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Presuppositions of quantified sentences: experimental data

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Abstract

Some theories assume that sentences like (i) with a presupposition trigger in the scope of a quantifier carry an existential presupposition, as in (ii); others assume that they carry a universal presupposition, as in (iii).

  1. (i)

    No student knows that he is lucky.

  2. (ii)

    Existential presupposition: At least one student is lucky.

  3. (iii)

    Universal presupposition: Every student is lucky.

This work is an experimental investigation of this issue in French. Native speakers were recruited to evaluate the robustness of the inference from (i) to (iii). The main result is that presuppositions triggered from the scope of the quantifier aucun‘no’ are in fact universal. But the present results also suggest that the presuppositions triggered from the scope of other quantifiers depend on the quantifier. This calls for important changes in the main theories of presupposition projection.

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  1. Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, EHESS/CNRS/DEC-ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005, Paris, France

    Emmanuel Chemla

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Correspondence to Emmanuel Chemla.

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Chemla, E. Presuppositions of quantified sentences: experimental data. Nat Lang Semantics 17, 299–340 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-009-9043-9

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