Presupposed ignorance and exhaustification: how scalar implicatures and presuppositions interact

We investigate the interactions between scalar implicatures and presuppositions in sentences containing both a scalar item and presupposition trigger. We first critically discuss Gajewski and Sharvit’s previous approach. We then closely examine two ways of integrating an exhaustivity-based theory of scalar implicatures with a trivalent approach to presuppositions. The empirical side of our discussion focuses on two novel observations: (i) the interactions between prosody and monotonicity, and (ii) what we call presupposed ignorance. In order to account for these observations, our final proposal relies on two mechanisms of scalar strengthening, the Presupposed Ignorance Principle and an exhaustivity operator which lets the presuppositions of negated alternatives project

On Presupposition Projection with Trivalent Connectives

A basic puzzle about presuppositions concerns their projection from propositional constructions. This problem has regained much attention in the last decade since many of its prominent accounts, including variants of the trivalent Strong Kleene connectives, suffer from the so-called *proviso problem*. This paper argues that basic insights of the Strong Kleene system can be used without invoking the proviso problem. It is shown that the notion of *determinant value* that underlies the definition of the Strong Kleene connectives leads to a natural generalization of the filtering conditions proposed in Karttunen's article "Presuppositions of compound sentences" (LI, 1973). Incorporating this generalized  condition into an incremental projection algorithm avoids the proviso problem as well as the derivation of conditional presuppositions. It is argued that the same effects that were previously modelled using conditional presuppositions may be viewed as effects of presupposition suspension and contextual inference on presupposition projection

Two Types of Semantic Presuppositions

Expressions that normally carry presuppositions differ with respect to whether their presuppositions can be suspended, or behave as if they were mere entailments, in exceptional circumstances. In recent terminology there are said to be ‘soft triggers’, which allow for suspension, and ‘hard triggers’, which do not (Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet, Meaning and grammar, 2nd edn. MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000; Simons, On the conversational basis of some presuppositions. In: Proceedings of semantics and linguistics theory 11, 2001; Abusch, Lexical alternatives as a source of pragmatic presuppositions. In: Jackson B (ed) Proceedings of SALT XII. CLC Publications, Ithaca, NY, 2002, following Karttunen, Some observations on factivity. Pap Linguist 5:55–69, 1971; Stalnaker, Pragmatic presuppositions. In: Munitz MK, Unger PK (eds) Semantics and philosophy: essays. New York University Press, New York, 1974; Wilson, Presuppositions and non-truth-conditional semantics. Academic, New York, 1975). Most of these authors have assumed that the possibility of suspending a presupposition argues against its being a semantic presupposition of the relevant expression, and in favor of treating it as a pragmatic inference. If this is correct, the explanatory burden for the theory of semantic presuppositions would seem to be reduced. On the other hand, if both soft and hard triggers are to be treated uniformly as carrying semantic presuppositions, two logically distinct problems arise. The first is to give an account of why suspension is possible in the first place. The second is to explain, given that account, why suspension is impossible or extremely difficult for hard triggers. This paper suggests that there is a simple answer to the second problem: soft triggers necessarily entail their semantic presuppositions, hard triggers do not, and speakers do not invoke semantic presuppositions idly. In addition, formulating this answer makes transparent the nature of the first problem

