On the presuppositional strength of interrogative clauses

Autor: Maayan Abenina-Adar, Yael Sharvit
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Natural Language Semantics. 29:47-90
ISSN: 1572-865X
0925-854X
DOI: 10.1007/s11050-020-09169-5
Popis: A central question in the study of presuppositions is how a presupposition trigger contributes to the meaning of a complex expression containing it. Two competing answers are found in the literature on quantificational expressions. According to the first, a quantificational expression presupposes that every member of its domain satisfies the presuppositions triggered in its scope, and according to the second, a quantificational expression presupposes that at least one member of its domain satisfies the presuppositions triggered in its scope. The former view implies that an interrogative clause, a kind of quantificational expression, presupposes all of its possible answers’ presuppositions, whereas the latter view implies that an interrogative clause presupposes that the presuppositions of at least one of is possible answers are satisfied. This paper contributes to the debate by showing that ‘alternative’ interrogatives, formed with or, project presuppositions in the same, distinctive manner that other disjunctive constructions do: generally, universally. A theory that treats disjunctive words as restricted variables, bindable by various quantificational operators, is extended to account for the presuppositions of ‘alternative’ interrogatives, disjoined declaratives, and disjoined conditional antecedents in a uniform manner. The paper then explores some ways to reconcile the proposal with two special cases where interrogatives have been claimed to have weaker presuppositions: (1) constituent interrogatives in presupposition-weakening contexts, and (2) polar interrogatives containing bias-inducing scalar particles like even.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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