Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Constraints and Language Processing (CSLP-06), pages 25–32,
Sydney, July 2006. c©2006 Association for Computational Linguistics
Pragmatic Constraints on Semantic Presupposition
Yafa Al-Raheb
National Centre for Language Technology
School of Computing
Dublin City University, Ireland
yafa.alraheb@gmail.com
Abstract
The literature investigating the notion
of presupposition in Discourse Represen-
tation Theory (DRT) has mainly been
dubbed as being semantic (Simons 2003).
This paper investigates the linguistic ap-
plication of pragmatic-based constraints to
the ‘semantic’ notion of presupposition in
DRT. By applying pragmatic-based con-
straints to presuppositional phenomenon,
we aim to defend DRT against the accu-
sation that DRT’s interpretation of presup-
positional phenomenon is essentially ‘se-
mantic’ and push this interpretation fur-
ther towards the pragmatic side of the se-
mantic/pragmatic interface.1
1 Introduction
Devising an appropriate theory of presupposition
has been one of the main issues in semantics, prag-
matics and most recently computational linguis-
tics. Indeed, many theorists have argued exten-
sively about the definition that captures the mean-
ing of presupposition and whether presuppositions
are a property of the utterance or of the speaker.
Developments in dynamic semantics, as opposed
to static semantics, resulting in DRT, have led
to a framework suitable for the representation of
linguistic phenomenon. Some of DRT’s princi-
pal concerns are with finding the right truth con-
ditions and interpretation for referential expres-
sions, specifically anaphora. This is relevant for
further investigation of ‘pragmatic’ presupposition
because it has in fact been proposed by van der
1I gratefully acknowledge support from Science Founda-
tion Ireland grant 04/IN/I527.
Sandt and Geurts (1991) that it is anaphora that
lies at the basis of presupposition.
However, Simons (2003) has recently noted
some pragmatic limitations in the present state of
DRT. She refers in the following quotation to ‘dy-
namic semantics’, the field taken to include DRT.
Dynamic semantics does not attempt
to understand presupposition and pre-
suppositional constraints in terms of
the speaker’s beliefs and intentions, or
to root presuppositional constraints in
terms of the broad goals of communica-
tors (Simons 2003: 27).
Indeed, Simons concludes that DRT is a the-
ory of semantic and not pragmatic presupposition
(2003). The criticism that DRT is only semantic
is not wholly justified. While DRT stems from
the need for appropriate semantic representation
of discourse, DRT does recognize the importance
of context in representing referents in discourse,
which is generally taken to mark a pragmatic per-
spective on presupposition. Additionally, theories
within DRT, such as the Binding Theory (Geurts
1999), have attempted to make DRT more prag-
matic; in particular, Presupposition as Anaphora
Theory’s construction process of presupposition
(van der Sandt and Geurts 1991). However, while
this paper aims to show that DRT is not entirely
devoid of pragmatics, it argues that DRT is in need
of a more pragmatic treatment of presupposition,
which (a) pays more attention to the beliefs and
intentions of the speaker and the hearer and their
relation to presupposition and (b) makes presup-
positional constraints more precise. Further, other
scholars have criticized DRT for being essentially
truthconditional. Werth, for example, claims that
DRT is essentially only about truthconditionality:
25
[DRT’s] goal is truth-conditionality and
its models are minimal worlds inhabited
by predicates and variables... it does not
model human understanding: there is no
place in it for participant roles, setting,
background knowledge, purposes, even
inferences (Werth 1999: 65).
Again, this criticism is not entirely just. To address
the aforementioned pragmatic limitations of DRT,
the aim of this paper is to address the problem
of insightfully capturing pragmatic constraints on
presuppositional phenomenon within the frame-
work of DRT. To achieve this, a pragmatically-
constrained definition of presupposition is at-
tempted. This is followed by setting some prag-
matic constraints on agents’ conception of presup-
positional phrases based on the agents’ roles in
conversation. An example of how these pragmatic
constraints operate in DRT is then examined. Fur-
thermore, an overall structure computationally en-
compassing these pragmatic constraints in DRT is
described.
