The Presuppositions of Soft Triggers are Obligatory Scalar Implicatures

Abstract

Presupposition triggers can be divided in two groups, 'soft' and 'hard,' based on whether the presuppositions they give rise to are easily defeasible and whether they project uniformly in quantificational sentences (Abusch 2002, 2010, Charlow 2009). Recently, two ideas have been put forward in the literature in connection to this problem. First, soft triggers should be thought of as non-presuppositional items associated with lexical alternatives (Abusch 2002, 2010). Second, the projection behavior of presuppositions can be accounted for by a theory based on scalar implicatures (Chemla 2009a, Chemla 2010). In this paper, building on these two ideas, I propose a scalar approach to the presuppositions of soft triggers. The contribution of the proposal is twofold. First, I propose a theory of soft presuppositions as scalar implicatures that provides an account of their behaviour in quantificational sentences that makes more accurate predictions than Chemla's (2009a), Chemla's (2010) and Abusch's (2010) proposals and other non-alternative-based theories that I am aware of. Second, I develop an account of the differences between soft and hard presuppositions, on the one hand, and the similarities between soft presuppositions and scalar implicatures, on the other. Finally, the proposed approach also reduces the pattern of presupposition suspension to independent principles needed in the theory of scalar implicatures.

Processing temporal presuppositions: an event-related potential study

“…This result suggests that different cognitive mechanisms might be at play during the processing of these two types of presuppositions, in line with some theoretical proposals (Abusch, 2005(Abusch, , 2009Jayez et al, 2015;Romoli, 2015). Further empirical examination of similarities and differences in the patterns of ERPs evoked during the processing of different types of presuppositions is needed.…”

“…Others, however, have suggested that presupposition is a heterogeneous phenomenon, with different triggers varying in 8 strength (Karttunen, 1971(Karttunen, ,1973. Extensive evidence for the latter view has since been provided (Abusch, 2005(Abusch, , 2009Jayez et al, 2015;Romoli, 2015). The apparent heterogeneity of presupposition stresses the importance of probing a wide range of presupposition triggers in order to form generalizations about the mechanisms of presupposition processing (Chemla & Bott, 2013;Schwarz, 2015).…”

O estudo da aquisição de inferências pragmáticas como elemento na escolha entre modelos teóricos em disputa

“…Em uma série de trabalhos -cf. Romoli (2011Romoli ( , 2012Romoli ( , 2015 -, o autor passou a defender a ideia de que, em enunciados negativos e condicionais, pressuposições são implicaturas de quantidade escalares obrigatórias. Seu argumento, em linhas gerais, é o de que os gatilhos pressuposicionais, assim como os itens escalares responsáveis pela geração de implicatura de quantidade escalares, ativam escalas de quantidade informacional.…”

“…Suas considerações, bastante razoáveis, levam em consideração dois pressupostos teóricos. O primeiro, defendido em Romoli (2015), é o de que pressuposições são tipos especiais de implicaturas escalares: são implicaturas escalares obrigatórias. Nessa perspectiva, o cancelamento de pressuposições só seria aceito nas situações em que o intérprete se sentisse obrigado a considerar elementos contextuais que impedissem a produção do conteúdo inferido.…”

Presupposition cancellation: explaining the ‘soft–hard’ trigger distinction

“…What the difference between the two types of triggers actually amounts to has been the subject of numerous proposals. The common thread in most of these is that presuppositions of 'soft' triggers are pragmatically derived in some way or another (see Simons 2001, Abusch 2002, Abbott 2006, Chemla 2009b, Romoli 2015 for various versions of this idea), while presuppositions of 'hard' triggers are real tough semantic presuppositions. The volatile nature of 'soft' triggers is either attributed to their not being true presuppositions after all but instead conversational implicatures (cf.…”