Presupposition Projection and At-issueness Edgar Onea Jingyang Xue XPRAG 2011 03. Juni 2011 Courant Research Center Text Structures University of Göttingen This project is funded by the German Initiative of Excellence Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 1 / 39 Overwiew Overwiew Differences between presupposition triggers with respect to the projection behavior of presuppositions they trigger Experiment I: Testing projection behavior of presuppositions triggered by four German triggers Not-at-issueness as an explanation for projection (Simons et al. 2010) Experiment II: Testing at-issueness of presuppositions by means of testing the way of contradicting Comparison of the results of the two experiments Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 2 / 39
Introduction Presupposition and Projection Definition of projection: An implication projects if and only if it survives as an utterance implication when the expression that triggers the implication occurs under the syntactic scope of an entailment-cancelling operator. (Simons et al. 2010) Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 3 / 39 Introduction Family of sentences tests as projection tests (1) Peter has stopped smoking. p : Peter used to smoke. (2) Peter hasn t stopped smoking. (Negation) (3) Has Peter stopped smoking? (Interrogation) (4) Maybe Peter has stopped smoking. (Possibility Modal) (5) If Peter has stopped smoking, Mary will be happy. (Antecedent of a conditional) (2) - (5) p : Peter used to smoke. p survived p projects. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 4 / 39
Differences between presupposition triggers Not-Projecting Presuppositions Observations Presuppositions don t have to project. (6) Peter hasn t stopped smoking. He never smoked! p : Peter used to smoke. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 5 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers Observations Observations: soft vs. hard triggers Different triggers may differ in the tendencies of the presuppositions they trigger to project: distinction between soft and hard triggers (Karttunen 1971, Stalnaker 1973, 1974, Simons 2001 and Abusch 2002 among others) (7) Maybe John knows that Sam is in London. But it is also possible that Sam isn t in London at all. (soft trigger) The presupposition triggered by to know doesn t project out of the possibility modal. (8) #Maybe Sam is in London again. But it is also possible that Sam has never been to London before. (hard trigger) The presupposition triggered by again must project out of the possibility modal. Therefore, the second sentence in (8) poses a contradiction and hence makes the whole utterance infelicitous. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 6 / 39
Differences between presupposition triggers Observations Research Question How different are the triggers with respect to the projection behavior of the presuppositions they trigger? Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 7 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers of different presuppositions Projection behavior of the presuppositions triggered by four German lexical triggers: wissen ( to know ) erfahren ( to find out ) auch ( too ) wieder ( again ) Web-based experiment using WebExp Subjects: 34 German native speakers between the age of 20 and 42 Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 8 / 39
Differences between presupposition triggers Experiment I: set-up 12 critical sentence-question pairs: 3 pairs per trigger Each sentence-question pair consists of one target sentence and one question task Target sentence: one of the four lexical triggers is embedded in the antecedent of a conditional Question task: The subjects have to decide whether the negation of the presupposition triggered by the lexical trigger is possible with respect to the target sentence Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 9 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers Experiment I: set-up An example with a sentence-question pair containing the trigger wissen ( to know ): Target sentence: Wenn Paul weiß, dass Christine gerne Tee trinkt, schenkt er ihr eine Teekanne. If Paul knows that Christine likes tea, he will give her a teapot as a present. Question task: Ist es möglich, dass Christine nicht gerne Tee trinkt? Is it possible that Christine doesn t like tea? Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 10 / 39
Differences between presupposition triggers Experiment I: set-up The subjects are asked to choose one of three given answer options. Answer options: a Ja, das ist möglich. Yes, it s possible. b Nein, das ist nicht möglich. No, it s not possible. c Ich weiß es nicht. I don t know. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 11 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers Experiment I: set-up A further example with the trigger wieder ( again ): Target sentence: Wenn Thomas wieder Sushi macht, hilft Maiko dabei. If Thomas makes sushi again, Maiko will help him. Question task: Ist es möglich, dass Thomas noch nie Sushi gemacht hat? Is it possible that Thomas has never made sushi before? Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 12 / 39
Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 14 / 39 The probability of the No answers can be regarded as the Differences between presupposition triggers Considerations For example: (9) If Thomas makes sushi again, Maiko will help him. Presupposition triggered by again: p: Thomas has made sushi before. Question: Is it possible that p? A subject will answer Yes, it s possible iff he or she thinks that p doesn t have to hold. p fails to survive the conditional and hence fails to project. A subject will answer No, it s not possible iff he or she thinks that p is necessary p has survived the conditional and hence projects. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 13 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers Results of experiment I: differences in projection
Differences between presupposition triggers Results of experiment I: projection Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 15 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers Results of experiment I: projection Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 16 / 39
Differences between presupposition triggers Results of experiment I: projection Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 17 / 39 Differences between presupposition triggers Results of experiment I: projection Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 18 / 39
