Presupposing acquaintance: a unified semantics for , and belief reports

Emar Maier (1)

1 Centre for Language Studies

This paper deals with the semantics of , and belief reports. First, I flesh out in some detail the established, classical theories that assume syntactic distinctions between all three types of reports. I then propose a new, unified analysis, based on two ideas discarded by the classical theory. These are: (i) modeling the distinction as a difference in scope, and (ii) analyzing as merely a special case of relational attitudes. The resurrection of these ideas takes place in a dynamic setting. My formalization of the first idea involves a modification of the presupposition-as-anaphora resolution algorithm for DRT. The second involves treating acquaintance relations as second-order presuppositions, to be bound in the context by means of higher-order unification, or accommodated if necessary. The resulting framework requires no syntactic distinctions between different modes of attitude, with the exception of a specific subclass of reports characterized by special ‘ pronouns' (i.e. PRO and logophors). These special pronouns are handled in syntax; everything alse is passed on to the pragmatic resolution module as it appears on the surface. The more sophisticated contextual resolution process nonetheless ensures adequate output truth conditions for a variety of classical and novel puzzles. In particular, I compare the new pragmasemantic system to the classical, syntactic analysis with respect to iterated and quantified reports, and monstrously shifted indexicals.

Mots clés: Attitudes; Belief reports; DRT; Presupposition; Semantics; Pragmatics

Emar Maier. Presupposing acquaintance: a unified semantics for , and belief reports. Linguistics and Philosophy, 2010, 32 (5), pp.429-474. ⟨10.1007/s10988-010-9065-2⟩. ⟨hal-00566731⟩