2 Pragmatic-based Presupposition
In linguistics the treatment of presupposition has
generally been split between two camps, seman-
tics and pragmatics. Karttunen (1973) maintains
that the semantic perspective on presupposition
sees presupposition as emanating from the sen-
tence, and the pragmatic perspective as emanat-
ing from the speaker. Levinson argues that pre-
supposition cannot be viewed as semantic in the
narrow sense (based on formal logic and truth con-
ditionality), but rather as dependent on context
and ‘the actual linguistic structure of sentences’
(Levinson 1983: 167). Theories defining presup-
position within pragmatics depend mainly on mu-
tual knowledge (or common ground).
Within computational linguistics the treatment
of presupposition falls mainly within dynamic se-
mantics, within which DRT has developed. In the
broadest terms presupposition, whether in linguis-
tics or philosophy, has been viewed as a relation
between sentences or propositions, where the pre-
supposed proposition is not in focus in the presup-
position sentence. DRT, and dynamic semantics in
general, is precisely concerned with such relations
– i.e. with the relations between an utterance and
previous utterances in the discourse.
Given these varying definitions as to what con-
stitutes presupposition, before attempting to in-
troduce pragmatic constraints to presupposition in
DRT, we must first explain what pragmatic presup-
position, as used in this paper, constitutes. Two
important notions come into question when as-
sessing what constitutes presupposition, namely,
the notion of givenness and the relationship be-
tween the beliefs (or the cognitive states) of the
agents involved in a conversation.
2.1 Presupposition and Givenness
While presuppositions can be defined as that part
of the utterance that is taken to be ‘given’ (Lam-
brecht 1994), the notion of ‘given’ needs clari-
fying. ‘Given’ means known information, infor-
mation that the speaker regards as known to both
speaker and hearer - information directly relating
to the topic of the dialogue or as part of gen-
eral background knowledge assumptions about the
world. The presupposition in this sense is a re-
flection of the speaker’s assumptions about the
hearer’s state of mind, i.e. the speaker assumes the
hearer already knows this information (Lambrecht
1994). An alternate meaning of ‘given’ is when
the speaker knows that the information the presup-
position provides is, in fact, new to the hearer. In
this case, the speaker introduces the new informa-
tion ‘as if’ it were given, in order to indicate that
the presupposed information is not the focus of
the speaker’s attention. Unlike Stalnaker’s under-
standing of presupposition (Stalnaker 2002), this
understanding of ‘given’ to include information
new to the hearer means that the presupposition
introduced is not necessarily part of what is often
termed the ‘common ground’.
Thus, we might think in terms of a speaker
‘packaging’ information as a presupposition
(speaker presupposition). In this approach, the
speaker has the choice of picking information she
deems to be known to the hearer or information
that she deems to be new to the hearer, knowing
that to do so, she (the speaker) is communicating
that the presupposition is not the focus of her ut-
terance, but rather she would like the hearer to di-
rect his attention to the new information provided
by the rest of the utterance. For new, presupposed
information to pass as given, the speaker must be
aware that introducing an ‘out of the ordinary’ or
‘remarkable’ presupposition will cause problems.
For instance, example (1) is less likely to cause
problems than example (2) when the hearer knows
that the speaker lives in the city centre.
26
(1) The car across the street from my house
belongs to my neighbour.
(2) The small jet across the street from my
house belongs to my neighbour,
2.2 Presupposition and Agents’ Cognitive
States
To define pragmatic presupposition within DRT,
presupposition should be understood to be a prop-
erty of the agent. Lambrecht (1994) understands
pragmatic presupposition as an interest in the as-
sumptions speakers make about hearers. There are
two types of agent presupposition, speaker pre-
supposition and hearer presupposition. This is
different from semantic presupposition, i.e. sen-
tence presupposition. Agent presupposition dif-
fers from sentence presupposition in that the latter
stems from sentence meaning, whereas the former
attaches itself to the beliefs of the speaker and her
intentions.
