What is Presupposition Accommodation, Again?

What is Presupposition Accommodation, Again? Kai von Fintel

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What is Presupposition Accommodation, Again? 2008 Philosophical Perspectives 10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00144.x vonfintel2008-what-presupposition-accommodation-again vonfintel2008-what-presupposition-accommodation-again.txt, the project's staged copy fee82c14bac78b3ad500389597313fc3159d7adc author-posting-not-redistributable linguistics

the paper's own words

the tag layer; a sentence written by the tagger about the paper, always anchored to a quotation but not itself a quotation

0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them presupposition accommodation - the adjustment a conversation's common ground undergoes so that a sentence whose requirements it does not yet satisfy can still update it Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. whether accommodation is mysterious, magical or needed, how hard it is, where it happens, and what exactly gets accommodated Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. defends the common-ground-plus-accommodation theory against the charges of magic and superfluity, and separates accommodation proper from two things routinely confused with it - grammatical presupposition cancellation, and reconstructing a conversation one is not a party to Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. critique Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. informative presupposition - a sentence presupposing something the hearer demonstrably does not yet believe, and succeeding anyway Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. conceptual-analysis conceptual-analysis Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. an utterance changes the common ground in TWO steps - first the bare fact that it was made becomes common ground, and only then is the asserted proposition added; accommodation happens in the first step Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the prior context relevant to interpretation is the context AS CHANGED BY the fact that the speech act was made, which is why the pronoun I has a referent at all Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what makes the common ground adjustable is that it is constituted entirely by the participants' beliefs, and beliefs move in response to other people's actions about this quote: A FOOTNOTE IS JOINED INTO THIS QUOTE after 'actions, the common ground is': footnote 8 and a page number are spliced in, and the paper's sentence resumes after them ('more easily changed…'). Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. hearers do not weigh candidate PROPOSITIONS to add; they weigh candidate NEW COMMON GROUNDS by how plausibly the speaker intended them - which is what resolves the Proviso Problem Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. accommodation fails when the presupposition concerns a fact no mental adjustment can bring into being, such as what the conversation has actually made salient Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a present-tense presupposition can be too early to accommodate: since we all know demands that the knowledge hold AT utterance time, which later accommodation cannot supply Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A DATED COINAGE WITH THE DEFINITION ATTACHED: `Lewis in his score-keeping paper named the phenomenon “Accommodation”: The Rule of Accommodation for Presupposition - If at time t something is said that requires presupposition P to be acceptable, and if P is not presupposed just before t, then ... presupposition P comes into existence at t. (Lewis 1979)` The naming act, the year, and the rule in one place. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. AND THE TERM WAS BORN AS A SPECIAL CASE OF SOMETHING WIDER, WHICH IS WHY IT COULD TRAVEL: `For Lewis, presupposition accommodation was A SPECIAL CASE OF OTHER ADJUSTMENTS TO THE CONTEXT that are done quietly and without fuss when required.` A narrow technical term carved out of a general conversational phenomenon - and Thomason later takes it back to the general case. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. A NAMED MISREADING OF A DEFINITION, QUOTED AND REBUTTED IN PRINT: `GAUKER (2008) MISUNDERSTANDS the proposal that presuppositions are preconditions that need to be satisfied before the common ground can be updated`, followed by Gauker's own words and then `This is an error`. The corpus rarely catches one author telling another that he has the definition wrong, with both statements quoted. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the paper cannot explain the very principle it relies on - why new information may be presupposed only when it is uncontroversial - and says so Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. declared and left open: the author hands the challenge to future work rather than answering it here Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the account assumes hardwired semantic presuppositions and declines to defend that assumption against pragmatic-derivation approaches Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. it is agnostic about the semantic implementation, taking either a three-valued or a ccp-based wiring Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the analysis of the grammatical process it separates off is explicitly not given Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the cases from Thomason of assuming leadership in a group and switching to the familiar pronoun, accommodation as a SOCIAL move imported to explain the conversational one Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the local and intermediate accommodation dispute is aligned with the embedded-implicature debate, and the same grammatical-versus-Gricean split is proposed for both Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the pretense account, on which the speaker merely acts as if the proposition is already common ground eliminates: the possibility that informative presupposition needs no accommodation because nothing is really being presupposed · outcome: failed Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. utterance presupposition, which relocates the requirement from the speaker to the utterance eliminates: the possibility that the problem dissolves by redefining who or what does the presupposing · outcome: failed Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. a set of candidate common grounds ordered by plausibility, as in Beaver 2001 eliminates: the possibility that uncertainty about the common ground, rather than adjustment of it, explains the data · outcome: partial Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the survey of alternatives to accommodation in Part 1 section 4 eliminates: the possibility that accommodation is superfluous because some other account does the same work · outcome: held Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. common ground common ground Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. context set context set Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. accommodation