupposing alternative.
2.6 SUMMARY
This introduction should give the reader enough background information to
understand the rest of the dissertation. The corpus data is used to evaluate the
practicality of using the binding theory to analyze naturally produced examples and
to discuss some of its claims about the behavior of presuppositions, as well as other
claims in the literature. We have already seen in the last section where variations of
the binding theory were discussed that there are several problems and unanswered
questions about the function of presuppositions. Here, naturally produced
examples of presupposition in context can perhaps give us some additional data
with which to discuss these problems.
A note on terminology for the rest of this work. Throughout I will talk of
analyzing an inference triggered by a presuppositional expression as resolving it. I
refer to an inference triggered by a presuppositional expression in a particular
utterance as the triggered presupposition, or induced presupposition. An induced
presupposition is only considered a presupposition of a particular utterance if it has
been resolved by global accommodation; that is, it has been projected. Resolutions
that lead to globally accommodated presuppositions result in a presupposing reading
of the utterance, whereas resolution by binding or by local or intermediate
accommodation leads to a non-presupposing reading. I will use the terms bound
presuppositions, accommodated presuppositions and e.g. factive presuppositions as abbreviated
forms for induced presuppositions that are resolved by binding, induced presuppositions that are
resolved by accommodation, and presuppositions triggered by factives respectively. I will also
talk of presuppositions in general, by which I mean the inferences triggered by
presuppositional expressions regardless of the resolution. This use of terminology
is not ideal, but it is consistent with the earlier literature while still allowing me to
address categories and resolution strategies used in current theories.
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