The sources of presupposition:
literature review
Mandy Simons
Dept of Philosophy
Carnegie Mellon University
Grice 1981
“Presupposition and Conversational Implicature.” In P.Cole
(ed.) Radical Pragmatics (NY: Academic Press).
• Attempt to derive the existence and
uniqueness presupposition of definites as
an implicature, assuming Russellian
semantics.
Grice 1981
• Russell’s analysis
The F is G is true iff:
There is an x s.t.:
i. x is F
ii. nothing distinct from x is F and
iii. x is G
i. is existence condition
ii. is uniqueness condition
Grice 1981
“An implication that there is a king of France
is often carried by saying [The king of
France is not bald], but it is tempting to
suggest that this implication is not,
inescapably, part of the conventional force
of the utterance, but is rather a matter of
conversational implicature.”
• Reasons:
• Cancellability
• Nondetachability (?)
Grice 1981
• Reformulation of Russellian analysis:
The king of France is bald =
i. There is at least one king of France &
ii. There is not more than one king of France &
iii. Nothing which is the king of France is not
bald.
• 3 separate clauses, each of which can be
false independently of the others.
Grice 1981
• Proposed sub-maxim of Manner:
• “Frame whatever you say in the form most suitable for
any reply that would be regarded as appropriate” (or)
• “Facilitate in your form of expression the appropriate
reply.”
• I.e. Formulate your utterance so it’s main point is clear?
• Grice’s strategy: Provide an argument that an
utterance of the form “The F is G” would violate
this maxim unless the speaker assumed that any
denial would be a denial of the G-ness
attribution.
• Why would speaker assume this?
• Speaker believes existence and uniqueness conditions
are common ground or are uncontroversial.
Grice 1981
• Why would the existence and uniqueness
claims typically have this status?
• I think Grice’s argument here is confused, so I
won’t detail it.
• Presuppositionality of negated sentence:
• Utterance of negation is equivalent to a
negative response to an utterance of the
affirmative.
• So speaker must be making the same
assumptions that would be made by a speaker
uttering the affirmative.
Properties of the account
• Basic structure:
• Observation that presuppositions are
entailments of the affirmative.
• Provide a pragmatic argument that these particular
entailments must have presuppositional status in
order for utterance to be conversationally
appropriate.
• Account for presuppositions of the negation
(and other embeddings) indirectly, via
discourse relation to affirmative.
Stalnaker 1974 on know
Jane knows that Bill is in town.
• Stalnaker: this leaves unclear whether
speaker’s main point is about Jane’s
epistemic state or about Bill being in town.
• So, cooperative speaker should utter this only
when one of these is already common ground.
• Utterance will not be informative if main clause
proposition is common ground; so complement
will always have presuppositional status.
Stalnaker 1974 on know: response
A: Why didn’t Jane invite Bill to the party?
B: She thinks he’s left town.
A: Where is Bill these days?
B: Jane thinks he’s left town.
• Main point differs depending on context.
• But no presuppositional effects.
Atlas and Levinson 1981
Jay Atlas and Stephen Levinson, “It-clefts, Informativeness
and Logical Form: Radical Pragmatics (Revised Standard
Version).” In P. Cole, Radical Pragmatics.
Summarized in Levinson 1983, Pragmatics. (CUP)
• Analysis of presuppositionality of it-clefts.
• Background ideas:
• Input to inferential component is logical form
(structured proposition).
• it-clefts have special logical forms
Atlas and Levinson 1981
1. It was John that Mary kissed.
2. λx(x=john)(γxKiss(mary,x))
• (γxKiss(mary,x)) = “the group kissed by
Mary”
• This is the logical subject of the sentence.
• Formula predicates property of being identical
to John of this group.
• Entails that Mary kissed John, and also
that Mary kissed only John.
Atlas and Levinson 1981
• Further assumptions:
• The logical subject of a sentence is what the
sentence is “about”.
• General pragmatic principle: If a sentence is
about t, then the existence or actuality of t can
be assumed to be non-controversial or given,
unless there are specific indications or
assumptions to the contrary. (!)
• What is assumed to be given is not normally
the main point of an utterance.
Account of affirmative it-clefts
It was John that Mary kissed.
Alleged presupposition: Mary kissed someone.
•
Logical form entails that Mary kissed someone.
•
Entailment is due to content of logical subject.
•
Pragmatic principle states that this content is
assumed to be given, and therefore not main
point.
 Hence this entailment is “backgrounded” and
treated as “given” (i.e. presupposed).
