Meaning and grammar seminar
Speaker: Nadine Theiler (University of Connecticut)
Title: An Epistemic Bridge for Presupposition Projection in Questions
Abstract: It is often assumed that presuppositions in wh-questions project universally. However, Schwarz & Simonenko (2018) note examples of such questions where universal projection is absent and provide a pragmatic account to capture this variation in projection behavior. I discuss their account and propose an alternative: by reasoning about the pragmatics of question-answer discourse, I arrive at a version of Stalnaker's bridge principle that is sensitive to what the speaker already knows about the true answer to the question. This Epistemic Bridge predicts universal projection for canonical information-seeking questions, but less than universal projection for certain non-canonical questions such as quiz questions or reference questions.
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Meaning and grammar seminar
Online via link invitation