LINGUIST 3II3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Accessibility Relation, Presupposition, Pronoun
27 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The meaning of a sentence with a modal is dependent on us identifying which possible worlds are relevant for determining whether the utterance is true. Partly dependent on the type of modal verb. Compare: rich people should give money to the poor. Morally good possible worlds: we should turn onto main street, not onto king street. Worlds in which we take the best route to our destination (not about morality) Not dependent on the form of the verb: not dependent on the grammatical form. To understand a modal sentence, hearer must be able to determine which worlds are intended. Determining which worlds are intended is a pragmatic matter > presupposition: pronoun > need to know what the pronoun refers to, modal sentence > need to know which worlds are relevant. Two types: deontic > pick out the worlds that are good . Rules we expect to be followed: epistemic > what is known. Aka conversational background: determined contextually in english.
