Meaning and grammar seminar

Speaker: Elizabeth Allyn Smith (University of Quebec at Montreal)

Title: Presupposition variation by embedding environment and its consequences for criminal justice contexts

Abstract: In this talk, I will begin by reviewing some of what we know about presupposition variation, both from my own previous work and that of others. This variation can take many forms, including different projective behavior across different kinds of triggers, different embedding environments, different degrees of at-issueness, etc. I’ll also talk about a paradigm used in psychology to test the effect of presupposition on memory, presenting a semi-replication of the original study for Quebec French as well as some preliminary results for a number of subsequent manipulations exploring the effect that presupposition variation may have on such memory effects. Finally, I will discuss the implications of such data for witness questioning by law enforcement and jury effects of questioning by barristers.