Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Anaphors and Bound Presuppositions
actually does, it identifies parallel information. The following example shows a use
of too that triggers a presupposition that is understandable from the earlier context
but requires the use of world-knowledge.
(11) too, triggered p: there is lots about someone else’s mother, (2-14 148)
Speaker -b What are you looking for~|
Speaker C Mother‘s . autobiography, **
Speaker A *Oh yes*, A that‘s right, you were going to weren‘t **you yes**.
Speaker C **I had** your [ko] a copy lying around on my desk at the project for you
for a long time but you haven‘t . been in - - what did I do with it now.
Speaker-b Not the *part of your work which *~|
Speaker A *Well if it‘s still at the project -*, I‘ll collect it on Monday.
Speaker C
Speaker A Pass me my handbag *dear, and I‘ll get out my old pair of glasses - If you‘re giving oh if you‘re giving it me that‘s lovely, yes.*
Speaker C *yes here we are - - - you are welcome to have this - a
copy.*
Speaker A Thanks very much - - yes.
Speaker C Well I think you‘re entitled, as they say .
Speaker A Yes {I think so} too, thank you - -
Speaker C And lots about your mother too - -
Speaker b Well there would be if they were sisters *and the early part of
her life.*
Speaker C *Yes - - and lots of it was the same life.
Speaker A Quite - - **-** Thank you.
In the above example too triggers the presuppositions that there is lots about
someone’s mother in the autobiography. The focus in the triggering expression
(referred to by the possessive noun phrase ‘your mother’) is bound with Speaker
C’s mother, the subject of the autobiography. The presupposed information cannot
bind with information contributed by a particular linguistic expression as was the
case in example (10), but instead the antecedental information is follows from what
we know about autobiographies. In someone’s autobiography we will find a great
deal of information about that particular person.
The analysis of the excerpted too examples were also done by a second
annotator because it seemed to differ so much from the other trigger types, and
identifying the presupposed material and antecedent material was a much more
complicated, but generally successful, task. It was almost always possible for both
annotators to identify a theme or focus which the speaker might have meant,
though in some cases this was vague or unclear.
In summary, it was not difficult to identify where similar or identical
information was introduced in the discourse. The potential difficulty lies in then
determining if the information contributed by the antecedent is meant to refer to
the information contained in the induced presupposition, and to justify the decision
to consider the one an antecedent of the other. The problem of determining if the
triggered presupposition is really being bound to something, and what kind of
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