Abstract
Some presuppositions are easier to cancel than others in embedded contexts. This contrast has been used as evidence for distinguishing two fundamentally different kinds of presuppositions, ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. ‘Soft’ presuppositions are usually assumed to arise in a pragmatic way, while ‘hard’ presuppositions are thought to be genuine semantic presuppositions. This paper argues against such a distinction and proposes to derive the difference in cancellation from inherent differences in how presupposition triggers (and the sentences that contain them) interact with the context: their focus sensitivity, anaphoricity, and question–answer congruence properties. The paper also aims to derive the presuppositions of additive particles such as too, also, again, and of it-clefts.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abbott, B. 2006. Where have some of the presuppositions gone? In Drawing the boundaries of meaning: Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn, ed. B.J. Birner and G. Ward, 1–20. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Abrusán M. (2011) Predicting the presuppositions of soft triggers. Linguistics and Philosophy 34(6): 491–535
Abrusán M. (2013) A note on quasi-presuppositions and focus. Journal of Semantics 30(2): 257–265
Abrusán M., Szendröi. K. (2013) Experimenting with the King of France: Topics, verifiability and definite descriptions. Semantics and Pragmatics 6(10): 1–43
Abusch, D. 2002. Lexical alternatives as a source of pragmatic presuppositions. In Proceedings of SALT 12, ed. B. Jackson, 1–19. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Abusch, D. 2005. Triggering from alternative sets and projection of pragmatic presuppositions. Ms., Cornell University. Available at http://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/jJkYjM3O/Abusch-Triggering.pdf .
Abusch D. (2010) Presupposition triggering from alternatives. Journal of Semantics 27(1): 37–80
Amsili, P., and C. Beyssade. 2010. Obligatory presuppositions in discourse. In Constraints in Discourse, vol. 2, ed. A. Benz, P. Kuehnlein and C. Sidner, 105–123. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Asher, N. 1993. Reference to abstract objects in discourse. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Atlas, J., and S. Levinson. 1981. It-clefts, informativeness and logical form: Radical pragmatics. In Radical pragmatics, ed. P. Cole, 1–61. New York: Academic Press.
Beaver, D. 2001. Presupposition and assertion in dynamic semantics. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Beaver D. (2004) Five only pieces. Theoretical Linguistics 30: 45–64
Beaver, D. 2010. Have you noticed that your belly button lint colour is related to the colour of your clothing? In Presupposition: Papers in honor of Hans Kamp, ed. R. Bäuerle, U. Reyle, and T.E. Zimmermann. Bingley: Emerald.
Beaver D., Clark B. (2003) Always and only: Why not all focus-sensitive operators are alike. Natural Language Semantics 11(4): 323–362
Beaver, D., and B. Clark. 2008. Sense and sensitivity: How focus determines meaning. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Beaver D., Krahmer E. (2001) A partial account of presupposition projection. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 10(2): 147–182
Bródy, M. 1990. Some remarks on the focus field in Hungarian. In UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 2. London: University College.
Büring D., Križ M. (2013) It’s that, and that’s it! Exhaustivity and homogeneity presuppositions in clefts (and definites). Semantics and Pragmatics 6(6): 1–29
Charlow, S. 2009. Strong “Predicative Presuppositions”. Ms., NYU.
Chemla E. (2009a) Presuppositions of quantified sentences: Experimental data. Natural Language Semantics 17(4): 299–340
Chemla, E. 2009b. Similarity: towards a unified account of scalar implicatures, free choice permission and presupposition projection. Under revision for Semantics and Pragmatics.
Chemla E., Schlenker P. (2012) Incremental vs. symmetric accounts of presupposition projection: An experimental approach. Natural Language Semantics 20(2): 177–226
Chierchia, G., and S. McConnell-Ginet. 2000. Meaning and grammar: An introduction to semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. 1971. Deep structure, surface structure, and semantic interpretation. In Semantics: An interdisciplinary reader in philosophy, linguistics and psychology, ed. D. Steinberg and L. Jakobovits, 183–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
É. Kiss, K. 2002. The syntax of Hungarian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, D. 2012. Presupposition projection from quantificational sentences: Trivalence, local accommodation, and presupposition strengthening. Ms., HUJI and MIT.
Fox, D. and B. Spector 2015. Economy and embedded exhaustification. Natural Language Semantics (to appear).
Gazdar, G. 1979. Pragmatics: Implicature, presupposition and logical form. New York: Academic Press.
