Šiame moksliniame darbe Rogerio Fowlerio naujosios stilistikos mokslinėje perspektyvoje nagrinėjama, kaip pamatinės skaitytojo žinios įtakoja literatūrinio kūrinio teksto pradžios interpretaciją. Darbe tiriamas pragmatinių prielaidų veikimas poezijoje ir prozoje (romanuose); ištirti 437 eilėraščiai ir 223 romanai, o gauti duomenys lyginami su šešių žanrų trijų šimtų neliteratūrinių kūrinių pragmatininių prielaidų kūrimo duomenimis. Visi tyrimui atsitiktinai parinkti tekstai buvo sukurti anglakalbių dvidešimtojo amžiaus autorių. Pragmatinių prielaidų kūrimą siekiama kvantifikuoti, naudojantis Van Rooijaus ir Pottso pragmatinių verčių tyrimo strategija. Išskiriami keturi pagrindiniai pragmatinių prielaidų iššaukimo būdai – nestandartinis (1) veiksmažodžių formų, (2) artikelių ir (3) deiktinių elementų vartojimas bei (4) mišrus metodas – pirmųjų trijų metodų kombinacija arba nestandartinis leksinių priemonių vartojimas. Tyrimu siekiama patikrinti, ar skirtingų žanrų literatūriniuose tekstuose pastebimi bendri pragmatinių prielaidų iššaukimo dėsningumai, ar teksto žanras esmingai įtakoja pragmatinių elementų parinkimą. / In the framework of new stylistics as developed by Roger Fowler, this scientific work researches the impact of the background knowledge of the reader on the interpretation of the beginning of a literary text. The functioning of pragmatic presuppositions in poetry and non-poetic fiction (novels) is explored; 437 poems and 223 novels are analyzed, and the obtained data is compared with the statistical values of the development of pragmatic presuppositions in six genres of non-fictional texts, 300 texts in total. All the sample of the thesis represents works of the twentieth century English-writing authors. Development of pragmatic presuppositions is sought to be quantified by employing the strategy of the research of pragmatic values as developed by van Rooij and Potts. Four main ways of triggering pragmatic presuppositions are singled out in the thesis: non-standard use of (1) verb forms, (2) articles and (3) deictic elements as well as (4) the mixed method represented by combinations of the first three methods or non-standard use of lexical elements. The research strives to verify whether fictional texts of different genres maintain the same trends of triggering pragmatic presuppositions or the genre of a text imposes upon the choice of pragmatic elements.

The purpose of reformed apologetics is to defend the Christian faith against heresy.However, this is not all. Reformed apologetics also wants to give a convincing answer why the Christian view is the real hope for mankind (see 1 Peter 3:15).Other that differ from this life and world view, do it mostly based on a different starting point. Although finer points are debated between parties, the starting point, including presuppositions, are always somewhere in the background. Van Til4 and Stoker5, two famous Reformed thinkersof the last century (respectively theological and philosophical), in contact with other made their presuppositions part of their apologetic discussions. This agreement in approach and method emerges in the Festschrift for Van Til, when Stoker (1971:28-71) proposes a connection between his and Van Til’s methods, and when Van Til in turn responds positively. This study will focus on what role these two thinkers’ presuppositions play in their apologetic conversation. It eventually comes to important guidelines regarding the place and role of presuppositions in conversations of Christians across a broad scientific front with those who hold other points of departure. / MTh (Missiology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The purpose of reformed apologetics is to defend the Christian faith against heresy.However, this is not all. Reformed apologetics also wants to give a convincing answer why the Christian view is the real hope for mankind (see 1 Peter 3:15).Other that differ from this life and world view, do it mostly based on a different starting point. Although finer points are debated between parties, the starting point, including presuppositions, are always somewhere in the background. Van Til4 and Stoker5, two famous Reformed thinkersof the last century (respectively theological and philosophical), in contact with other made their presuppositions part of their apologetic discussions. This agreement in approach and method emerges in the Festschrift for Van Til, when Stoker (1971:28-71) proposes a connection between his and Van Til’s methods, and when Van Til in turn responds positively. This study will focus on what role these two thinkers’ presuppositions play in their apologetic conversation. It eventually comes to important guidelines regarding the place and role of presuppositions in conversations of Christians across a broad scientific front with those who hold other points of departure. / MTh (Missiology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

I present and defend an account of indexicals that treats indexicals as presuppositional expressions. I argue that the distinction between presupposed and asserted content can replace the more restrictive distinction between character and content that is characteristic of Kaplanian, two-dimensional views. My account, "Presuppositional Indexicals" (PI), is simpler than a two-dimensional account because it does not posit a special layer of meaning for indexicals that cannot interact with truth-conditional content. PI also has broader scope than two-dimensional theories. It opens the door to a general theory of definite noun phrases according to which all definites have two components to their meaning: an asserted component, which contributes new information to a discourse, and a presuppositional component, which determines where asserted information will be attached in a discourse. PI does not stipulate rigidity or referentiality for indexicals as many other theories do. Indexicals do receive a special semantic treatment in PI, but their special semantics are captured entirely in terms of a strategy that indexicals exhibit for the resolution of their presuppositions. / text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Edinburgh, 1996.

