Talk by Emiel Krahmer

Presuppositional Discourse Representation Theory

An extension of Discourse Representation Theory with additional representations for presuppositions will be discussed. As far as syntactic representations are concerned, the resulting {\it Presuppositional DRT}\/ may be compared with Van der Sandt's {\it presuppositions-as-anaphora} theory. On the other hand, the interpretation of Presuppositional DRT is related to the current trend of combined partial/dynamic approaches to presuppositions, found in the work of, for instance, Heim, Beaver and Van Eijck. As a result, Presuppositional DRT can be associated with {\it two}\/, rather different approaches to presuppositions and it will be shown that this enhances comparison and cross-pollination. In particular, we will see how Van der Sandt's theory (arguably the best of the two approaches) can be improved by merely defining it on top of Presuppositional DRT (instead of standard DRT).

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Paul Dekker, November 2, 1995