accommodation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Rule of Accommodation Rule of Accommodation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. local accommodation local accommodation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. intermediate accommodation intermediate accommodation Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Utterance Presupposition Utterance Presupposition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Proviso Problem Proviso Problem Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. context change potential context change potential Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Common Ground Target Common Ground Target Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. pretense pretense Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Informative Presuppositions Informative Presuppositions Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. common ground → context set A FORMAL DEFINITION WITH NOTHING MEASURED, AND THE EIGHT-TYPE VOCABULARY HAS NO SLOT FOR IT. The context set IS the common ground stated extensionally - the paper restates one as the other in its own words. I tagged it 'operationalised-as' and the gate refused: that type requires a MEASUREMENT OR DEFINITION cue, and it was right, because nothing here is measured. 'same-as' is wrong too - a set of propositions and a set of worlds are different objects. What is needed is 'defined-in-terms-of', which does not exist. Dropped from concept edges 2026-08-26 rather than forced into the nearest type. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. intermediate accommodation → local accommodation A RENAMING INSIDE ONE FIELD, AND THE ONLY SENTENCE THAT STATES IT IS DAMAGED. The paper says the process 'was sometimes called “local accommodation” but is now more usually termed “intermediate accommodation”' - and the staged text carries the page number 30 wedged inside the phrase, 'termed “intermediate 30 accommodation”'. Quoted as an edge label that would read as a tagging error forever. 'renamed-across-fields' is also the wrong type: this is one field renaming its own term, not a name crossing between fields. Evidence here is Berman's formulation instead, which states the process without naming it. A DAMAGED SENTENCE IS NOT THE ONLY SENTENCE - except when it is the only one that says the thing, and then the relation goes here. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. accommodation - Lewis's rule, where the presupposition COMES INTO EXISTENCE on demand and the process therefore looks like magic Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. accommodation - the timing account, where nothing appears from nowhere because the requirement falls due at UPDATE time, not before the utterance Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. accommodation - Thomason's SOCIAL sense, the same move by which a person assumes authority or intimacy by acting as if they already had it Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. `presupposition` (Stalnaker's own usage) - AND HE SAYS HIS OWN DEFINITION DOES NOT COVER IT: under pretense `the speaker's presuppositions, in the sense of the term I SHALL USE, WILL NOT FIT THE DEFINITION SKETCHED ABOVE ... THAT IS WHY THE DEFINITION IS ONLY AN APPROXIMATION.` An author stipulating a usage that exceeds the definition he has just given, and labelling the definition an approximation rather than repairing it. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. contradicts → Burton-Roberts (1989) and Gauker (1998), that informative presuppositions are fatal to the common ground theory Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. critiques → Soames (1982), that informative presuppositions undermine every definition requiring the presupposed proposition to be present before the utterance Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Stalnaker (1998) on the time-dependence of context Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. critiques → the definitional repair by Soames via utterance presupposition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. critiques → Beaver (2001), that a set of candidate common grounds handles informative presupposition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. contradicts → Berman (1991), that nuclear-scope presuppositions are accommodated into the restrictor Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. contradicts → Geurts (1996), that the Proviso Problem should be solved by abandoning weak conditional presuppositions Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. local accommodation —distinct-from→ accommodation local accommodation accommodation the relation itself is separately evidenced · strength of the relation: 0.95 · note: the sharpest claim in the paper - the two share a name and not a mechanism · the relation stated: the paper denies that the local process is the same kind of thing as accommodation proper Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. pretense —contrasted-with→ accommodation pretense accommodation the relation itself is separately evidenced · strength of the relation: 0.85 · the relation stated: presupposing is recast as a disposition to behave rather than a belief, which is what pretense makes of it Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its span and kept, but the span says pretense is not a mental attitude; contrasted-with 'accommodation' is loose. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. accommodation is not mysterious once the presupposition is understood as falling due at update time rather than before the utterance Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. there is no local accommodation; what is called that is either a grammatical process or global accommodation about the quantifier domain Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. no alternative to the common ground plus accommodation picture survived examination Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. what gets accommodated is fixed by the best guess of the hearers at the intended new common ground, not by minimality Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the stronger unconditional proposition cannot be accommodated for being more plausible, because it asymmetrically entails the weaker conditional one Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. pragmatic presupposition as a requirement imposed on the common ground pragmatic presupposition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the bridge principle licensing a partial proposition to update a body of information bridge principle Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the rule of accommodation as originally stated by Lewis Rule of Accommodation for Presupposition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the free domain-restriction variable C on a quantifier, presupposed to be familiar C variable Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

The full text of this article is not redistributable, so it is not included here. The evidence sentences are withheld with it; the tag layer and its grounding status remain. The article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2008.00144.x.