Differences between presupposition triggers Discussion In lack of a context, the projection behavior of different presuppositions triggered by different lexical items differs to a great extent: While some almost always project, others do not. The presuppositions triggered by auch ( too ) and wieder ( again ) come with a much higher probability to project than the presuppositions triggered by the factive verbs wissen ( to know ) and erfahren ( to find out ). This finding is in line with previous observations in the literature. The results also show that the whole picture is more fine-grained: the presupposition triggered by each trigger shows different probability to project. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 19 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection At-issueness account of projection At-issueness account Roberts et al. (2009) and Simons et al. (2010): not-at-issuness may account for projection. At-issueness can be defined with respect to the Question Under Discussion (QUD), a semantic question which corresponds to the current discourse topic (Roberts 1996). A proposition p is at issue if and only if the speaker intends to address the QUD via the question whether p. The entailment-cancelling operators only target contents which are at issue Not-at-issue contents survive and hence project. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 20 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection At-issueness account of projection At-issueness account Hypothesis: All and only those implications of (embedded) sentences which are not-at-issue relative to the Question Under Discussion in the context have the potential to project. (Simons et al. 2010) (10) Sam is in London again. QUD: Where is Sam now? p1 : Sam is in London. at-issue p2 : Sam was in London before. not at-issue. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 21 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection At-issueness account of projection At-issueness account If the at-issueness account is right, we should be able to reproduce the differences in projection behavior of the presuppositions also in an at-issueness test. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 22 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection of different presuppositions General idea: susceptibility to direct denial (Beaver et al. 2009) At-issueness of presuppositions triggered by the four triggers in Experiment I: wissen ( to know ) erfahren ( to find out ) auch ( too ) wieder ( again ) Web-based experiment using WebExp Subjects: 29 German native speakers between the age of 19 and 62 Similar set-up as in Onea and Beaver (2011) Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 23 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Experiment II: set-up 8 critical target sentences (two lexicalizations per trigger) Three answer options for each target sentence All answer options aim at rejecting the presupposition triggered by the lexical trigger in the target sentence The three given answers only differ in the beginning: a. Ja, und ( Yes, and ), b. Ja, aber ( Yes, but ) and c. Nein ( No ). Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 24 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Experiment II: set-up An example target sentence containing the trigger erfahren ( to find out ) : Target sentence: Tina hat gerade erfahren, dass Max im Urlaub ist. Tina has just found out that Max is on vacation. Answer options: a Ja, und Max ist gar nicht im Urlaub. Yes, and Max is not on vacation at all. b Ja, aber Max ist gar nicht im Urlaub. Yes, but Max is not on vacation at all. c Nein, Max ist gar nicht im Urlaub. No, Max is not on vacation at all. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 25 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Considerations Our assumption: A subject will answer No, iff he or she judges the target presupposition as at-issue. Every target sentence gives rise to at least two different inferences. (11) Tina has just found out that Max is on vacation. p : Max is on vacation. q : Tina obtained the information that Max is on vacation. We assume that No is the only direct way to reject p among the three answer options. Both Yes, but and Yes, and are indirect denials. They are not denying p but are rather affirming q. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 26 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Results of experiment II: differences in at-issueness Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 27 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Results of experiment II: differences in at-issueness Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 28 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Results of experiment II: differences in at-issueness Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 29 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Results of experiment II: differences in at-issueness Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 30 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Results of experiment II: differences in at-issueness Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 31 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Results of experiment II: differences in at-issueness Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 32 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Discussion The presuppositions triggered by different lexical triggers come with different probabilities to be at-issue in lack of a context. The presuppositions triggered by auch ( too ) and wieder ( again ) show much higher probabilities to be at-issue than the presuppositions triggered by wissen ( to know ) and erfahren ( to find out ). Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 33 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Correlation between projection and not-at-issueness Comparing the results of experiment I and II Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 34 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Correlation between projection and not-at-issueness Discussion We can observe a correlation between projection and not-at-issueness: presuppositions that are more likely to be judged as not-at-issue is also more likely to project. We can assume that the subjects always reconstruct a context, when confronted with a target sentence. Each trigger may be associated with a certain probability to occur in an at-issue context which determines the probability of the reconstruction of such a context by the subjects. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 35 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Correlation between projection and not-at-issueness Future work Wider range of triggers Wider range of entailment-cancelling operators Manipulation of context Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 36 / 39
Not-at-issueness and projection Correlation between projection and not-at-issueness Conclusion In isolation presuppositions triggered by different triggers project with very different probabilities. In isolation, presuppositions triggered by different triggers are associated with different probabilities to be judged as at-issue. The probability of a presupposition to project seems to correlate with its probability to be judged as not-at-issue. The findings support the hypothesis that not-at-issueness may explain projection. Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 37 / 39 Not-at-issueness and projection Correlation between projection and not-at-issueness Thank you very much! Edgar Onea, Jingyang Xue (XPRAG 2011) Presupposition Projection and At-issueness 03. Juni 2011 38 / 39
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