Additive particles or adverbs like too or again are sometimes obligatory. This does not follow from the meaning commonly ascribed to them. I argue that the text without the additive is incoherent because the context contradicts a contrast implicature stemming from the additive's associate, and that the text with the additive is coherent because the presupposed alternative is added to the associate, so that the implicature does not concern that alternative. I show that this analysis is better than the account offered by Krifka (1999) and that, contra Zeevat (2003), the notion of a presupposition is essential.

Indefinites face competition at two levels: Presupposition and content. The antipresupposition hypothesis predicts that they signal the opposite of familiarity, or uniqueness, namely, novelty, or non-uniqueness. At the level of descriptive content, they are pressured from two sides: definites expressing identity and another phrases expressing difference, and Gricean reasoning predicts that indefinites signal both difference and identity and are infelicitous when definites and another phrases are felicitous. However, occasionally a space opens between the and another , for a to fill. This is in part due to conditions handicapping the or another semantically, in part to another 's phonological handicap. The division of labor between determiners in the field of difference and sameness is thus the result of an intricate competition. We model this competition in a version of game-theoretic pragmatics.

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This article surveys and discusses the core points of contact between notions of information structure and notions of presupposition. Section 1 is devoted to the ‘weak’ presuppositional semantics for focus developed by Mats Rooth, describing its properties with regard to verification and accommodation and showing that it can successfully account for a wide range of phenomena. Section 2 examines the stronger thesis that focus–background structures give rise to existential presuppositions, and finds the counterarguments that have been raised to carry considerable weight. Section 3 looks into the relationship between Givenness and run-of-the-mill presuppositions, finding that this relationship is looser than might be expected, mainly because a presupposition may be in need of focus marking instead of givenness marking.

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