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3.7. Existential Presuppositions 47 63 OSU WPL 21 .1-90 (1976) The Myth of Semantic Presupposition Steven E. Boer and William G. Lycan OSU Department of Philosophy Contents Page 1 . Introduction: "Presupposition" 2 2 . Our Program 5 2 .1 . Two Fallacies 5 2 . 2 . Analytical Tools 9 2 . 2 .l. Entailment 9 2 . 2 . 2. Theoretical Implication ll 2 . 2 . 3. "Act-implication" 11 2 . 2 . 4 . Converse.tione.l Implicature 12 2 . 3 . Responsibility 13 3. Case Studies 14 3.1. Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses 14 3.2. Cleft Constructions 21 3.3. Factive Verbs 23 3.4. Implicative Verbs 33 3.5 . Counterfactives 40 3.6. Orders and Questions 42 3.7. Existential Presuppositions 47 3 .8. Countet·factual Conditionals 5L 4. Sources of the M}'th 60 4.1. Old Friends 60 4 .1 .1 . Assertion and Contradiction 60 4.1.2. External vs. Internal Negation 62 4.1. 3. Necessitation 63 4.2. Truth- valuelessness and Infeli·citousness 63 5. Relative Granunaticality 70 5 .1. Factual Presumptions and Logical Form 70 5.2 . Alternative Analyses 75 5. 3. The Awfu1ness of (Relative) Deviance 78 5.4 . Narrow Grammatice.lity and Broad Grammaticality 80 Footnotes 85 References 87 l The Myth of Semantic P1•esuµi,,,,;itiou Steven E. Boer William G. Lycan The notion of "presupposition" has caJ..>1.ured th" fancy of many linguists, and appeals to "presuppositions" are widely regarded as carrying explanatory force in linguistic theory. Our aim in this study is to criticize, from a standpoint congenial (tuough by no means specific) to Generative Semantics and the Pe,.rormative Analysis, the popula.r thesis that there are "semantic" presuppositions, i.e. that certain sorts of s entences have peculiar quasi-logical impli cations which are distinct from ordinary entailm1:nts aud yet closely akin to them, in that the falsity of the alleged implicata results in appre- ciable semantic consequences anent the seuten.:e:~ in question. A methodological. corollary of this thesis iu thut linguists who regard grammar for a natural language as operating or, a kind of' "natural logic" must complicate their semantic theories by -u,., :1dditio11 of more or less complex formal apparatus to account for th" dl~tinctively sernAntic oddities which are alleged to result wlteu "vn,!:upposi,ions" fail.I We shall argue (i) that the thesis is fals1:, (H) thut cvnsequently the methodological corollary is without sui•,•Jrt., ' a!td (iii) that alJ.eged cases of semantic presupposition do not <'Vt'u l\>rm a natural kind, in that where discernible "implications" do obt;,,..u1 , they turn out to be relations of distinct and largely unrelated :;ort.s (thus, we shall urge that such cases not be subsumed under a siugh· tlteor..tical term) . We shall accordingly offer piecemeal alternativ.., explanations of the intuitions in question, and go on to provitl.., what we believe to be an illuminating diagnosis of the fallacies ou which th<: notion of semantic presupposition rests. l. Introduction: "Presupposition" Most linguistic semanticists (and mau, philosophers of language) seem to agree that the notion of "presuvpv~ltlun" is both rich in intuitive content (and thus available as ,..u imµort.aut; source of data for syntax and semantics) and crucial for 0,U' understanding and theori- zing about the meanings of utterances (auu ll.Jus th-,oreticalJ.y important in syntax and semantics). A reader of tile ] it;f;>rat<U"e comes away with the impression that we have a vast stocll.p.il- of r.:latively hard data concerning the presuppoilitions of sente1w..,:,;, !Jut that we have yet to get quite as clear about what 11 presuppo:s.u,c" is u:; vurist metatheoreti- cians would like; nevertheless, the intuitiv,• IJvtlon that we have will do well enough to go on with, and we may <:out.im«:: to appeal to data concerning presupposition in framing syntactic uuu semantic arguments on diverse topics. 