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A hearer's interpretation of the meaning of an utterance consists of more than what is conveyed by just the sentence itself. Other parts of the meaning are produced as inferences from three knowledge sources: the sentence itself, knowledge about the world, and knowledge about language use. One inference of this type is the natural language presupposition. This category of inference is distinguished by a number of features: the inferences are generated only, but not necessarily, if certain lexical or syntactic environments are present in the uttered sentence; normal interpretations of these presuppositional environments in the scope of a negation in a simple sentence produce the same inferences as the unnegated environment; and the inference can be cancelled by information in the conversational context. We propose a method for deriving presuppositions of natural language sentences that has its foundations in an inference-based concept of meaning. Whereas standard (monotonic) forms of reasoning are able to capture portions of a sentence's meaning, such as its entailments, non-monotonic forms of reasoning are required to derive its presuppositions. Gazdar's idea of presuppositions being consistent with the context, and the usual connection of presuppositions with lexical and syntactic environments motivates the use of Default Logic as the formal nonmonotonic reasoning system. Not only does the default logic approach provide a natural means to represent presuppositions, but also a single (slightly restricted) default proof procedure is all that is required to generate the presuppositions. The naturalness and simplicity of this method contrasts with the traditional projection methods. Also available to the logical approach is the proper treatment of 'or' and 'if ... then ...' which is not available to any of the projection methods. The default logic approach is compared with four others, three projection methods and one non-projection method. As well as serving the function of demonstrating empirical and methodological difficulties with the other methods, the detailed investigation also provides the motivation for the topics discussed in connection with default logic approach. Some of the difficulties have been solved using the default logic method, while possible solutions for others have only been sketched. A brief discussion of a new method for providing corrective answers to questions is presented. The novelty of this method is that the corrective answers are viewed as correcting presuppositions of the answer rather than of the question. / Science, Faculty of / Computer Science, Department of / Graduate

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Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (p.54-59).

The topic of this paper is the logical analysis and translation of definite descriptions (structures of the form ‘the F’), in particular Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Descriptions, as put forth in “On Denoting” (1905). I argue in favor of an opposing theory, a presuppositional analysis of definite descriptions that fits in the tradition of Frege and Strawson, building upon the recent work of Heim and Elbourne. I argue that a definite description has a referential function that is supported by presuppositions of existence and uniqueness located outside of the analyzed sentence. Using a series of example sentences, I show that a presuppositional analysis handles the logic of ordinary language in a manner superior to a Russellian analysis, produces more natural readings of embedded sentences containing definite descriptions, explains why definite descriptions function in a consistent way across different types of sentences, and provides a much better account of the logical commitments of using referential terms. After providing background on Russell’s theory and its criticisms, I review and analyze Elbourne’s examples of sentences embedding definite descriptions in non-doxastic propositional attitudes or the antecedents of conditionals. I then present and analyze my own examples involving embedding within disjunctions and within two kinds of non-statement: questions and commands. I compare the effects of embedding sentences using proper names—another kind of referential term. I then analyze some logical consequences of Russellian analysis, and answer a potential Russellian objection.

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

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.

This study is a partial replication of Davison & Lutz's (1984) experiment. It was designed to test if L1 word order and English proficiency are involved in non-native speakers' sentence processing. This study concentrates on the roles of syntax and pragmatics/semantics in sentence processing. By comparing two corresponding syntactic structures with similar meanings but different forms in context, we can detect the different degrees of the salient property of a certain NP. The perception of the salient NP is related to the definition of the sentence topic, which functions as the link between the sentence and the discourse. The salient NP can be identified by applying our linguistic knowledge, syntactic rules, and our real world knowledge, pragmatic principles,. The choice of syntactic structure is conditioned heavily by pragmatic principles. It is believed that response times correspond to the degrees of salience.Sixty international students participated in the experiment. Stimulus sentences were presented with a computer program and response times were recorded in seconds by the computer automatically. A cloze test was given for the measuring of English proficiency.The data collected were analyzed with SPSS-X. The MANOVA was carried out to compare the differences between VO/OV language types, target sentences (transformed and untransformed ones), five types of syntactic constructions, and the interactions ofword order by target sentences, target sentences by syntactic constructions, and L1 word order by target sentences by syntactic constructions. The response times for English proficiency were used as a post hoc variable. Significance was set at .05.The results revealed that there was a significant difference across five syntactic constructions (p < .05). The other tests were not significant. Two important limitations on this study are problems arising out of randomization parameters in the experiment, and the lack of lower level English proficiency subjects. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-272).