Experimental Perspectives on Presuppositions [Paperback]

This volume brings together some of the most recent developments in the field of experimental pragmatics, specifically empirical approaches to theoretical issues in presupposition theory. It includes studies of the online processing of presupposed content; investigations of the interpretive properties of presuppositions in various linguistic contexts; comparative perspectives relative to other aspects of meaning, such as asserted content and implicatures; cross-linguistic comparisons of presupposition triggers; and perspectives from language acquisition. Taken together, these novel contributions provide a snapshot of state-of-the art developments in this area and will serve as a point of reference for numerous emerging avenues of future work. It makes for an ideal set of readings for advanced university courses on experimental studies of meaning and is a must-read for anyone interested in experimental research on meaning in natural language.

1. Introduction: Presuppositions in Context  Theoretical Issues and Experimental Perspectives By Florian Schwarz.- 2. Presupposition Processing and Accommodation: An Experiment on wieder (again) and Consequences for Other Triggers By Sonja Tiemann, Mareike Kirsten, Sigrid Beck, Ingo Hertrich and Bettina Rolke.- 3. Resolving Temporary Referential Ambiguity using Presupposed Content By Jocopo Romoli, Manizeh Khan, Yasutada Sudo and Jesse Snedeker.- 4. Presuppositions vs. Asserted Content in Online Processing By Florian Schwarz.- 5. Presupposition Satisfaction, Locality and Discourse Constituency By Christina S. Kim.- 6. A Cross-linguistic Study of the Non-at-issueness of Exhaustive Inferences By Emilie Destruel, Daniel Velleman, Edgar Onea, Dylan Bumford, Jingyang Xue and David Beaver.- 7. A Cross-linguistic Study on Information Backgrounding and Presupposition Projection By Patr?cia Amaral and Chris Cummins.- 8. Weak and Strong Triggers By Jacques Jayez, Valeria Mongelli, Anne Reboul and Jean-BaptistlÓ3