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Author ORCID Identifier
000-0002-7920-9071
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Linguistics
Year Degree Awarded
2020
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Lyn Frazier
Second Advisor
Ana Arregui
Third Advisor
Rajesh Bhatt
Fourth Advisor
Charles Clifton Jr.
Subject Categories
Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics | Semantics and Pragmatics
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the role of Focus-sensitivity for a typology of presupposition triggers. The central hypothesis is that Focus-sensitive triggers require a linguistic antecedent in the discourse model, whereas presuppositions of triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity are satisfied as entailments of the Common Ground. This hypothesis is supported by experimental evidence from two borne out predictions. First, Focus-sensitive triggers are sensitive to the salience of the antecedent satisfying their presupposition, as operationalized via the Question Under Discussion, and lead to interference-type effects, while triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity are indifferent to the QUD-structure. Second, Focus-sensitive triggers are harder to globally accommodate than triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity. The picture that emerges from these results is that the same kind of meaning - presuppositions - is grounded in distinct underlying representations of context in relation to an independent property of the trigger - Focus-sensitivity - which directly affects the way a trigger is processed.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/19172131
Recommended Citation
Goebel, Alexander, "Representing Context: Presupposition Triggers and Focus-sensitivity" (2020). Doctoral Dissertations. 2020.
https://doi.org/10.7275/19172131
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2020