A presupposition is a condition that has to be met in order for a linguistic expression to be appropriate. The definite determiner (as in the banana) triggers the uniqueness-presupposition that there ...is a uniquely identifiable banana in the relevant discourse context. The indefinite determiner (as in a banana) is similarly associated with anti-uniqueness (that there are several bananas). Application of the Maximize Presupposition principle to the indefinite determiner suggests that this latter effect results indirectly as an anti-presupposition from considering the uniqueness-presupposition of the definite determiner, which is then negated. This results in increased processing difficulty. We utilized mouse-tracking to compare processing of definite and indefinite determiners when used felicitously and infelicitously in a particular context. First, processing of the indefinite determiner was associated with more processing difficulties compared with the definite determiner. Second, we also observed evidence for an initial temporary activation and evaluation of the uniqueness-presupposition, just as derived from anti-presupposition theory and the Maximize Presupposition principle.
The paper presents a new scientonomic account of question dynamics. To explain the process of question acceptance and rejection, we begin by introducing the notion of epistemic presupposition and ...show how it’s different from the notion of logical presupposition. With the notion of epistemic presupposition at hand, we formulate the law of question acceptance, a new scientonomic axiom, which states that a question becomes accepted only if all of its epistemic presuppositions are accepted, and it is accepted that the question is answerable. We then show how the process of question rejection can be explained by means of the question rejection theorem, which states that a question becomes rejected when other elements that are incompatible with the question become accepted. To deduce this theorem in the usual scientonomic fashion (from the first law and the compatibility corollary), we first ascertain that the notion of compatibility/incompatibility is applicable to questions and show that one can legitimately speak of both question-theory and question-question incompatibility. We conclude by providing a quick illustration of the historical applicability of this new framework and suggest a number of questions for future research.
Persuasive presuppositions Moldovan, Andrei
Journal of pragmatics,
July 2023, 2023-07-00, Letnik:
211
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A recurrent claim, coming from different approaches to pragmatics, argumentation theory and related disciplines, is that informative presuppositions have a special persuasive force. My aim in this ...paper is threefold: first, it is to achieve a better understanding of this claim. I argue that we should carefully distinguish between persuasion, which involves forming a belief, and accommodation, which requires acceptance of a proposition for the purpose of the conversation. Consequently, we should distinguish between the persuasive force of presuppositions and a different claim concerning our tendency to accommodate presuppositions. Second, I briefly discuss the evidence available for these claims, from the perspective of the distinction introduced. Finally, I argue that the Stalnakerian approach to presuppositions has the resources needed to offer an account of their persuasive force.
•The paper analyzes the thesis that informative presuppositions have a special persuasive force.•Attention needs to be paid to the distinction between persuasion and accommodation.•The evidence available is discussed from the perspective of this distinction.•An account of the persuasive force is offered within the Stalnakerian framework.
This research is about pragmatics analysis of presupposition as found in the tagline of horror movie posters. This research aimed to discover presupposition triggers and type of presupposition in the ...tagline of horror movie posters. In this research, the data were collected by downloading 14 taglines in horror movie posters. Then, the data downloaded were divided according to the presupposition triggers and the types of presuppositions. The data were analyzed using two theories, presupposition triggers by Kartunnen (1973) and Yule’s presupposition types (1996). The result of the analysis shows an argument and a table. The results show that from 42 presupposition triggers found in the tagline of horror movie posters, definite descriptions are the most dominant presupposition triggers. Other presupposition triggers are the change of state verbs, factive verb, and counterfactual conditional. Meanwhile, out of 6 types of presuppositions, there are only four types of presuppositions found in the tagline of horror movie posters: existential presupposition, lexical presupposition, factive presupposition, and counterfactual presupposition.
Slurs and antipresuppositions Lo Guercio, Nicolás
Natural language semantics,
06/2021, Letnik:
29, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
It has been observed (Heim in Semantik: Ein internationales Handbuch der zeitgenössischen Forschung, 487–535,
1991
) that when there is competition between alternative sentences with different ...presuppositional strength, use of the weaker alternative triggers an inference, sometimes called an antipresupposition, to the effect that the presupposition of the stronger alternative is not satisfied. Furthermore, it has been argued that in order to account for antipresuppositions, it is necessary to postulate an independent pragmatic principle called
Maximize Presupposition!
