Dissatisfaction Theory

Abstract

I propose a new theory of semantic presupposition, which I call dissatisfaction theory. I first review a cluster of problems-known collectively as the proviso problem-for most extant theories of presupposition, arguing that the main pragmatic response to these problems faces a serious challenge. I avoid these problems by adopting two changes in perspective on presupposition. First, I propose a theory of projection according to which presuppositions project unless they are locally entailed. Second, I reject the standard assumption that presuppositions must be entailed by the input context; instead, I propose that presuppositions are contents which are marked as backgrounded. I show that these commitments allow us to avoid the proviso problem altogether, and to make otherwise plausible predictions about presupposition projection out of connectives and attitude predicates. I close by sketching a two-dimensional implementation of my theory which makes further welcome predictions about attitude predicates and quantifiers.

Presupposition projection from the scope of None: Universal, existential, or both?

“…Alternatively, it might be that in the face of highly complex sentences such as those we investigated, the computation of the presupposition is simply abandoned and only the literal truth conditions of the sentence are computed. The idea that presuppositions and literal truth conditions can be processed separately fits well with a two-dimensional view of meaning (Karttunen & Peters 1979;Sudo 2012;Mandelkern 2016). That is, the PRESUPPOSITIONLESS reading is accessed not through the application of an additional step, but rather as the result of an incomplete meaning computation, due to the demands of processing such complex sentences.…”

“…Existential-only theories Existential-only theories of presupposition projection only derive an EXISTENTIAL reading directly via the existential presupposition in (8) (Beaver 1994;van der Sandt 1992;Geurts 1998;Mandelkern 2016). However, similarly to Universal-Only theories, these accounts also have the option of deriving the other reading through independent mechanisms, e.g., via a separate strengthening mechanism.…”

“…The other two approaches derive only one of the two readings through such mechanisms, but can appeal to additional mechanisms to derive the respective other reading. In grouping theories, we focus in particular on their predictions with respect to negative quantificational sentences and we ignore here three additional dimensions of variation discussed in the literature: variation with respect to the quantifier involved in the sentence (see Chemla 2009bChemla , 2010George 2008;Fox 2011;Sudo 2012;Mandelkern 2016;Mayr & Sauerland 2016, among others), variation with respect to the trigger involved (see Charlow 2009;Fox 2011;Sudo 2012), and inter-speaker variation with respect to the available readings (see Sudo, Romoli, Fox & Hackl 2012).…”

On the status of 'Maximize Presupposition'

“…13 For asserted content, this assumption can be reduced to the assumption that the addressee takes the speaker to be trustworthy and well-informed. For presupposed content, the same is true on a conception of presupposition as the one in Mandelkern (2016), where presuppositions are just another kind of entailment. If presuppositions are instead taken to impose constraints on input context (modulo accommodation), the assumption for presupposed content is essentially Chemla's (2008) 'speaker authority'.…”

On Presupposition Projection with Trivalent Connectives

“…A similar problem was pointed out in later years (Geurts 1996) for dynamic frameworks involving context changing operators (Stalnaker 1973;Karttunen 1974;Heim 1983), and was branded as the proviso problem. Recent works continue to address this problem (van Rooij 2007;Singh 2007;Schlenker 2011;Lassiter 2012;Mayr & Romoli 2016;Mandelkern 2016;Mandelkern & Rothschild 2018;Francez 2019). Taking a step back from dynamic accounts, and in the face of the proviso problem, this paper reconsiders the trivalent treatment of presuppositions as a truthconditional phenomenon.…”