2 3 Here are some examples of pairs of sentences the like of which have been here and there adduced under the rubric of "presupposition" (as distinct from entailment): (1) a. Sam rea.lizes that Irv is a Martian. b . Irv is a Martian. (2) a . Fred regretted leaving home. b. Fred left home. (3) a . Bring me the avocado in the brown paper bag, b . There is an avocado in a brown paper bag. (4) a. Few girls are coming. b . Some girls are coming. (5) a . If Irv were a Martian, I'd be running away from here. b. Irv is not a Martian. (6) a . Have you stopped beating your wife? b. You have beaten your wife. (T) a . I hope I can disprove Godel's Theorem. b. It is possible to disprove Godel's Theorem. (8) a . I promise to bring back your toilet- seat. b . I intend to bring back your toilet-seat. (9) a . Fred, who -was fat, could not run. b . Fred was fat. (10) a. Camille is pretending to be sick. b . Camille is not sick. (11) a. John managed to get out of the phone booth. b . John tried to get out of the phone booth. (12) a. She was poor but she was honest. b. Being poor tends to preclude being honest. (13) a. If you touch me again, I'll scream. b . I f you don ' t touch me again, I wn' t scream. (14) a. Melvin is a bachelor. b. Melvin is an adult. It ~y perhaps be clear that the i'irst membe1· of each of these pair s somehow "suggests" or "implies" its fe).low. What is not at all clear (and would be naive to asswne) is that there is a single distinctive and important relation which is instantiated by a.ll these pairs. In fact, as we shal l see, the differences betveen the pairs are more interesting tban the similarities. To co111plicate the matter further, the literature contains a richly varied panoply of nonequivalent definitions or introductions of the term presuppose and its cognates, e.nd it is clear that not one but many distinct theor etical notions are in play as well. There are many more such notions than have been pointed out to date, though they may be grouped fairly easily into a few larger categories. And it is clear (though we shall not be able to docwnent the first and third of these points here) that (i) the differences between tbese various notions have tacitly been traded on, sometimes with substantive (but spurious) results; that (ii) when the proper distinctions have been made, most of the resulting notions will be seen to be relatively clear and manageable, though some (including the core concept of "semantic" presupposition) will be found to be vacuous and/or theoretically useless; lllld that 4 (iii) when the differences have been attended to~ out not before~ signif'icant progress ~y- be made on the relevant theoretical isaues., such a.s the q_uestion of' transitivity and the much-touted '\rrojection problemu.3 Some recent theorists have at la.st begun dissecting the monolith in crude but helpful ~ays . It is b7 now more or less standard to distinguish semantic from pragmatic :presuppositions (Sta.l:naker 1972; Keenan 1971; KarltWlen J.913; Thomason 1973; Atlas 1975; a.nd others}. That is, it is pointed out that there are a.t least two such notions that a.re J.)erha.ps not quite the s-a.me. But even this rough d.ifi'ere.nce is rarely taken seriously in the literature--thus Karttunen (1973), having pointed out the distinct ion., vrit es~ For the time being~ let. U$ simply a.:sslll:il.e that. -we understand what is meRD.t by a presupposition n the ~ase of simple senten~es .. a.nd turn our attention to Ill.Ore complex cases. • . • we may- ev-en forget about the distinction between semantic and pra~tic presuppositions. What is seid a.bout one kind o-f presupposition will apply to the other as veil (I hope). (p. l7l) These t\lo remarks will startle a. reader vho ha.s taken a careful 1ook at our list o:f sentence pa.ii:s or he.s taken note of the ~ssorted dlif"ini- tions or presuppositioo that have been ofrered in the literature. Let us list a fer.. of' these defi.nitions: (15) a. s1 Eresu:pposesi s2 ~ df s1 entails s2 and s1 1 s denTal entai s 82. Horn 1969; Morgan 1969} b. s1 p.resu~oses2 S2 = di' If S1 "makes literal sense~ th~n S2 is true. (Keen&.n 1971) Si presupposes3 s2 = dr If Si is true1 then 82 is true; and i.f S1 is false~ then S,2 is true {i.e. i~ S2 is not t~ue, then Si is neither true nor f'a.lse) , (Alterne..tively: Si aeces sitates S2 and. S1 1E denial necessitates S2 . ) (Strawson 1950; Keenan l971; Lakoff' l972; Kart unen 19711:J)). d. s1 presu;egis~s4 s2 ~ d~ A speaker utte~s s1 Sz is t:rue. felicitously only if that speaker believes S2. someone present believes 82- it is at least pretended that S2 is true . etc. (Heringer l972), And a close conpe.nion~ (J.6) s1 1 invite:s the in::ference ofu S2 = df" Given certain he.ckg~o-und beliefs that ve have, we ~ould have some ,ra.rrant f'or as.slJI!ling that if someone J utters Sl> he wi11 a.c a.s if he is •,dlli.ng o be regarded. as 5 having connnitted himself by uttering s1 to the truth of s2 . (Geis and Zwicky 1971)5 The semantic/pragmatic distinction cuts a.cross this representative set of definitions in a rough but noticeable way.
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