Journal of Semantics 

About: Journal of Semantics is an academic journal published by Oxford University Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Presupposition & Sentence. It has an ISSN identifier of 0167-5133. Over the lifetime, 560 publications have been published receiving 20608 citations.

Presupposition Projection as Anaphora Resolution

Abstract: The present paper presents an anaphoric account of presupposition. It is argued that presuppositional expressions should not be seen as referring expressions, nor is presupposition to be explicated in terms of some non-standard logic. The notion of presupposition should not be relegated to a pragmatic theory either. Instead presuppositional expressions are claimed to be anaphoric expressions which have internal structure and semantic content. In fact they only differ from pronouns and other semantically less loaded anaphors in that they have more descriptive content. It is this fact which enables them to create an antecedent in case discourse does not provide one. If their capacity to accommodate is taken into account they can be treated by basically the same mechanism which handles the resolution of pronouns. The theory is elaborated in the framework of discourse representation theory. It is shown that pragmatic factors interfere in the resolution of presuppositio nal anaphors. The resulting account can neither be classified as wholly semantic nor wholly pragmatic. Section 1 presents a survey of standing problems in the theory of presupposition projection and discusses the major competing approaches. An argumentation for a purely anaphoric account of presupposition is given in section 2. Section 3 presents a coding of presuppositional expressions in an extension of discourse representation theory. The final section is devoted to a discussion of the constraints which govern the resolution of presuppositional anaphors.

Presupposition Projection and the Semantics of Attitude Verbs

Abstract: Karttunen observed that, if the complement of an attitude sentence presupposes p, then that sentence as a whole presupposes that the attitude-holder believes p. I attempt to derive some representative instances of this generalization from suitable assumptions about the lexical semantics of attitude predicates. The enterprise is carried out in a framework of context change semantics, which incorporates Stalnaker's suggestion that presupposition projection results from the stepwise fashion in which information is updated in response to complex utterances. The empirical focus is on predicates of desire and on the contribution of counterfactual mood.

NPI-Licensing, Strawson-Entailment, and Context-Dependency

Abstract: The Fauconnier-Ladusaw analysis of negative polarity licensing (that NPIs are licensed in the scope of downward entailing operators) continues to be the benchmark theory of negative polarity. In this paper, I consider some of the moves that are needed to maintain its basic intuition in some recalcitrant arenas: negative polarity licensing by only, adversatives, superlatives, and conditionals. We will see that one has to (i) use a notion of entailment that I call Strawson-Entailment , which deals with presuppositions in a particular way, and (ii) prohibit (even natural) context change during an inference. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to justify these constraints and to see in detail how the semantics of the problematic constructions has to work in order for these moves to successfully rescue the Fauconnier-Ladusaw analysis. I will first show the two assumptions at work in the analysis of NPI-licensing by only and adversatives (building on proposals by Kadmon & Landman). I then turn to NPI-licensing in the antecedent of conditionals. The standard Stalnaker-Lewis semantics for conditionals - if p, q is true iff q is true in the closest p-world(s) - might make one suspect that once one has an explanation for NPI-licensing by superlatives, that would immediately deliver an explanation for NPI-licensing in conditionals. But it turns out that the particular analysis that seems appropriate for NPI-licensing by superlatives cannot plausibly carry over to conditionals. Instead, one does better by appealing to an alternative analysis of conditionals, one that I have elsewhere argued for on independent grounds.

Transfers of Meaning

Abstract: L'A. examine les transferts de significations en anglais, operation dans laquelle des noms de propriete sont transferes dans de nouveaux noms qui denotent des proprietes auxquelles ils correspondent fonctionnellement. C'est cette operation qui est responsable du nouveau sens du predicat parked out back dans l'enonce I am parked out back, ainsi que des alternances lexicales representees en polysemie systematique