Abstract
A central debate in presupposition theory concerns the nature of presuppositions introduced by triggers in conditional sentences. While it is commonly assumed that triggers in the consequent of conditionals give rise (or at least can give rise) to conditional inferences, most traditional accounts assume that triggers in antecedents introduce a non-conditional presupposition. This view has been challenged by recent modular accounts, which argue that the basic projection pattern involves conditional inferences across the board, but that non-conditional inferences can come about due to a processing bias towards at al incrementality. This paper presents an experimental investigation using the covered box paradigm that further assesses the availability of conditional presuppositions for conditional sentences containing a trigger in their antecedent. The results are in line with symmetric account, but are challenging for classic dynamic accounts. However, it may be possible to reconcile the latter with the data by tying together linear order and incremental context update.
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Notes
- 1.
For recent experimental work on the proviso problem, see Romoli et al. (2011), whose experimental evidence is argued to support a conditional presupposition.
- 2.
Recall that the actual experimental materials were in French, so any awkwardness of the English wording here should not be of any concern.
- 3.
This is under the assumption that too requires an antecedent of some sort, and that the link between the distinct predicates in the two clauses can be pragmatically inferred.
- 4.
In fact, as Schlenker (2010) notes (in footnote 6, pp. 388–389), dynamic accounts make correct predictions for reverse cases with a presupposition trigger in the consequent, such asThe bathroom is well-hidden, if there is a bathroom. But this is so, of course, only to the extent that the standard update formula is used for both canonical and reverse orders.
- 5.
But note that the corresponding interaction did not reach significance, though there was a significant main effect of condition. As a side note, it’s interesting that we here seem to have a case where a literal interpretation—i.e., one without conditional strengthening taking place—yields slower response times than a pragmatically enriched one. This is, of course, in contrast with results on scalar implicatures, where responses based on pragmatically strengthened interpretations have generally been found to be slower. We leave further exploration of this for future research.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Rachel Stults, Jamie Fisher, and Robert Wilder for assistance with data collection and to Dorothy Ahn for the visual stimuli. The work reported here was in part supported by a grant from the University Research Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania.
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Schwarz, F. (2015). Symmetry and Incrementality in Conditionals. In: Schwarz, F. (eds) Experimental Perspectives on Presuppositions. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07980-6_9
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