Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse
Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse
Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse
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Anaphors and Bound <strong>Presuppositions</strong><br />
4 Anaphors and Bound <strong>Presuppositions</strong><br />
The ma<strong>in</strong> claim of the b<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g theory is that presuppositions and anaphors are the<br />
same k<strong>in</strong>d of th<strong>in</strong>gs, with the primary difference be<strong>in</strong>g that presuppositions can be<br />
accommodated but anaphoric expressions cannot because they lack the descriptive<br />
content to do so. In this chapter, I evaluate this claim <strong>in</strong> relation to corpus<br />
examples of bound presuppositions. I will present evidence that <strong>in</strong> discourse,<br />
bound presuppositions show the same type of behavior as their anaphoric<br />
counterparts. Examples from the corpus illustrate that these bound presuppositions<br />
are used by speakers and perceived by hearers <strong>in</strong> a similar way as discourse<br />
anaphora, support<strong>in</strong>g the claim that they are two of the same k<strong>in</strong>d. I will also<br />
present several examples that show that bound presuppositions can generally fulfill<br />
more discourse functions than anaphoric expressions. These results are perhaps not<br />
so controversial for def<strong>in</strong>ite noun phrases, which have long been recognized as<br />
hav<strong>in</strong>g an anaphoric component, but are more controversial for many of the other<br />
triggers, <strong>in</strong> particular the triggers that presuppose abstract objects such as aspectual<br />
verbs, factives, it-clefts and too. For this reason the ma<strong>in</strong> discussion will focus on<br />
illustrat<strong>in</strong>g that presuppositions <strong>in</strong>duced by these particular abstract triggers<br />
function like discourse anaphors.<br />
It is not always easy to determ<strong>in</strong>e if an abstract presupposition has an<br />
antecedent <strong>in</strong> the discourse and because accommodation is also an option, it is not<br />
always absolutely necessary to identify the antecedent. For many of the examples <strong>in</strong><br />
the corpus it is difficult to have clear <strong>in</strong>tuitions as to whether two l<strong>in</strong>guistic<br />
expressions refer to the same event, situation or fact. However, other evidence<br />
often signals that the speaker <strong>in</strong>tends the hearer to recognize an anaphoric<br />
relationship. This l<strong>in</strong>k is often necessary, not for determ<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g the truth-conditional<br />
mean<strong>in</strong>g of the discourse, but for its rhetorical or communicative effect, for<br />
correctly understand<strong>in</strong>g the speaker’s attitude to the message and for correctly<br />
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