Parsing and Presupposition in the Calculation of Local Contexts

In this paper, we use antecedent-final conditionals to formulate two problems for parsing-based theories of presupposition projection and triviality of the kind given in Schlenker 2009. We show that, when it comes to antecedent-final conditionals, parsing-based theories predict filtering of presuppositions where there is in fact projection, and triviality judgments for sentences which are in fact felicitous. More concretely, these theories predict that presuppositions triggered in the antecedent of antecedent-final conditionals will be filtered (i.e. will not project) if the negation of the consequent entails the presupposition. But this is wrong: John isn’t in Paris, if he regrets being in France intuitively presupposes that John is in France, contrary to this prediction. Likewise, parsing-based approaches to triviality predict that material entailed by the negation of the consequent will be redundant in the antecedent of the conditional; but John isn’t in Paris, if he’s in France and Mary is with him is intuitively felicitous, contrary to these predictions. Importantly, given that the trigger appears in sentence-final position, both incremental (left-to-right) and symmetric versions of such theories make the same predictions. These data constitute a challenge to the idea that presupposition projection and triviality should be computed on the basis of parsing. This issue is important because it relates to the more general question as to whether presupposition and triviality calculation should be thought of as a pragmatic post-compositional phenomenon or as part of compositional semantics (as in the more traditional dynamic approaches). We discuss a solution which allows us to maintain the parsing-based pragmatic approach; it is based on an analysis of conditionals which incorporates a presupposition that their antecedent is compatible with the context, together with a modification to Schlenker’s (2009) algorithm for calculating local contexts so that it takes into account presupposed material. As we will discuss, this solution works within a framework broadly similar to that of Schlenker’s (2009), but it doesn’t extend in an obvious way to other parsing-based accounts (e.g. parsing-based trivalent approaches). We conclude that a parsing-based theory can be maintained, but only if we adopt a substantial change of perspective on the framework

A Trivalent Account of Anaphora and Presupposition

This paper presents an alternative to standard dynamic semantics. It uses the strong Kleene connectives to give a unified account of e-type anaphora and presupposition projection. The system is more conservative and simple than standard dynamic treatments of these two phenomena, and, I argue, has empirical advantages in its treatment of disjunction and negation

Scalar implicatures with discourse referents: a case study on plurality inferences

This paper explores the idea that scalar implicatures are computed with respect to discourse referents. Given the general consensus that a proper account of pronominal anaphora in natural language requires discourse referents separately from the truth-conditional meaning, it is naturally expected that the anaphoric information that discourse referents carry play a role in the computation of scalar implicatures, but the literature has so far mostly exclusively focused on the truth-conditional dimension of meaning. This paper offers a formal theory of scalar implicatures with discourse referents couched in dynamic semantics, and demonstrates its usefulness through a case study on the plurality inferences of plural nouns in English

On the semantics of phi features on pronouns

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 246-260).This thesis investigates three topics relating to the semantics of phi features on pronouns. Part I focuses on gender features on pronouns. Following previous studies (Cooper 1983, Heim & Kratzer 1998), I claim that they are presupposition triggers. Based on this assumption, I show that predicates containing bound gendered pronouns have an assertive meaning that does not entail the gender presupposition, and further point out that such predicates pose a serious challenge for existing theories of presupposition projection, especially with respect to quantified sentences. A conclusion drawn from this discussion is that the presupposition needs to be dissociated from the assertive meaning, as in Karttunen & Peters's (1979) two dimensional theory. However, such a theory is known to run into the so-called binding problem in quantified sentences. I propose a solution to the binding problem using the mechanism of cross-sentential anaphora, and show that the resulting theory nicely accounts for the projection properties of various quantificational determiners. Part II discusses the interpretation of person and number features on bound pronouns. It is known that some occurrences of phi features on bound pronoun behave as if they are semantically inert (Heim 2008b, Jacobson to appear, Kratzer 1998a, 2009, Partee 1989). One popular account of this phenomenon, the minimal pronoun account, claims that such phi features are purely morphological, and postulates a PF operation that transmits phi features of a binder onto each pronoun that it binds (Heim 2008b, Kratzer 1998a, 2009). I put forward an alternative account that dispenses with the PF operation, and instead puts most of the burden on syntax, by encoding more information in the indices than standardly assumed. As a result, all occurrences of phi features are semantically relevant. I offer both empirical and conceptual arguments for the proposed account over the minimal pronoun account. Part III deals with the phenomenon of indexical shifting where person features are systematically affected (Anand 2006, Anand & Nevins 2004, Schlenker 1999, 2003b). I discuss novel data from Uyghur and Japanese as well as data drawn from previous studies, particularly focusing on the universals and variation within and across languages.by Yasutada Sudo.Ph.D