Presuppositions and Antipresuppositions in Conditionals  

Oleh:

Leahy, Brian

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: Proceedings of the 21st Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, held at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, May 20 - 22, 2011, page 257–274.
Topik: Conditionals; Counterfactuals; Indicative Conditionals; Counterfactual Antecedent Falsity; Presuppositions; Antipresuppositions
Fulltext: 257-274.pdf (155.91KB)

Isi artikel

Utterances of counterfactual conditionals are typically attended by the information that their antecedents are false. But there is as yet no account of the source of this information that is both detailed and complete. This paper describes the problem of counterfactual antecedent falsity and argues that the problem can be addressed by appeal to an adequate account of the presuppositions of various competing conditional constructions. It argues that indicative conditionals presuppose that their antecedents are epistemically possible, while subjunctive conditionals bear no presupposition. Given this arrangement, utterance of the counterfactual results in an antipresupposition, that is, a scalar implicature generated from the presuppositions of competing alternatives rather than from the at-issue content of competing alternatives. The content of the antipresupposition is the negation of the presupposition of the competing indicative, i.e., that the antecedent of the conditional is known to be false by the speaker.

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