(The article is divided into two parts: Part I introduces the problem
of presupposition projection and presents Heim’s theory. Part II lays
out the non-dynamic reconstruction of local contexts, and sketches a
comparison with DRT.)
Schlenker, P.: to
appear, "Presupposition Projection: Two
Theories of Local Contexts - Part I" [survey article].
Accepted
for publication in Language and
Linguistics Compass
Abstract:
How do complex sentences inherit the presuppositions of their parts?
This is the problem of presupposition projection. An old idea is that
the presupposition of an elementary expression must be entailed by the
context in which it is evaluated; the relevant notion of context is, as
a first approximation, what is ‘common ground’ between the speech act
participants. We survey two theories of presupposition projection which
are crucially based on the idea that there are more contexts than meets
the eye. In addition to the ‘global context’, both theories posit that
an expression has a ‘local context’ which aggregates information
provided by earlier parts of the discourse together with the global
context. The key idea is that the presupposition of an elementary
expression must be entailed by its local context. But how are local
contexts computed? Heim’s dynamic semantics departs from the standard
view of meaning as truth conditions, and takes the very meaning of
words to be instructions to change the context (Heim 1983). This
framework makes it possible to define empirically adequate lexical
entries for a variety of operators, but it has often been considered to
be insufficiently explanatory. An alternative is to stick to the
standard view of meaning as truth conditions, and to reconstruct local
contexts on the basis of a classical (bivalent, non-dynamic) semantics
(Schlenker 2009, 2010). We discuss conceptual and empirical
issues that might distinguish between the two frameworks, as well as
some data that are problematic for both. A final section offers a
comparison between approaches based on local contexts, and an
influential alternative, DRT (van der Sandt 1992, Geurts 1999).
Schlenker, P.: to
appear, "Presupposition Projection: Two
Theories of Local Contexts - Part II" [survey article].
Accepted
for publication in Language and
Linguistics Compass