Presupposition: A Semantic or Pragmatic Phenomenon?

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.31235/osf.io/ner38 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Arab World English Journal ◽

Mostafa OUALIF

Keyword(s):

Unified Theory ◽

Semantic View ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

Semantic Account ◽

Theory Of Meaning ◽

Pragmatic Analysis ◽

Theoretical Status ◽

Projection Problem

There has been debate among linguists with regards to the semantic view and the pragmatic view of presupposition. Some scholars believe that presupposition is purely semantic and others believe that it is purely pragmatic. The present paper contributes to the ongoing debate and exposes the different ways presupposition was approached by linguists. The paper also tries to attend to (i) what semantics is and what pragmatics is in a unified theory of meaning and (ii) the possibility to outline a semantic account of presupposition without having recourse to pragmatics and vice versa. The paper advocates Gazdar’s analysis, a pragmatic analysis, as the safest grounds on which a working grammar of presupposition could be outlined. It shows how semantic accounts are inadequate to deal with the projection problem. Finally, the paper states explicitly that the increasingly puzzling theoretical status of presupposition seems to confirm the philosophical contention that not any fact can be translated into words.

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TOWARD A UNIFIED THEORY OF MEANING AND ACTION

Grazer Philosophische Studien ◽

10.1163/18756735-90000093 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Donald Davidson

Keyword(s):

Unified Theory ◽

Theory Of Meaning

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Evidentials and (relayed) speech acts: hearsay as quotation

Semantics and Linguistic Theory ◽

10.3765/salt.v25i0.3969 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 676

Author(s):

Natasha Korotkova

Keyword(s):

Speech Acts ◽

Speech Act ◽

Third Party ◽

Formal Semantic ◽

Reported Speech ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

Semantic Account ◽

Original Proposal ◽

The Status ◽

Empirical Tests

This paper is devoted to what I will call quotative uses of hearsay evidentials, wherein they report a speech act made by a third party. Occasionally mentioned in the typological literature, quotative uses were first given a formal semantic account by Faller 2002 and have received little attention since. The goal of this paper is to put the spotlight on them. An ongoing debate in the literature is on the semantic status of evidentials and the place of evidentiality among other categories (see Matthewson 2012 and references therein). For Faller (2002, 2007), quotative uses are among the empirical tests that diagnose illocutionary evidentials, ones that deal with the structure of speech acts. In this paper, I re-implement Faller's original proposal within Krifka's (2014) framework that provides an explicit syntax-pragmatics interface. I then show that quotative readings may be the only argument, out of the currently provided in the literature, in favor of the existence of illocutionary evidentials. However, the status of such readings requires further research. I conclude by discussing quotative uses within a broader context of reported speech strategies.

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Toward a Unified Theory of Meaning and Action

Grazer Philosophische Studien ◽

10.5840/gps19801120 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Donald Davidson ◽

Keyword(s):

Unified Theory ◽

Theory Of Meaning

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On the Aim of Scientific Theories in Relating to the World: A Defence of the Semantic Account

Dialogue ◽

10.1017/s001221730001310x ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 323-334 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Michael Baur

Keyword(s):

Scientific Theory ◽

Bernard Lonergan ◽

Semantic View ◽

Scientific Theories ◽

Theoretical Terms ◽

Linguistic Structure ◽

Semantic Account ◽

The World ◽

Correspondence Rules

According to the received view of scientific theories, a scientific theory is an axiomatic-deductive linguistic structure which must include some set of guidelines (“correspondence rules”) for interpreting its theoretical terms with reference to the world of observable phenomena. According to the semantic view, a scientific theory need not be formulated as an axiomatic-deductive structure with correspondence rules, but need only specify models which are said to be “isomorphic” with actual phenomenal systems. In this paper, I consider both the received and semantic views as they bear on the issue of how a theory relates to the world (Section 1). Then I offer a critique of some arguments frequently put forth in support of the semantic view (Section 2). Finally, I suggest a more convincing “meta-methodological” argument (based on the thought of Bernard Lonergan) in favour of the semantic view (Section 3).

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Imperative Wh-Interrogatives: Pragmatic Analysis and Empirical Evidence from German

International Review of Pragmatics ◽

10.1163/18773109-00602004 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 263-305

Author(s):

Sonja Müller

Keyword(s):

Empirical Evidence ◽

Pragmatic Approach ◽

Value Assignment ◽

Semantic Account ◽

Illocutionary Acts ◽

Pragmatic Analysis ◽

Truth Value ◽

Interrogative Clauses ◽

Verbal Mood

This paper is concerned with wh-interrogative clauses in which the imperative verbal mood occurs. According to some authors (cf. in particular Lohnstein, 2000; Chiba, 2009), such constructions are ill-formed. Lohnstein offers a semantic account (based on his theory of sentence mood) ruling out imperative (wh-)interrogatives by arguing for the impossibility of partitioning propositions which are not open for truth value assignment. Chiba argues for the ungrammaticality of such structures by assuming that sentence types (as defined by Sadock & Zwicky, 1985) cannot be combined. This paper will show that unacceptable as well as acceptable imperative wh-interrogatives exist and that, therefore, both approaches make the wrong predictions. A pragmatic approach is developed which argues for the realization of incompatible illocutionary acts. This account makes it possible to derive the unacceptability of certain imperative wh-interrogatives and to allow the acceptable cases which can be observed. An advantage of referring to illocutionary acts is that it becomes possible to speak about various subtypes of the erothetic illocution which can be proven to play a role in distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable imperative wh-interrogatives. The results of controlled acceptability judgements confirm this assumption.

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