Semantics circle: Bound indexicals and presupposition encoding

Abstract

Indexical binding in focal constructions illustrated in (1) is one of the crucial empirical arguments questioning the Kaplanian hypothesis that indexicals rigidly depend on context.

(1) Only I did my homework. (i.e. nobody else did their homework) (Heim 1991)

(2) I am the only one around here who can take care of my children. (Partee 1989)

The two main approaches to this issue – morphosyntactic binding of minimal pronouns as in e.g. Kratzer 2009 or weakening of presuppositions under focus as in e.g. Sauerland 2013 – face problems. Based on new French data highlighting the semantic role of agreement, I propose a novel, reconciling solution relying on presupposition unification.