Re: RT list: the projection problem for presuppositions

Dear Nick,

Thank you very much indeed for your two thorough messages.

Three of the things that you bring up -- Deirdre Wilson's own work on
presupposition, the fact that relevance theorists have quite a bit to
say on this topic, and the observation that judgments about the
presuppositions of some complex sentences (or utterances) are often
hazy/variable/context-sensitive (thus hinting at a significant role for
pragmatics) -- are exactly what I pointed out, during the
question-and-answer period after Friday's lecture. I then asked for an
explanation of why, in light of an energetic RT, are current top
researchers such as Fox, Chemla, and Schlenker, not addressing it, not
even to dismiss it?

The lecturer was Danny Fox, by the way. His answer, as nearly as I can
recall it, was roughly these two points:

(a) Although relevance theorists have discussed presuppositions quite a
bit (as witnessed by your collection of references), the particular
topic under scrutiny here and now is the projection problem for
presuppositions, and on that he has found very little from the RT world.

(b) Possibly there is little RT interest in the projection problem for
presuppositions, and perhaps it may be that this topic is seen as too
"grammar"-oriented, rather than something more squarely in the domain of
pragmatics.

In my opinion, Fox has a point with (a). Presuppositions get scrutiny
in relevance theory, no question about that, but how about the
projection problem for presuppositions and particularly in recent years?

Now, there is no law saying that relevance theorists must address every
issue under the sun; researchers choose to pursue topics of interest to
them. So we come to (b), which was offered only as a surmise. If there
is little RT interest in the projection problem for presuppositions,
could it be due to the framing (or presupposing!) of that topic as a
struggle for compositionality in a challenging semantic environment --
rather than as more of a pragmatic situation?

Lack of interest is one thing. But if RT does have insight to offer on
the projection problem for presuppositions, as it has been understood in
the last few years, let's see it! If researchers such as Fox, Chemla,
and Schlenker, can be assisted, or debated, or refuted, with RT input,
that would be more good forward motion for linguistic science. I for
one would be delighted to see direct RT participation in the ongoing
discussions.

Hanno Beck
USA & Germany
Received on Tue Mar 1 03:12:59 2011