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Le principe de transparence, une théorie anti-dynamique des présuppositions| old_uid | 388 |
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| title | Le principe de transparence, une théorie anti-dynamique des présuppositions |
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| start_date | 2005/12/16 |
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| schedule | 11h-13h |
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| online | no |
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| summary | Stalnaker and Heim, followed by most contemporary semanticists, have argued that the analysis of presuppositions requires a shift from a static to a dynamic notion of meaning. According to them, the meaning of a clause should not be viewed as its *truth conditions*, but rather as its *context change potential*, i.e. as an instruction to modify in a specified way the 'context set' (=the set of worlds compatible with what the speech act participants take for granted). This shift in perspective was motivated in large part by the problem of presupposition projection. The initial puzzle was that 'John knows that it is raining' presupposes that it is raining, but 'It is raining and John knows that it is' doesn't presuppose anything. Why? The dynamic analysis suggests that in the latter sentence the presupposition of the second conjunct is checked with respect to a 'local context', which is not the initial context set, but rather the initial context *as modified by the (dynamic) meaning of the first conjunct*.
We argue that the dynamic turn was misguided. It leads straight into a dilemma: either one gives an explanatory account of conjunction but essentially nothing else (Stalnaker); or one gives a general account of all connectives, but the account fails to be explanatory (Heim). We will sketch an alternative which entirely eschews the notion of a 'local context'. The basic idea is that a part of an expression's meaning which is marked as presupposed should satisfy a *Principle of Transparency*, according to which this part can be disregarded without affecting the contextual meaning of the sentence. We argue that if Transparency is checked incrementally, i.e. as soon as a clause is pronounced, it yields a predictive account of presupposition projection: unlike competing theories, it derives the projection behavior of connectives from their bivalent semantic contribution. We further speculate that Transparency originates from a more general pragmatic principle, Be Articulate!, which states that one should not say too much at the same time, i.e. express a meaning that is too complex with a single expression. Transparency is a way to satisfy Be Articulate! even when an expression with a complex meaning is uttered because it ensures that part of this meaning can be disregarded. |
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| responsibles | <not specified> |
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