Challenges for independence-driven and context-repair responses to the proviso problem

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Abstract

This note presents challenge cases for prominent pragmatic responses to the proviso problem. I offer examples of uses of conditionals if ψ,ϕP that seem to commit the speaker unconditionally to the presupposition P of the consequent clause ϕ, even though the sentence’s predicted semantic presupposition ψ⊃P is antecedently satisfied (contrary to context-repair accounts), and independence between ψ and P isn’t antecedently assumed (contrary to independence-driven accounts). The examples provided avoid problems with other examples from the literature used against pragmatic accounts. I leave the matter as an unresolved challenge for satisfaction theories of presupposition.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)363-377
Number of pages15
JournalNatural Language Semantics
Volume30
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Apr 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Accommodation
  • Conditionals
  • Implicature
  • Presupposition
  • Proviso problem

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy
  • Linguistics and Language

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