In essence, the effect of presupposition is to give
insights about the speaker’s beliefs as well as the
speaker’s beliefs about the hearer’s beliefs. In this
sense, the dynamic semantic notion of ‘taken for
granted’ means that the speaker believes the pre-
supposition to be either known information or in-
formation that is not the desired focus of atten-
tion. When a speaker introduces a presupposition
in her utterance, she is not primarily concerned
with the information the presupposition provides,
but rather in the new information, the ‘assertion’
part, the utterance communicates.
Presupposition is related to the beliefs of the
speaker. Speaker belief leads to presupposi-
tion, which indicates the beliefs of the speaker to
the hearer. Presupposition is a reflection of the
speaker’s state of mind. What speakers presup-
pose gives an indication as to what speakers be-
lieve or accept (weakly believe) and what they be-
lieve hearers believe or accept within the context
of a dialogue (cf. Al-Raheb 2005). This is stronger
than what is generally conceded in the relevant lit-
erature (Geurts 1999).
While this view of pragmatic presupposition
shares Stalnaker’s (2002) view concerning the im-
portance of beliefs and context to understanding
linguistic phenomena, the present view of presup-
position has a different understanding of the rela-
tionship between belief and presupposition. Stal-
naker sees beliefs, not in terms of the speaker, but
rather in terms of the vague term the ‘common
ground’ (cf. Al-Raheb 2005). ‘[T]o believe p to
be common ground is to presuppose in Stalnaker’s
sense’ as Simons (2003: 19) puts it. The view pre-
sented here takes the position that presuppositions
reflect the speaker’s beliefs, regardless of whether
the beliefs are part of common ground or not.
3 Pragmatic Constraints
Having defined what is meant by pragmatic pre-
supposition, we now move to discuss introducing
pragmatic constraints on the phenomenon of pre-
supposition in DRT. In order to enhance the prag-
matic representation of presuppositional phenom-
enon in DRT, Gricean maxims need to be formu-
lated in terms of pragmatic constraints on gener-
ating presuppositional utterances (speaker’s per-
spective) and interpreting them (hearer’s perspec-
tive). The maxims are reformulated in terms of
the cognitive relationship between the speaker and
the hearer, producing constraints on presupposi-
tion which are necessary for successful communi-
cation.
Following Grice’s Cooperative Principle (Grice
1989), by adhering to the maxims, dialogue agents
are being cooperative and not attempting to de-
ceive or lie to one another (Grice 1989). The inten-
tion to communicate requires the speaker to assess
her beliefs concerning the hearer’s beliefs. This
way of thinking about dialogue communication
leads to the formulation of pragmatic constraints.
It is proposed that these constraints broadly cor-
respond to Grice’s quantity and quality maxims.
Section 4 describes an implementation of the prag-
matic constraints introduced in this section.
To make her contribution informative (maxim
of quantity), the speaker needs to follow the first
pragmatic constraint placed on making an asser-
tion (BCA1): to express an assertion the speaker
needs to believe that the hearer does not hold the
assertion, A, as a belief. In other words, the
speaker believes the hearer does not hold the belief
that A. This is similar to van der Sandt’s (1992)
informativity constraint, although his informativ-
ity constraint is not directly linked to beliefs. This
pragmatic constraint is illustrated in the following
example:
(3) Speaker: Mia likes dancing.
Hearer: Yeah I know.
In example (3) the hearer indicates previous
knowledge of A, which means that either the
27
speaker is not following BCA1, or that the speaker
was not aware that the hearer believes A. With
each new utterance, the speaker must be aware of
the BCA1.
The second pragmatic constraint placed on as-
sertion is BCA2. Following from our assumptions
concerning Grice’s quality maxim, for a speaker
to express an assertion, the speaker must herself
believe or accept that assertion. That is to say, be-
ing cooperative, to express A, the speaker must be-
lieve or accept that A.