Geurts, B. 1994. Presupposing. PhD thesis, University of Osnabrück.
Geurts B. (1998) The mechanisms of denial. Language 74(2): 274–307
Geurts B., van der Sandt R. (2004) Interpreting focus. Theoretical Linguistics 30(1): 1–44
Gyarmathy, Z. 2015. Culminations as extra soft presupposition triggers. Ms., Heinrich Heine Universität, Düsseldorf. (Presented at ImPres, Berlin, July 2015.)
Heim, I. 1983. On the projection problem for presuppositions. In Proceedings of the 2nd West Coast conference on formal linguistics, ed. M. Barlow, D. Flickinger and M. Wescoat, 114–125. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Heim, I. 1990. Presupposition projection. In Reader for the Nijmegen workshop on presupposition, lexical meaning, and discourse processes. Nijmegen: University of Nijmegen.
Heim I. (1992) Presupposition projection and the semantics of attitude verbs. Journal of Semantics 9: 183–221
Heim, I., and A. Kratzer. 1998. Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.
Holton R. (1997) Some telling examples: A reply to Tsohatzidis. Journal of Pragmatics 28(5): 625–628
Horn, L. 1972. The semantics of logical operators in English. PhD thesis, Yale University.
Horn, L. 1989. A natural history of negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Horvath, J. 1986. Focus in the theory of grammar and the syntax of Hungarian. Dordrecht: Foris.
Kadmon, N. 2001. Formal pragmatics: Semantics, pragmatics, presupposition, and focus. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Karttunen L. (1971) Some observations on factivity. Papers in Linguistics 5: 55–69
Karttunen L. (1974) Presuppositions and linguistic context. Theoretical Linguistics 1: 181–194
Karttunen, L., and S. Peters. 1979. Conventional implicatures in Montague grammar. In Syntax and semantics 11: Presupposition, ed. C.K. Oh and D. Dineen, 1–56. New York: Academic Press.
Keenan, E.L. 1971. Two kinds of presupposition in natural language. In Studies in linguistic semantics, ed. C. Fillmore and T. Langendoen, 45–54. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.
Klein, E. 1975. Two sorts of factive predicate. Pragmatics Microfiche it 1.1. frames B5–C14.
Klinedinst, N. 2012. THCSP. Dordrecht: Springer.
Krifka, M. 1998. Additive particles under stress. In Proceedings of SALT 8, ed. D. Strolovitch and A. Lawson, 111–128. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Kripke S.A. (2009) Pesupposition and anaphora: Remarks on the formulation of the projection problem. Linguistic Inquiry 40(3): 367–386
Kusumoto K. (2005) On the quantification over times in natural language. Natural Language Semantics 13(4): 317–357
Lasersohn P. (1993) Existence presuppositions and background knowledge. Journal of Semantics 2: 113–122
Levinson S. (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Lewis D. (1979) Scorekeeping in a language game. Journal of Philosophical Logic 8: 339–359
Reinhart T. (1981) Pragmatics and linguistics: An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27: 53–94
Romoli J. (2015) The presuppositions of soft triggers are obligatory scalar implicatures. Journal of Semantics 32(2): 173–219
Rooth, M. 1985. Association with focus. PHD thesis, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Rooth M. (1992) A theory of focus interpretation. Natural Language Semantics 1(1): 75–116
Rooth, M. 1996. Focus. In The handbook of contemporary semantic theory, ed. S. Lappin, 271–297. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rooth, M. 1999. Association with focus or association with presupposition. In Focus, ed. P. Bosch and R. van der Sandt, 232–244. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rothschild D. (2011) Explaining presupposition projection with dynamic semantics. Semantics and Pragmatics 4(3): 1–43
Saebo K.J. (2004) Conversational contrast and conventional parallel: Topic implicatures and additive presuppositions. Journal of Semantics 21(2): 199–217
Sauerland, U. 2013. Presuppositions and the alternative tier. In Proceedings of SALT 23, ed. T. Snider, 156–173. Washington, DC: LSA.
Schlenker P. (2008) Be articulate: A pragmatic theory of presupposition. Theoretical Linguistics 34(3): 157–212
Schlenker P. (2010) Local contexts and local meanings. Philosophical Studies 151: 115–142
Schwarz, F. 2014. Presuppositions are fast, whether hard or soft—Evidence from the visual world paradigm. In Proceedings of SALT 24, ed. S. D. Todd Snider and M. Weigand. Washington DC: LSA.