No description available.

Dans ma thèse, je développe une analyse uniforme des insultes et des termes épais en termes de présuppositions. Je soutiens que les insultes et les termes épais - même si ils ont été étudiés par différentes disciplines - appartiennent à la même classe de «evaluatives hybrides». Mon travail vise à combler le fossé entre la recherche sur les termes d'épaisseur d'une part et la recherche sur les insultes de l'autre, en montrant que le mécanisme sous-jacents les insultes et les termes d'épaisseur est le même et que les différences phénoménales que on peut observer dépendent des particularités de leur contenu descriptif. / In this thesis I develop a uniform account of slurs and thick terms in terms of presuppositions. I argue that slurs and thick terms – even though they were studied by different disciplines – belong to the same class of ‘hybrid evaluatives’. My work aims to fill the gap between the research on thick terms on the one hand and the research on slurs on the other, by showing that the mechanisms underlying slurs and thick terms is one and the same and that the phenomenal differences that one can observe depend on the peculiarities of their descriptive content.

No description available.

This thesis consists of four essays and an introduction dedicated to two main topics: indexicality and presupposition. The first essay is concerned with an alleged problem for the standard treatment of indexicals on which their linguistic meanings are functions from context to content (so-called characters). Since most indexicals have their content settled, on an occasion of use, by the speaker’s intentions, some authors have argued that this standard picture is inadequate. By demonstrating that intentions can be seen as a parameter of the kind of context that characters operate on, these arguments are rejected. In addition, it is argued that a more recent, variable-based framework is naturally interpreted as an intention-sensitive semantics. The second essay is devoted to the phenomenon of descriptive uses of indexicals on which such an expression seems to contribute, not its standard reference as determined by its character, but a property to the interpretation. An argument that singular readings of the cases in question are incoherent is shown to be incorrect, and an approach to descriptive readings is developed on which they arise from e-type uses akin to other well known cases. Further, descriptive readings of the relevant kind are seen to arise only in the presence of adverbs of quantification, and all sentences in which such an adverb takes scope over an indexical are claimed to be ambiguous between a referential and an e-type (descriptive) reading. The third essay discusses a version of the variable analysis of pronouns on which their descriptive meanings are relegated to the so-called phi-features – person, gender and number. In turn, the phi-features are here seen as triggering semantic presuppositions that place constraints on the definedness of pronouns, and ultimately of sentences in which they appear. It is argued that the descriptive information contributed by the phi-features diverges radically from presuppositional information of both semantic and pragmatic varieties on several dimensions of comparison, and instead the main role of the phi-features is seen to be that of guiding hearers’ attempts to ascertain the speaker’s intentions. The fourth essay addresses an issue concerning the treatment of presuppositions in dynamic semantics. Representing a semantic treatment of pragmatic presuppositions, the dynamic framework is shown to incorrectly regard conversational infelicity as sufficient for semantic undefinedness, given the standard way of defining truth in terms of context change. Further, it is shown that a proposal for a solution fail to make correct predictions for epistemic modals. A novel framework is developed on which context change potentials act on contexts that have more structure than the contexts usually countenanced by dynamic semantics, and it is shown that this framework derives truth from context change while making correct predictions for both presuppositions and modals.

The purpose of this work is to characterize the problem of semantic presuppositions generated by definite descriptions in subject-position in the light of a reassessment of the semantic framework of the Russell/Strawson controversy and analyze what would be the early and the later Wittgenstein's solution to such a problem. In the first part, the Russell/Strawson controversy is characterized. On the basis of Strawson's account, a general concept of semantic presupposition against which other theories may be tested is constructed. This allows the formulation of the problem above mentioned. Further analysis of the accounts involved reveals that Frege's concept of a 'semantic prerequisite' generated by definite descriptions in subject-position is an instance of the general concept. But Frege also held the view that simple proper names do not generate semantic prerequisites. The Fregean referential dualism suggests that the Russell/Strawson controversy, as far as only these authors' accounts are involved, is undecidable at the purely semantic level. This is the semantic framework against which Wittgenstein's philosophies are tested in the second part. The "Tractatus" adopts a modified version of the Russellian Theory of Descriptions. Even so, the Tractarian account seems to be ultimately equivalent to Russell's. Further analysis reveals that the doctrine of simple signs in isolation, but not its conjunction with the picture theory, is consistent with the general concept of semantic presupposition. The "Investigations " adopts the programmatic principle of searching for the use of the words. But the question about the 'referring use' of descriptions in a specific language-game is consistent with, and in the spirit of, the "Investigations". The framework of the question involves the appeal to the Kripkean notions of 'semantic referent' and 'speaker's referent'. The analysis of the referring use in the language-game of reporting an event reveals that the later Wittgenstein tends to reject the semantic concept of presupposition. Further analysis reveals that he would tend to reject Russell's Theory of Descriptions and most of the variants of the pragmatic concept. The analysis seems to confirm that the Russell/Strawson dispute is idle at the purely semantic level. Even so, the later Wittgenstein's account of language is such that it is possible to imagine some particular language-games in which relationships occur that bear some analogies with the one of semantic presupposition.