Similarly, to introduce a presupposition, the
speaker must include the presupposition in her
beliefs or acceptance space (quality maxim),
(BCP1). If the speaker is initiating a topic, the
hearer has more grounds to conclude the speaker
believes P (BCP1a). At the same time, the speaker
must also be aware that when introducing P, the
speaker is communicating that the speaker be-
lieves P. That is to say, if the speaker initiates the
topic of P, the hearer may assume that the speaker
believes P. However, when it is the hearer’s turn to
become the speaker, and he refers to the presup-
position, P, introduced by the speaker, the speaker,
who introduced P, may assume a weaker belief on
the part of the hearer, namely that the hearer ac-
cepts P. Thus, presuppositions are built on the cur-
rent context, which is built upon the union of be-
liefs and acceptance spaces of an agent. In other
words, if the hearer refers to a presupposition em-
ployed previously by the speaker, the hearer (who
now becomes the speaker) at least accepts P (i.e.
holds P in his acceptance space) (BCP2).
For example,
(4) S1: I must buy Vincent’s wife a birthday
present.
H1: I didn’t know Vincent was married.
S2: Yes, he is. His wife likes chocolate.
H2: She may also like flowers.
S3: I’ll buy her chocolates.
The speaker initiates the presupposition (in exam-
ple (4) it is new information to the hearer) that Vin-
cent has a wife. According to BCP1, the hearer
may safely assume and indeed add to his beliefs
about the speaker’s beliefs that the speaker be-
lieves P (Vincent has a wife). However, when the
hearer comes to refer to P (Vincent’s wife), the
speaker does not necessarily infer that the hearer
believes Vincent is married, but rather that the
hearer accepts P. Introducing a topic for the pre-
supposition allows the hearer to add more strength
to her representation of the speaker’s beliefs, i.e.
to establish belief rather than acceptance. This
would be more evident in a context where the
speaker is attempting to persuade the hearer to do
something. For information dialogues, where the
information provider has the authority of possess-
ing the answers to the information seeker’s ques-
tions, the beliefs of the information provider may
attain a stronger position than they would in other
types of social contexts (cf. Al-Raheb 2005). The
information seeker is less likely to challenge or
evaluate the strength of belief of the information
provider. If we contrast example (4) with example
(5), the strength of beliefs are much higher, we can
assume, than for when the hearer is not required to
perform any action.
(5) S1: You should buy Vincent’s wife a
birthday present.
H1: I didn’t know Vincent was married.
S2: Yes he is. His wife likes chocolate.
H2: She may also like flowers.
S3: But she prefers chocolate.
H3: I’ll get her some chocolate.
In example (4), where the hearer was not re-
quired to perform any action, it is safer for the
speaker to assume that the hearer accepts P as the
hearer is not committing himself to doing any task,
than to assume the stronger case, i.e. the hearer
believes P. However, in example (5) where the
hearer agrees to buying Vincent’s wife a present in
H3 (that is the hearer commits to perform an ac-
tion for Vincent’s wife), the speaker will conclude
that the hearer believes the presupposed proposi-
tion and adds this to the speaker’s representation
of the hearer’s beliefs. In other words, when the
hearer makes P, in H3, the speaker concludes that
the hearer believes P and adds this to the speaker’s
representation, or beliefs set, of the hearer’s be-
liefs. Thus, someone getting someone else’s com-
mitment to do something implies greater strength
of belief about a presupposition which affects that
commitment.
Allowing the hearer to assume weaker belief
brings us back to Simons’ (2003) suggestion of
modifying Stalnaker’s understanding of presuppo-
sition to become what she terms the ‘disposition
of presupposition’: speakers ‘act as if’ they take
the presupposition for granted. Simons (2003) ar-
gues that speakers do not need to believe the pre-
suppositions they use. With acceptance, as un-
derstood by the view of pragmatic presupposition
28
presented in this paper, speakers do not have to
hold the strong belief P. But, at the same time,
to express P, speakers should not hold the belief
that P is false. That is, being cooperative neces-
sitates that when the speaker utters P, the speaker
does not hold the belief that ¬ P. Speakers may
indicate stronger belief. However, if there is no
such indication (e.g. ‘Definitely’, or ‘I couldn’t
agree more’), hearers may conclude that speakers
at least hold the presupposition in their acceptance
space. Speakers may later allow the hearer to con-
clude that they hold greater strength of belief than
at first assumed.
