Solving some persistent presupposition problems
Robert E. Mercer · 1988
/Soames 1979/ provides some counterexamples to the theory of natural language presuppositions that is presented in /Gazdar 1979/. /Soames 1982/ provides a theory which explains these counterexamples. /Mercer 1987/ rejects the solution found in /Soames 1982/ leaving these counterexamples unexplained. By reappraising these insightful counterexamples, the inferential theory for natural language presuppositions described in /Mercer 1987, 1988/ gives a simple and straightforward explanation for the presuppositional nature of these sentences.