The Syntax of Givenness Ivona Kucerová

To sum up, we have seen that the G-operator that we need anyhow in order to mark
presupposition does a lot of useful work for us. Now we have a system that can capture
all the Czech data we have encountered so far. The only tools we need are G-movement,
the G-operator and the assumption that the semantic component is able to compute global
comparison of derivations.
4.5 The interpretation of Givenness
In this chapter I have introduced a recursive G-operator whose purpose is to mark a part
of a structure as presupposed. I have not, however, defined yet what it means to be given
in a technical sense. The leading intuition is that given is something that is salient in the
discourse and which gives rise to a presupposition that must be satisfied for the utterance
to be felicitous in the relevant context.
In principle we could adopt various definitions of givenness. I will adopt here Sauerland
(2005)’s definition of givenness. The relevant lexical entries for type e and type et follow.
(99) Lexical entry for Given of type e:
Given g e ∃x & ∃i.g(i) = x
= λx
x
(100) Lexical entry for Given of type et:
where f has a salient antecedent in C
Given = λf et ∃x ∈ De .f(x) = 1
f
If Given applies to an element of type < α,t >, Given presupposes the existential closure
of the complement of Given. If Given applies to an element of type e, the lexical entry
requires the element to be evaluated with respect to an assignment previously established
in the discourse. As we will see in section 4.6 these lexical entries are too weak but I will
stay with them for lack of a better alternative. To see how these lexical entries combine
with our current system, consider the following example, after Sauerland (2005).
(101) English version:
a. Q: Who ate a cookie?
b. A: LINA [ate a cookie]-Given
(102) Czech version:
a. Q: Kdo snědl koláček?
who ate cookie?
‘Who ate a/the cookie?’
b. A: Koláček snědla || Lina.
cookie ate Lina
‘Lina ate a/the cookie.’
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