TIME: Wed 4\/22 3:00pm
\nPLACE: 34-303
\nTITLE: “Presuppositions of the gender features of anaphoric pronouns”
<\/p>\n
The common wisdom about the interpretation of phi-features of pronouns is that
\nthey contribute to the meaning the corresponding presuppositions (cf.
\nHeim&Kratzer 1998, Sauerland 2003, etc. etc.). Namely, a pronoun “she"
\ncontributes presuppositions about its referent requiring it to be an atom and a
\nfemale. This particular view of the gender features goes back to Cooper's 1983
\nbook.<\/P><\/p>\nHowever, one important detail is missing: in an intensional environment where
\nsome individual have different genders in different sets of worlds under
\nconsideration, where must the requirement to be female be fulfilled? While the
\ncommon wisdom usually does not go that far when talking about gender features;
\nCooper himself started to investigate the question and came to the conclusion
\nthat the features of bound pronouns contribute real normal presuppositions,
\nwhile the features of free pronouns contribute a special kind of
\npresuppositions - indexical presuppositions, which can only be fulfilled in the
\nactual world.<\/P><\/p>\nAs a closer look at the relevant data shows, Cooper's was a wrong
\ngeneralization. After the discussion of relevant examples, I hope you will
\nagree that, first, Cooper was right saying that presuppositions associated with
\ngender features are special - they cannot be accommodated in the way “normal"
\npresuppositions usually can; secondly, that it is not only free pronouns that
\ntrigger such special presuppositions, but bound pronouns as well - there is no
\ndifference between the two classes (which is probably good news.) The empirical
\ngeneralizations emerging, however, seem to require a lot of work to accommodate
\ninto current semantic frameworks. I will discuss the demands the new data makes
\nof the semantic theory, and will try to sketch a schema of a theory that should
\nbe able to accommodate those.<\/P>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n