Yeom - A presuppositional analysis of specific indefinites : common grounds as structured information states

OUTSTANDING DISSERTATIONS IN

LINGUISTICS

edited by
LAURENCE HORN
YALE UNIVERSITY

A PRESUPPOSITIONAL
ANALYSIS OF SPECIFIC INDEFINITES

COMMON GROUNDS AS STRUCTURES
INFORMATION STATES

JAE-IL YEOM

First published 1998 by Garland Publishing Inc.

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright 1998 Jae-Il Yeom
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ISBN: 9780815331759 (hbk)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yeom, Jae-Il, 1957
A presuppositional analysis of specific indefinites : common grounds as structured information states / Jae-Il Yeom.
p. cm. (Outstanding dissertations in linguistics)
A slight revision of the authors thesis (Ph.D.)University of Texas, Austin, 1997.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8153-3175-4 (alk. paper)
1. Definiteness (Linguistics). 2. Grammar, Comparative and
generalDeterminers. 3. Presupposition (Logic) 4. Semantics.
5. Information theory. 6. Cognitive grammar. I. Title. II. Series.
P299.D43Y46 1998
401.43dc21

98-17121

To Geehee, Kyung, and Jin-Seok

Many linguists have been interested in specific indefinites, but their theories are not quite satisfactory in that they have only tried to explore some aspects of specific indefinites. Moreover, it is surprising to find that they do not agree on the notion of specificity. In this book, I assume a standard notion of specificity, i.e., the notion of someone having-in-mind an individual or a relation. Under this assumption, I attempt to review previous studies on specific indefinites, and propose a new theory of specificity which I believe can capture all aspects which the previous studies have explored. This leads us to a new information theory which is partially representational and partially denotational., and which is useful for dealing with conversational aspects, like the distinction between the speaker and the audience.

This book is a slight revision of the original version of my dissertation. I have revised substantially, but this does not affect my main theory at all. Most other revisions are made to improve readability, to change styles, or to make the text fit with the new format of this book. Some notational revisions are made to keep consistency throughout the book.

The discussions in this book include the following. A referential view of specific indefinites has led to an ambiguity view of indefinites. But the actual analysis has to face a number of problems. This dissertation explores an alternative ambiguity view of indefinites, according to which specific indefinites presuppose existence and someones cognitive contact with an individual or a relation. Most of the discussion is focused on cognitive contact with an individual.

The motivation for the presupposition of existence is that the existence of an entity associated with the use of a specific indefinite is hard to negate, especially when it occurs together with the speakers cognitive contact. Furthermore, the existential quantifier associated with specific NPs tends to have wide scope, which is a property shared with presuppositions in general. The motivation for cognitive contact is that the use of a specific indefinite shows agent-dependent phenomena. The negation of existence depends on who has cognitive contact with the relevant entity, and the scope interaction between specific indefinites and the possibility operator depends on who has cognitive contact with an entity and who uses the possibility operator. Moreover, the use of a specific indefinite facilitates a functional reading with no conventional relation salient in the context. This shows that the use of a specific indefinite is associated with someones cognitive contact.

I propose that in using a specific indefinite, cognitive contact with an entity has the effect of structuring the information state of the agent into epistemic alternatives making the expression a rigid designator in each epistemic alternative. This allows us to explain why specific indefinites introduce pegs which are accessible for the use of pronouns regardless of what contexts they are introduced in, and why the scope of a specific indefinite extends to sentences that follow when the agent of the cognitive contact utters them. In other words, specific indefinites behave like referential expressions only in the information state of the agent who has cognitive contact.

In accounting for why specific indefinites tend to have wide scope, a new theory of presupposition projection is proposed, according to which presuppositions generate a set of scopally different readings. Among the readings, the most informative reading is selected that is not canceled by the context. This is explained by appealing to the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis, which is independently motivated.

I would like to thank the members of my committee, Manfred Krifka, Nicholas Asher, Lee Baker, Robert Wall, and Stephen Wechsler for their advice throughout this dissertation process. Special thanks to my advisor, Manfred Krifka. He trained me to be a semanticist. He knows what to teach and how to make me think by myself. Whenever he told me to think about something, the solution could be found from there. At this point I realize that I have been guided by his far-reaching insights. At every step in the development of this dissertation, he has chosen to support my ideas and suggest more ideas rather than to criticize them. His insightful suggestions and directions, together with encouragement, changed merely vague thoughts into fully spelled-out theories.

I would also like to thank Lee Baker for many useful comments on my earlier paper on specific indefinites, which was elaborated into . He helped clarify my ideas in those chapters. In many occasions, he tried to tell me how to argue for or against theories. I am afraid that the discussions in the dissertation still do not meet his expectations. Nicholas Asher deserves a lot of thanks for taking an interest in my ideas and welcoming discussions about them. Many thanks to Robert Wall and Stephen Wechsler for readily agreeing to be members of my committee. I thank Bob Wall for his moral support and cheerful welcomes whenever I stopped by his office. Thanks to Steve Wechsler for calling my attention to inappropriate examples. I thank Lee Baker and Bob Harms for believing in me, which made me set higher goals and try to achieve them.

I have to admit that I have benefited . I also like to thank Irene Heim for a couple of occasions of discussions and for her interest in my papers and dissertation.

I am grateful to Peggy Badlato, Erie Barr, Ralph Blight, Troi Carleton, Tivoli Majors, Michelle Moosally, Mary Shapiro, Mary Swift, Lucy Thomason, and other linguists in the department for readily being my informants. Michelle deserves special thanks for hours and hours of discussions of data and groping for intuition behind the data. I hope she will not hate the word