, which states that the sentence with the stronger presupposition should be preferred whenever its presupposition is satisfied. In parallel, presuppositional theories of slurs (Cepollaro, PhD thesis.
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01508856/document
,
2017
; Cepollaro and Stojanovic in Grazer Philosophische Studien 93(3): 458–488,
2016
; Schlenker in Theoretical Linguistics 33(2): 237–245.
https://doi.org/10.1515/TL.2007.017
,
2007
) maintain that while these expressions encode the same truth-conditional content as their neutral counterparts, they trigger a presupposition that accounts for their derogatory potential. In this article, I argue that presuppositional theories of slurs together with
Maximize Presupposition!
predict that the use of a neutral counterpart triggers an antipresupposition to the effect that the presupposition of the corresponding slur is not satisfied. As a result, this view incorrectly predicts (i) that it is infelicitous to use the neutral counterpart in contexts where the slur’s presupposition is satisfied, and (ii) that felicitous use of the neutral counterpart in a context that is unspecific w.r.t. the pejorative presupposition typically triggers the inference that the presupposition of the corresponding slur is not satisfied.
The present study investigates the processing of presupposition accommodation. In particular, it concerns the processing costs and the time-course of accommodation as compared to presupposition ...satisfaction. Data collected in a self-paced word-by-word reading times experiment support three results. First, independently on the presupposition trigger in use, accommodation is costlier than satisfaction. Second, presupposition accommodation takes places immediately just as the trigger becomes available and proceeds incrementally during the sentence processing. Third, accommodated information is harder to be recalled. The results offer evidence for the on-line processing of presuppositions and, consistently with the traditional semantic framework, support the idea that, presuppositions are semantic properties encoded in the lexical meaning of the presupposition triggers.
Kučerová (2018) puts forward a novel theory of the morphology and interpretation of nominal gender in Italian. Here, we take issue with this theory from both empirical and theoretical standpoints. We ...first show that several generalizations presented as empirical support for it are incorrect. We then point out three fundamental theoretical challenges. First, the proposed three-way classification of nouns does not represent the full range of facts, because it does not take into account plural morphology or the interdependencies of class and gender features. Second, the account of gender mismatch in terms of “semicon-servativity” fails to capture the Italian data, once the full paradigm is considered. Finally, the use of phase theory to model contextual valuation of gender faces an insurmountable lookahead problem.
Presuppositions are typically considered as projective inferences that are triggered by certain expressions and taken for granted. Whereas Simons (Simons, Mandy. 2001. On the conversational basis of ...some presuppositions.
11. 431–448) observes that expressions with a similar semantic content belonging to the same language give rise to the same presupposition, this has not been investigated in a systematic way for semantically equivalent expressions from different languages. Furthermore, more recent research has shown that different presupposition triggers are characterized by differing projective strength, therefore, a distinction of highly projective hard triggers and less projective soft triggers has been proposed (Abusch, Dorit. 2002. Lexical alternatives as a source of pragmatic presuppositions.
12. 1–19, Abusch, Dorit. 2010. Presupposition triggering from alternatives.
27(1). 37–80). Here, we present an experiment comparing four classical presupposition triggers from German and their counterparts in Chinese (cleft sentences,
, factive predicates
and
) in order to a) investigate the cross-linguistic stability of their projective strength and b) to verify the heterogeneity of these triggers in both languages. Our results show that the projective behavior and the heterogeneity of presuppositions can be considered cross-linguistically stable, at least when suitable equivalences for both languages can be found. Furthermore, our data suggest that the group of soft triggers has to be more heterogeneous than previously assumed. More precisely, whereas hard triggers behave the same way, it is possible that each soft trigger might be soft in its own way. In sum, our experimental investigation aims to improve the understanding of presuppositions, the underlying triggering process and their projective behavior across different languages.
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