4 Implementing Pragmatic Constraints
The following set of operations implement the
pragmatic constraints on presupposition and asser-
tion set out in section 3, namely BCA1, BCA2,
BCP1, and BCP2.2 We begin, firstly, by show-
ing how the pragmatic constraint operations are
implemented and by demonstrating how the code
works on linear DRSs (cf. Al-Raheb 2005). Sec-
ondly, we demonstrate how the constraints work
on a real example by passing an example dialogue
through the implemented pragmatic constraints for
both the speaker and the hearer.
4.1 Implementation
The first pragmatic constraint on assertion (BCA1)
is represented by beliefConstraintA1. It checks
that a condition is not in the hearer’s Belief DRS
nor inside the hearer’s Acceptance DRS in a
Speaker’s Belief or Acceptance DRS. Agent’s Be-
lief DRSs represent stronger beliefs they hold and
stronger beliefs they have about other agents in di-
alogue, whereas Acceptance DRSs represent their
weaker beliefs about the dialogue and about the
weaker beliefs held by other agents in dialogue (cf.
Al-Raheb 2005). When a condition is not found in
either embedded DRS, it succeeds.
The second pragmatic constraint on assertion
(BCA2) is represented by beliefConstraintA2,
which checks if a condition is either in the
speaker’s Belief or Acceptance DRS. The oper-
ation succeeds once a match is found.3 BCP1
2The implementation outlined in this section demon-
strates how pragmatic constraints on presupposition can be
implemented, but does not describe the entire architecture of
checking that these constraints are adhered to in processing
an entire dialogue.
3These pragmatic constraints on assertion are not demon-
strated as the focus of this paper is presupposition.
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]) ]).
becomes:
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x) ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]) ]).
Figure 1: Hearer BCP1
has been subdivided into speaker and hearer.
The speaker side, beliefConstraintSpeakerP1
checks if a condition is a member of the speaker’s
belief or acceptance DRS.
For the hearer, beliefConstraintHearerP1
checks if a condition is not a member of the
speaker’s acceptance or belief DRS, then checks
if the condition is not a member of the hearer’s
belief or acceptance DRS. If this check passes,
the condition is added to the hearer’s belief about
the speaker’s belief, i.e. speaker’s belief DRS
embedded inside the hearer’s DRS. When us-
ing ‘beliefConstraintHearerP1’ to check for the
condition ‘singer(X)’, we get the second DRS as a
result in Figure 1.
The second version of the hearer’s BCP1, be-
liefConstraintHearerP1a, checks if a condition
is not a member of the speaker’s belief or accep-
tance DRS, and is a member of the hearer’s be-
lief or acceptance DRS. Then, it adds the condi-
tion to the speaker’s acceptance DRS, embedded
inside the hearer’s acceptance DRS. This is shown
in Figure 2.
The second pragmatic constraint on Presuppo-
29
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x),
attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]) ]).
becomes:
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x),
attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[c2: singer(x) ]) ]) ]).
Figure 2: Hearer BCP1a
sition (BCP2) is also divided into speaker side
and hearer side. The speaker’s side, belief-
ConstraintSpeakerP2, checks a condition, e.g.
‘singer(X)’, is a member of the speaker’s belief or
acceptance DRS, but not a member of the hearer’s
acceptance or belief DRS, embedded inside the
speaker’s DRSs (Figure 3). Once this is fulfilled,
the condition is added to the hearer’s acceptance
DRS, embedded inside the speaker’s acceptance
DRS.
BCP2, from the hearer’s perspective, uses be-
liefConstraintHearerP2, which checks whether
a condition, e.g. ‘singer(X)’, is a member of the
speaker’s belief or acceptance DRS (embedded in-
side the hearer’s DRSs), and then checks if the
condition is not a member of the hearer’s accep-
tance or belief DRSs. It then adds the condition to
the hearer’s acceptance DRS, as in Figure 4.
4.2 Application
The following example
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x),
attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]) ]).
becomes:
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x),
attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[c2: singer(x) ]) ]) ]).
Figure 3: Speaker BCP2
(6) S1: You have to buy Vincent’s wife a
present.
