Abstract In recent work on the semantics of definite descriptions, some theorists (Elbourne in Definite Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013; Schoubye Noûs 47(3):496–533, 2013) have advocated broadly Fregean accounts, whereby a description ‘the F ’ introduces presupposition to effect that there is exactly one and refers it if is, while other (Abbott, in: Gundel, Hedberg (eds) Reference: Interd...

Abstract A disjunctive sentence like Olivia took Logic or Algebra conveys that didn’t take both classes ( exclusivity ) and the speaker doesn’t know which of two she ignorance ). The corresponding with a possibility modal, can , instead free choice These inferences are argued by many to be scalar implicatures. Recent work has looked at cases in appear computed presupposition level, independentl...

Abstract Why did Frege offer only proper names as examples of presupposition triggers? Some scholars claim that simply not care about the full range presuppositional phenomena. This paper argues, in contrast, he had good reasons for employing an extremely narrow notion ‘Voraussetzung’. On Frege’s view, many devices are now construed triggers either express several thoughts at once or merely ‘il...

Most theori~s of presupposition implicitly assume that pre-supposition,; are facts, and that all agents involved in a discourse share belief in the presuppositions that it generates. These unrealistic assumptions can be eliminated if each presupposition is treated as the belief of an agent. However, it ~s not enough to consider only the beliefs of the speaker; we show that the beliefs of other ...

This paper gives a formal theory of presupposition using situation semantics developed by Barwise and Perry, We will slightly modify Barwise and Perry's original theory of situation semantics so that we can deal with non-monotonic reasonings which are very important for the formalization of presupposition in natural language. This aspect is closely related to the formalization of incomplete kno...