Schlenker, Philippe. 2008. "Local Contexts: A Précis". Manuscript, Institut Jean-Nicod & NYU.

[Full paper in pdf]  



Abstract: We provide a very brief introduction to an analysis of local contexts which combines the pragmatic inspiration of Stalnaker's theory of context change (Stalnaker 1974) with the precision and generality of Heim's dynamic semantics (Heim 1983). Unlike the latter, however, our algorithm computes local contexts on the basis of a classical semantics, and for this reason it is fully predictive, and it yields a general theory of presupposition projection.  (A longer and more detailed presentation of the theory can be found in 'Local Contexts: Presupposition, Dynamic Semantics and Transparency').