Specific indefinites, presupposition, and scope

This chapter argues that a number of expressions that are standardly categorized as pre-supposition inducers are better viewed as backgrounding devices. It presents a unified account of specificity and pre-supposition, which is based upon binding theory of pre-supposition. The binding theory is an extension of discourse representation theory, and consists of three principal claims: (1) anaphora is a species of pre-supposition, and that the standard pre-supposition-inducing expressions differ from pronominal anaphors mainly in that they possess a richer semantic content. (2) This difference explains why in general pre-supposition inducers, unlike anaphoric pronouns, can be interpreted by way of accommodation. (3) It is assumed that the process of presupposition projection is subject to certain constraints. The author's account improves upon Van Geenhoven's proposal by giving a coherent picture of relation between specificity, and pre-supposition and definiteness, while foregoing the premise that indefinites are ambiguous between specific and non-specific readings. Keywords: binding theory; discourse representation theory; indefinites; non-specific readings; pre-supposition inducers; pronominal anaphors; specificity; Van Geenhoven

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