H1: Should I send Mia flowers?
S1: Mia likes chocolate. Buy her some.
H2: I’ll buy her chocolate.
is passed through the implemented pragmatic con-
straints to briefly demonstrate how the pragmatic
constraints can be employed in dialogue. Figures 5
and 6 show the initial beliefs of both agents before
the dialogue is initiated. To proceed, the pragmatic
constraints for the speaker are applied. If the prag-
matic constraints do not apply, the dialogue cannot
go forward. This starts a recognition process on
the part of the hearer.
To utter S1, the speaker is constrained by BCP1
for the speaker, which dictates that the presupposi-
tion to be uttered needs to be part of the speaker’s
beliefs or acceptance DRSs (cf. section 3). When
this is verified, the speaker is able to make an
utterance containing the presupposition resulting
30
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x) ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]) ]).
becomes:
drs1:drs([x, z],
[walter(x),
vincent(z),
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs2),
drs2:drs([ ],
[attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs3),
drs3:drs([ ],
[b1: singer(x) ]) ]),
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs4),
drs4:drs([ ],
[c1: dancer(z),
c2: singer(x),
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs5),
drs5:drs([ ],
[ ]) ]) ]).
Figure 4: Hearer BCP2
in Figure 7.4 Here, the speaker already believes
the hearer believes the contents of the presuppo-
sition, ‘Vincent has a wife’, and as such nothing
needs to be changed in the speaker’s beliefs about
the hearer’s beliefs, BCP2 for the speaker. If,
however, the speaker did not already believe the
hearer believes the presupposition, the contents of
the presupposition would be added to the hearer’s
acceptance DRS inside the speaker’s acceptance
DRS according to BCP2 for the speaker.
In the process of recognizing the speaker’s ut-
terance, the hearer’s pragmatic constraints are em-
ployed and if they are violated, again the dialogue
cannot proceed. The first pragmatic constraint for
the hearer to apply is BCP1, which checks whether
both the speaker and the hearer do not believe
or accept the presupposition. Upon finding that
both the speaker and the hearer believe the pre-
supposition, there is no need to add anything to ei-
ther the hearer’s or the speaker’s belief and accep-
tance spaces. If, however, that was not the case,
BCP1 and BCP1a alter the hearer’s and speaker’s
4Figures 7 and 8 show both agents’ beliefs after S1 is ut-
tered.
belief states accordingly by adding the contents
of the presupposition as indicated in section 4.1.
The same reasoning applies to checking whether
BCP2 applies, for if the hearer did not already be-
lieve or accept the presupposition, BCP2 adds the
contents of the presupposition to the hearer’s ac-
ceptance DRS. After this, the speaker’s pragmatic
constraints are checked against the hearer’s, who
is now the speaker, utterance and so on.
drs1:
i you v m
drs2:
attitude(you, ‘ACCEPT’, drs3)
drs3:
attitude(i, ‘ACCEPT’, drs2)
attitude(i, ‘BEL’, drs4)
drs4:
x y
b1:vincent(v)
b2:male(v)
b3:married(v, m)
b4:has(v,m)
b5:mia(m)
b6:wife(m)
b7:female(m)
b8:buy(you, m, x)
b9:present(x)
b10:chocolate(y)
b11:like(m, y)
b12:buy(you, m, y)
attitude(you, ‘BEL’, drs5)
drs5:
b13:vincent(v)
b14:male(v)
b15:married(v, m)
b16:has(v,m)
b17:mia(m)
b18:wife(m)
b19:female(m)
attitude(i, ‘INT’, drs6)
drs6:
Figure 5: Speaker Initial State
5 Conclusion
This paper has introduced a pragmatic view of pre-
supposition both in terms of givenness and the ef-
fects agents’ cognitive states have on formulating
presupposition. To introduce this pragmatic view
of presupposition into DRT, some pragmatic con-
straints have been formulated and demonstrated by
way of example. In addition, an implementation of
these pragmatic constraints on presupposition has
been introduced into the extended DRT represen-
tation formulated by Al-Raheb (2005).

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