tailieunhanh - Lisa Matthewson University of British Columbia

This paper argues that languages differ in whether they possess pragmatic presuppositions in the sense of Stalnaker (1974). I will argue for this somewhat radical claim on the basis of data from St’át’imcets (. Lillooet, Northern Interior Salish). I will show that St’át’imcets displays no evidence for presuppositions which place constraints on the common ground of the discourse. | Presuppositions and Cross-Linguistic Variation Lisa Matthewson University of British Columbia 1. Introduction This paper argues that languages differ in whether they possess pragmatic presuppositions in the sense of Stalnaker 1974 . I will argue for this somewhat radical claim on the basis of data from St at imcets . Lillooet Northern Interior Salish . I will show that St at imcets displays no evidence for presuppositions which place constraints on the common ground of the discourse. I will present an analysis according to which St at imcets possesses presuppositions only in the sense of Gauker 1998 . The Problem What happens when there is presupposition failure In English presupposition failures in discourse are often challenged by the addressee. An example of this taken from a real-life discourse is given in 1 . Presupposition triggers are highlighted throughout. 1 A Mark phoned again. B Mark Which Mark A Portland Mark. B Again I didn t know he phoned in the first place The first main goal of this paper is to demonstrate that unlike speakers of English speakers of St at imcets consistently do not react to presupposition failures. A typical example is given in 2 . At the time of A s utterance B had just walked into A s house and there had been no prior conversation apart from greetings. In spite of this B did not I am very grateful to St at imcets consultants Beverley Frank Gertrude Ned Laura Thevarge and Rose Agnes Whitley. I am also very grateful to David Adger Seth Cable Guy Carden Gennaro Chierchia Henry Davis Irene Heim Angelika Kratzer Chris Potts Hotze Rullmann Florian Schwarz Martina Wiltschko a class at the 2005 LSA Summer Institute and audiences at the UBC and NELS 36. This is still work in progress and I have unfortunately not yet had a chance to address most of the insightful suggestions I received at NELS. Fieldwork is supported by SSHRC grants 410-2002-1715 and 410-2005-0875. Lisa Matthewson challenge A s use of hu7 more .1 2 A wá7-lhkacw ha