Schwarzschild R. (1999) Givenness, AvoidF and other constraints on the placement of accent. Natural Language Semantics 7(2): 141–177
Simons, M. 2001. On the conversational basis of some presuppositions. In Proceedings of SALT 11, ed. R. Hastings, B. Jackson, and Z. Zvolenszky, 431–448. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications.
Simons, M. 2006. Presupposition without Common Ground. Unpublished manuscript, Carnegie Mellon University.
Simons, M., J. Tonhauser, D. Beaver, and C. Roberts. 2010. What projects and why. In Proceedings of SALT 20, ed. N. Li and D. Lutz, 309–327. Ithaca NY: CLC Publications.
Simons, M., C. Roberts, D. Beaver, and J. Tonhauser 2016. The best question: Explaining the projection behavior of factive verbs. Discourse Processes (to appear).
Soames S. (1979) A projection problem for speaker presuppositions. Linguistic Inquiry 10: 623–666
Stalnaker, R.C. 1974. Pragmatic presuppositions. In Semantics and philosophy: Essays, ed. M. Munitz and P. Unger, 197–214. New York: New York University Press.
Stalnaker R.C. (2002) Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25(5): 701–721
Stokke A. (2013) Protagonist projection. Mind & Language 28(2): 204–232
Strawson P.F. (1964) Identifying reference and truth-values. Theoria 30(2): 96–118
Sudo, Y. 2013. Presupposition projection in quantified sentences and cross-dimensional anaphora. Ms., Institut Jean Nicod.
Szendrői, K., and M. Bródy. 2010. Exhaustive focus is an answer. Ms., UCL and HAS.
Thomason, R. 1990. Accommodation, meaning, and implicature: Interdisciplinary foundations for pragmatics, 326–363. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tonhauser J., Beaver D., Roberts C., Simons M. (2013) Toward a taxonomy of projective content. Language 89(1): 66–109
van der Sandt R.A. (1991) Denial. Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 27: 331–344
van der Sandt R.A. (1992) Presupposition projection as anaphora resolution. Journal of Semantics 9(4): 333–377
van der Sandt, R.A. 2003. Denial and presupposition. In Perspectives on dialogue in the new millennium, ed. H.Z. Peter Kühnlein, and Hannes Rieser, 59–78. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
van der Sandt, R. A. and B. Geurts. 2001. Too. In Proceedings of the 13th Amsterdam Colloquium, 180–185. Amsterdam: ILLC.
van der Sandt, R. and J. Huitink. 2003. Again. In Proceedings of the 14th Amsterdam Colloquium, 181–186. Amsterdam: ILLC.
Velleman, D., D. Beaver, E. Destruel, D. Bumford, E. Onea, and L. Coppock. 2013. It-clefts are IT (inquiry terminating) constructions. In Proceedings of SALT 22, ed. A. Chereches, 441–460. Washington DC: LSA.
von Fintel, K. 2004. Would you believe it? The King of France is back! (Presuppositions and truth-value intuitions). In Descriptions and beyond, ed. A. Bezuidenhout, and M. Reimers, 315–341. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
von Fintel K. (2008) What is presupposition accommodation, again?. Philosophical Perspectives 22(1): 137–170
von Heusinger, K. 2007. Alternative semantics for definite NPs. In On Information structure, meaning and form-generalizations across languages, ed. K. Schwabe and S. Winkler, 485–508. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Walker, A. 2012. Focus, uniqueness and soft presupposition triggers. In Logic, language and meaning, ed. M. Aloni et al., 460–469. Lecture notes in computer science, vol. 7218. Berlin: Springer.
Williams E. (1980) Remarks on stress and anaphora. Journal of Linguistic Research 1(3): 1–16
Wilson, D., and D. Sperber. 1979. Ordered entailments: An alternative to presuppositional theories. In Syntax and Semantics 11: Presupposition, ed. C.K. Oh and D. Dineen, 299–323. London: Academic Press.
Winterstein, G. 2011. The meaning of the additive too: presupposition and discourse similarity. In Revised selected papers from the 8th Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic, and Computation, 322–341. Berlin: Springer.
Zeevat, H. 2003. Particles: Presupposition triggers, context markers or speech act markers. In Optimality theory and pragmatics, ed. R. Blutner and H. Zeevat, 91–111. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Abrusán, M. Presupposition cancellation: explaining the ‘soft–hard’ trigger distinction. Nat Lang Semantics 24, 165–202 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-016-9122-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-016-9122-7