Publications

Publication details [#25809]

Dryer, Matthew S. 1996. Focus, pragmatic presupposition, and activated propositions. Journal of Pragmatics 26 (4) : 475–523.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Elsevier
ISBN
0378-2166

Annotation

This paper comments on literature relating nonfocus in simple focus sentences to presupposition or to activation, arguing that it is the latter rather than the former which characterizes nonfocus. The activation and the belief status of propositions are shown to be independent parameters, i.e. not only activated and nonactivated beliefs, but also activated propositions that are not believed.