Account of negative it-clefts
1. It wasn’t John who Mary kissed.
2. ¬(λx(x=john)(γxKiss(mary,x)))
3. λx(x≠john)(γxKiss(mary,x))
Claim: 1. interpreted as 3. by Principle of
Informativeness (distinct from Quantity).
•
If an utterance has multiple possible
interpretations, assign to it the most informative
one compatible with the common ground.
Account of negative it-clefts
• λx(x≠john)(γxKiss(mary,x))
• Logical subject remains outside scope of
negation
• So account of affirmative extends to the
negative.
Properties of the account
• Similarities to Grice’s proposal:
• Based on particular assumption about logical
form.
• So the pragmatic account is really a
semantics/pragmatics interface account.
• Invokes a highly specific pragmatic principle.
• One construction at a time…
• Presuppositionality identified with
backgrounding, non-main point.
Cancellation and accommodation revisited
• Cancellation: on a conversational account,
is just a case where the inference does not
arise.
• Accommodation: simply a matter of
accepting new information, not a matter
of “fixing” a context which fails to license
a particular utterance
• But this is a consequence of the particular view
of what presupposition is, not of the
conversational derivation.
Wilson and Sperber 1979
•
Approach: explain presupposition as an
interaction of semantic (conventional) and
pragmatic (inferential) factors.
•
Semantic innovation: Semantic representations
include ordered sets of entailments. Linguistic
features render particular sets salient.
•
Pragmatics: Interpretation involves identifying
the pragmatically most important entailments –
the ones which determine the relevance of the
utterance.
•
Other entailments constitute the background,
and are presupposed.
Ordered entailments
1. Bill annoyed Sam’s father.
a. Ex.Bill annoyed Sam’s x.
b. Ex.Bill annoyed x.
c. Ex.Bill annoyed x’s father.
d. Ex.x annoyed Sam’s father.
e. ER.Bill R Sam’s father.
f. EP.P(Bill)
1⊢a-e, a⊢b,f, c⊢b,f, b⊢f, e⊢f
•
Grammatically specified entailments:
determined by replacing constituent with
variable and existentially closing.
Bill annoyed
Sam’s father
Ex.Bill annoyed
Sam’s x.
Ex.Bill annoyed
x’s father.
Ex.x annoyed
Sam’s father
Ex.Bill annoyed x.
EP.P(Bill)
ER.Bill R
Sam’s father.
Selecting a focal scale
1. Bill annoyed SAM’S father.
• Picks out this set of entailments:
1. Bill annoyed Sam’s father.
c. ∃x.Bill annoyed x’s father.
b. ∃x.Bill annoyed x.
f. ∃P.P(Bill)
• c. is the background entailment.
Main point and background
1. Bill annoyed Sam’s father.
c. ∃x.Bill annoyed x’s father.
b. ∃x.Bill annoyed x.
f. ∃P.P(Bill)
• Main point: whatever information the utterance
contains beyond content of background.
• Equivalent to: It was Sam’s father that Bill annoyed.
• Presupposition: The background and everything
below it on the focal scale.
• Theory of presupposition or theory of focus?
Application to regret
1. Susan regrets that she left.
Presupposes: Susan left.
•
Sentence entails that Susan left.
•
But this is not a grammatically specified
entailment and neither entails nor is entailed by
background entailment.
•
“It should play no part in the normal
interpretation of [1]…In particular, [1] could not
be used to make the primary point that Susan
left.”
 As it is not primary point, it is “felt to be
presupposed.”
Problems
• Presuppositions from lexical entailments:
Jane left Paris at noon.
• Lexically entails:
1. Jane was in Paris before noon.
2. Jane was not in Paris after noon.
• Presupposes only 1.
• Theory needs a pragmatic supplement to
explain this; pragmatic supplement might
turn out to do the work that theory does.
Problems
• Projection
• No account: as embedding changes
entailments, there is no obvious account of
sharing of presuppositions by P-family.
• Hint: main point of a negation, question, etc.
will be the same as that of embedded
affirmative.
• Justification?
• Question case would require reformulation of notion
of main point.
• Hard to extend this to cases of deep embedding:
• Jane thinks that Bill knows that it was Harry who left.
Properties of the theory
• Similarities to Grice, A&L:
• Proposal based on semantic innovation; special semantic
representation is taken as input to pragmatics.
• Driving idea: Presuppositions are entailments with
special status.
• Goal of theory is to explain/predict which entailments
get this special status.
• Assumption that presuppositions of non-atomic
sentences can be derived from atomic case.
