Presuppositions in context
Thesis: Ph. D. in Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2018.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | eng |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2019
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120669 |
| _version_ | 1826194066400870400 |
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| author | Aravind, Athulya, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| author2 | Martin Hackl and Daniel Fox. |
| author_facet | Martin Hackl and Daniel Fox. Aravind, Athulya, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| author_sort | Aravind, Athulya, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Thesis: Ph. D. in Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2018. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:49:39Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/120669 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:49:39Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1206692019-04-11T11:20:33Z Presuppositions in context Aravind, Athulya, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Martin Hackl and Daniel Fox. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Linguistics and Philosophy. Thesis: Ph. D. in Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2018. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-199). This dissertation is about the acquisition of presupposition. The specific focus is on the interplay between presuppositional content as hardwired in the semantics of particular expressions and the conversational contexts in which utterances containing those expressions may be used. A series of behavioral experiments examine what children in the preschool age range know about the pragmatic principles governing presupposition, and how they come to acquire this knowledge. The dissertation is organized into two thematic halves. The first half investigates the conditions that govern when presupposing something is appropriate, hence allow for the use of a presupposition triggering expression. Specifically, I ask: do young children know the common ground requirement - the formal requirement that presuppositions be previously established common knowledge - and do they know when and how this requirement can be violated? Two sets of experiments, using two presupposition-carrying expressions with importantly divergent properties (too and the), reveal that children, like adults, generate a default expectation that a presuppositional sentence be uttered to a listener who already takes for granted the presupposition. However, they hold onto this expectation even in circumstances where adult speakers do not. Unlike adults, children do not expect that an otherwise 'neutral' listener might accommodate a speaker's informative presupposition. Together, these findings point to a developmental path where the formal requirement - that presuppositions be presuppositions - is acquired before an understanding that the rule can be bent and how. The second half examines the conditions that make marking of presuppositions obligatory, hence require the use of a presupposition triggering expression. Are children sensitive to Maximize Presupposition! (Heim 1991) as a principle governing competition and utterance choice? The ability to deploy Maximize Presupposition! in an adult-like way shows a more protracted developmental trajectory. Moreover, children's ability to rule out presuppositionally weaker sentences seems to vary across competition environments. Taking the non-uniformity in development as signaling non-uniformity in the underlying phenomena, I develop an alternative account for a pair of expressions commonly thought to compete for Maximize Presupposition!: another vs. a. Ultimately, I suggest that Maximize Presupposition! is one of several pragmatic principles that lead to competition and selection of structures imposing the strongest contextual requirement. Children have command of some of these conditions, but not others. The acquisition trajectories are modulated by various factors, including the type of requirement imposed on the context (e.g. that some proposition is salient vs. accepted common belief) and the types of knowledge that are pre-requisites (e.g. knowledge of idiosyncratic properties of the lexicon). by Athulya Aravind. Ph. D. in Linguistics 2019-03-01T19:56:43Z 2019-03-01T19:56:43Z 2018 2018 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120669 1088504990 eng MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 199 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Linguistics and Philosophy. Aravind, Athulya, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Presuppositions in context |
| title | Presuppositions in context |
| title_full | Presuppositions in context |
| title_fullStr | Presuppositions in context |
| title_full_unstemmed | Presuppositions in context |
| title_short | Presuppositions in context |
| title_sort | presuppositions in context |
| topic | Linguistics and Philosophy. |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120669 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT aravindathulyaphdmassachusettsinstituteoftechnology presuppositionsincontext |