Abstract
The common ground theory of presupposition has been dominant since the seventies (Stalnaker 1974, 1978, 2002). This theory has resulted from a view of communication as transfer between minds. In this view interlocutors presume that speakers speak cooperatively, they infer that they have intentions and beliefs that are necessary to make sense of their speech acts, and treat such entities as pre-existing psychological ones that are later somehow formulated in language. Common ground is considered as a distributed form of mental representation and adopted as a basis on which successful communication is warranted (Arnseth and Solheim 2002; Kecskes and Zhang 2009). However, the theory has not gone without objection and criticism (e.g. Abbott 2008; Beaver and Zeevat 2004; von Fintel 2001, 2006; Simons 2003) because it is based on “an oversimplified picture of conversation” (Abbott 2008), and as a consequence the relationship between common ground and presupposition has also been oversimplified. In this approach presupposition is often considered as a conventional or conversational constraint of common ground, or requirement on common ground that must be satisfied in order to make an appropriate utterance. The problem of accommodation is a critical issue that has been raised against this view, and caused great challenge to the theory by stimulating diverse alternatives. The goal of this paper is to redefine the relationship between common ground and presupposition within the confines of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA). SCA (Kecskes 2008; Kecskes and Zhang 2009; Kecskes 2010a, b) adopted in this paper offers an alternative view on communication, which claims that communication is not an ideal transfer of information, and cooperation and egocentrism (Barr and Keysar 2005; Colston 2005; Keysar 2007), are both present in the process of communication to a varying extent. The SCA emphasizes the dynamics of common ground creation and updating in the actual process of interaction, in which interlocutors are considered as “complete” individuals with different possible cognitive status being less or more cooperative at different stages of the communicative process. Presupposition is a proposal of common ground, and there is a vibrant interaction between the two. They enjoy a cross relation in terms of content and manners in which they are formed, and their dynamism is inherently related and explanatory to each other. This claim has important implications to the solution to presupposition accommodation. After the introduction Sect. 2 describes the socio-cognitive approach. Section 3 reviews the assumed common ground, and Sect. 4 introduces the speaker-assigned presupposition. Section 5 discusses the dynamism of presuppositions and common ground, and claims that their dynamic observations are coherent and explanatory to each other. Section 6 readdresses the accommodation problem with redefinition of the relations.
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Notes
- 1.
According to epistemic logic, we assume that the agent’s knowledge that p is a strong version of her belief that p. As presupposition usually reflects the speaker’s beliefs about p and its common ground status, we use the logic operator K to denote the agent’s strong belief; i.e., if the speaker who utters “John regrets beating his dog” presupposes that p (“John has beaten his dog before”) the way she believes that p is common ground, then the formal analysis of the speaker’s knowledge set about p is: K1p, K1K2p, K1K2K1p, ….
- 2.
The first two groups are categorized in Zhang (2009), and the third group will be elaborated in an upcoming paper.
- 3.
However, at present there is no reliable criterion based on which we can distinguish the two effects. .
- 4.
Here the ‘update of’ or ‘adding to’ the common ground should be perceived from a technical perspective; i.e., in formal computation of information conveyed in a conversation, there is an update effect of presupposition on the common ground set, as dynamic semantics has claimed (cf. Heim 1983). It is different from psychological concerns; it does not mean every presupposed proposition is proposed to update the common ground that the interlocutors have already had in mind at the utterance time, as we understand that the speaker does hold common ground belief for some cases of presupposition. .
- 5.
The formal system goes in this way: “1” denotes the speaker. “Ep” (“everyone knows that p”) here denotes the status of p in the speaker’s knowledge; “K1p” denotes that the speaker knows that p, “~K1p” the speaker does not know that p (which entails that the speaker believes that ⋄p), and “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} \neg {\text{p}} \)” the speaker knows that p is false.
“Cp” (“it is common knowledge among the agents that p”) here denotes the speaker’s belief about status of p in the agent’s knowledge, which consists of two parts (Cp-1 and Cp-2). In Cp-1: “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{K}}_{ 2} {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer knows that p, “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} \sim {\text{K}}_{ 2} {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer does not know that p, “\( K_{1} \wedge K_{2} p \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer has a false belief about p, “\( \sim {\text{K}}_{ 1} ?{\text{K}}_{ 2} {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker does not know whether the hearer knows that p, “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{K}}_{ 2} {\text{p}}^{ !} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer knows that p or not p, “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{K}}_{ 2} \neg {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer knows that p is false. In Cp-2: “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{K}}_{ 2} {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer believes that the speaker knows that p, “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{K}}^{ + }_{ 2} {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer will believe (upon hearing the utterance) that the speaker knows that p, “\( {\text{K}}_{ 1} {\text{K}}_{ 2} {\text{K}}_{ 1} \neg {\text{p}} \)” denotes that the speaker believes that the hearer believes that the speaker knows that p is false, and so forth
- 6.
We hold that the speaker wouldn’t make the presupposition out of the blue (see Kecskes and Zhang 2009). S/he makes it to achieve coherence in the conversation; that is, it is her/his priority to deny what is asserted by the student. In other cases when such coherence is not needed, the speaker would assert “There is no prime minister of Tahiti” directly without presupposing as such.
- 7.
This can be taken as counterevidence to Stalnaker’s (2002) claim that what is asserted is no longer new information and must be treated as common ground. In the grandma case, the proposition p is not new information to the participants, but it’s not part of common ground either, as it is not mutually activated as relevant information in this conversation. Also see Kecskes and Zhang (2009: 351).
- 8.
Simons (2001, 2004) observed this similarity and attempted to search for the same theoretical frames to interpret presupposition and implicature. However, this effort was not quite successful as she blurred their distinctions and did not offer an adequate approach to identify and explain different phenomena of presupposition (Zhang 2008).
- 9.
Please refer to Sect. 4. The related principles for truthful presuppositions are:
- 10.
It is not as neat as expected, though.
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Kecskes, I., Zhang, F. (2013). On the Dynamic Relations Between Common Ground and Presupposition. In: Capone, A., Lo Piparo, F., Carapezza, M. (eds) Perspectives on Linguistic Pragmatics. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01014-4_15
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