• Presuppositionality is identified with
“backgrounding” and “non-main point”
• Common ground typically seen as a way to capture
these notions.
Projection again
• Great challenge for pragmatic accounts;
great success of dynamic accounts.
• Needed: a principled explanation for
sharing of presuppositions among P-family
members, and in other embeddings.
• Hope for synthesis? The principled
explanation would provide a theoretical
foundation for e.g. DRT accessibility
algorithms.
Projection again
• The propositions that P and that Q may be
related to each other, and to common
beliefs and intentions, in such a way that
it is hard to think of a reason that anyone
would raise the question whether P, or
care about its answer, unless he already
believed that Q. (Stalnaker 1974: 205)
Simons 2001
• Attempt to provide a general principle for
the derivation of presuppositions, along
with a motivated account of projection.
• Spelling out Stalnaker’s hint:
• When does an utterance count as raising a
question or showing that you care about its
answer?
• What sort of relation between propositions
would lead to the proposed constraint?
Simons 2001
• Raising a question
• L. Carlson 1983: Any assertion can be
construed as an answer to an implicit question.
• Jane won the race / Jane didn’t win the race
• Explicitly asking a question is a way to raise a
question.
• Did Jane win the race?
• Epistemic modal assertions: indicate a
willingness to discuss truth/falsity of
embedded content.
• Perhaps Jane won the race.
Simons 2001
• Conditionals
• Groenendijk and Stokhof 1984: conditional can
be used to raise the question which would be
answered by assertion of the antecedent.
• A: Do you think Jane is at home?
B: If her car is in the driveway, she is.
• Conditionals (typically) state conditions for the
holding of the consequent, and so can also be
seen as raising this question for uptake.
• A: If we miss the bus, we’ll be late.
B: Jane will be mad if that happens.
Simons 2001
• “Raising a question” quite vague.
• Quite plausible that any embedded clause
counts as raising the question of its
content in the relevant sense.
• Searle (1969): To predicate a property P
of an object o is to raise the question of
whether or not P is true of o.
• “The man who asserts that Socrates is wise,
the man who asks whether he is wise and the
man who requests him to be wise may be said
to raise the question of his being wise.”
Reminder
• The propositions that P and that Q may be
related to each other, and to common
beliefs and intentions, in such a way that
it is hard to think of a reason that anyone
would raise the question whether P, or
care about its answer, unless he already
believed that Q. (Stalnaker 1974: 205)
• What relation would this be?
• Asymmetric entailment
Simons 2001
• If P entails Q, then Q is necessary for the
truth of P.
• So: establish truth of Q before wondering
about P.
• Interpretation Principle (tentative)
Suppose that P asymmetrically entails Q.
A speaker who raises the question
whether P indicates a belief that Q.
 Presuppositions are beliefs so indicated.
Simons 2001
• Application: Jane doesn’t know that George
dislikes Bill.
• Questioned proposition: Jane knows that George
dislikes Bill.
• Entailments:
•
•
•
•
George dislikes Bill.
George exists.
Jane exists.
Bill exists.
George is sentient.
Jane is sentient.
• All of these propositions escape scope of
negation.
Problems: lexical vs. grammatical entailment
• No necessary projection from non-lexical
entailments.
1. Jane didn’t eat the sandwich.
• Incorrectly predicted to presuppose (indicate
speaker’s prior belief that) Jane ate
something.
• Are standard cases of presupposition simply
backgrounded lexical entailments?
• Focal presuppositions are backgrounded
grammatical entailments?
Problem: Symmetric entailments again
1. Jane didn’t stop laughing.
a. Did Jane stop laughing?
b. Jane stopped laughing.
• Interpretation Principle: A speaker who utters
1. indicates a (prior) belief in all propositions
asymmetrically entailed by b.
• Entailments include:
c. Jane was laughing immediately before t.
d. Jane was not laughing immediately after t.
• Speaker of 1. could not coherently assume c.
& d.
Problem: Symmetric entailments again
1. Jane didn’t stop laughing.
c. Jane was laughing before t.
d. Jane was not laughing after t.
•
Possible solution: Modify IP to ensure that
entailments taken as assumed are jointly
consistent with content of utterance.
•
Still need a pragmatic story to explain default
interpretation: start state is assumed to hold
(c); end state (d) is denied.
Properties of the theory
• Presuppositions are taken to be
entailments with a special status.
• Special status has something to do with
being non-maximal entailment.
• Maybe related to non-main point?
• Attempt to explain projection facts in
terms of discourse relation between
sentences: share their “question-raising”
properties.