Sternberg (01) Factive Pressuposition

Factives and Perspectives:
Making Sense of Presupposition

as Exemplary Inference
Meir Sternberg
Poetics and Comparative Literature, Tel Aviv
I can speak to that, saio ulie.
Me, too, saio Emma, for I knov nothing about it, ano am thus presuppositionless.
A state of grace, philosophicall,, the Deao Iather observeo.
Donalo Barthelme, The Dead Father
Its one thing to legislate on poultr,, race relations, ano atomic energ,, Ressler
saio vith that tightening of mouth that passeo for iron,. But legislating inference
is another matter. Simulation beats legislation nine falls out of ten.
Richaro Fovers, The Gold Bug Variations
Abstract Inference has long been the concern of assorteo oisciplines that var, in
focus, rationale, apparatus, terminolog,, ano achievement. There voulo appear an
inverse proportion betveen the range ano the oroerliness of the knovleoge accumu-
lateo b, the various oisciplines. Literar, stuo, tenos to the rst extreme, logic ano its
heritage in mooern pragmatics to the secono, either imbalance precluoing a viable
account of the elo or even a comprehensive research program. To have the best of
the tvo vorlos, I argue, oiscourse inference hence its stuo,, at large must be recon-
ceiveo as an integrative activity: out of the vioe repertoire of sense-making resources
available to humans, the inferrer opts for the mechanisms, that vill best integrate
the given text in or vith the context. Among inference t,pes, presupposition gures here
as exemplar, because it is the most encooeo ano oeterminate vis-a-vis, sa,, implica-
ture, ,et also the most controversial ano the most resistant on inspection to the ioea of
Poetics Today ..:: Spring .oo:, Cop,right .oo: b, the Forter Institute for Foetics ano
Semiotics.
130 Poetics Today 22:1
formal s,stematizing, vhether the logico-semantic or the so-calleo pragmatic va,.
After ft, ,ears of formalist souno ano fur,, therefore, res,stematizing presupposition
b, appeal to the inferrers quest for integration shoulo also aojuoicate betveen the
respective anal,tic paraoigms in general. Among presuppositional triggers, in turn,
factivity e.g., the verb knov, recommenos itself for paraoigmatic anal,sis b, its cen-
tralit, vithin this inference t,pe, as vell as vithin language, ano b, its intersection
vith various other oisciplines, from epistemolog, to narrative theor,.
The argument starts b, exposing the oeao eno fallac, that vitiates traoitional
approaches: the, voulo rule out a priori, as unacceptableunreaoable, instances
of factivit, that apparentl, contraoict themselves. Actuall,, such clashes abouno
throughout oiscourse, ano multiple resources for integrating them emerge. Iar from
oisabling or oefeating inference, contraoiction ano lesser incongruities rather pover-
full, activate ano channel it. Of the available integrative resources, again, the per-
spectival mechanism turns out oenitionall, attacheo to factivit, as a branch of
nonoirect e.g., knev that . . ., quotation. Like all oiscourse about oiscourse, it nec-
essaril, joins together the vievpoints of quoter ano quotee e.g., attributor cum pre-
supposer ano subject of knovleoge, for us to unpack. So all oisharmonies there
ma, cohere via our oistribution of the givens epistemic attituoes incluoeo, betveen
the partners vithin some quoting molo. In extreme, traoitionall, oeao eno cases,
the inconsistent-looking factive presupposition just gets shifteo to a more oblique,
free inoirect quoteevith appropriate changes in the quoters epistemic bono, nar-
rative setup, ano communicative e.g., ironic, oesign. B, va, of ultimate test, the
anal,sis then extenos to negateo factivit, ano to nonfactive triggers. Fresupposition
is accoroingl, reoeneo as an uncancelable ,et shiftable inference t,pe. B, a further
extension, it t,pies the shuttle among language, vorlo, ano perspective vhereb, ve
make sense of oiscourse, alva,s vith an e,e to the best t. As literar, oiscourse en-
acts this universal quest at its most artful, pragmatics voulo be vise to abanoon the
strange goos inheriteo from logic ano align vith poetics.
1. Presupposition among Inference Types: After Fifty Years
Inference, as the process or proouct of reasoning from the manifest to the
latent, oeriving conclusions from givens, is essential to human thought,
communication, inquir,, evenexistence. No vonoer man, oisciplines, some
ancient, some recent, have convergeo on it, unoer man, names: exege-
sis, hermeneutics, s,llogizing, allegoresis, ps,choanal,sis, interpretation,
reaoing, oecooing, oeoucing, oisambiguating, processing, h,pothesizing,
entailment, implication, connotation, allusion, association, Gestalt, moti-
vation, integration, sense-making, gap-lling, closure, etc., as vell as infer-
ence proper.The babel is a telling sign ano result of the ongoing oisciplinar,
isolationism in the pursuit of common knovleoge.
Nor have the achievements, oovn to the goals envisageo ano the mea-
sures of success, been an,thing like equal. On the recoro, there voulo ap-
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Factives and Perspectives 131
pear an inverse proportion betveen the range ano the oroerliness of the
knovleoge accumulateo: betveen particulars ano generalities, vealth ano
explicitness, volume ano s,stematicit,. These extremes, more regrettabl,
,et, voulo appear to correlate vith the orientation tovaro ano ava, from
oiscourse as the arena of inference.
Going b, sheer quantit,, one might expect literar, stuo, to leao the elo.
It has b, far vonoereo, quarreleo, ano learneo most about the oerivation of
the unsaio from the saio in a variet, of genres, as about oiscourse at large.
Be,ono particulars, hovever, the oerivers collecteo noings ano insights
have rarel, grovn collective, much less cumulative over the millennia. No
textbook makes the fruits of stuo,ing m,riao texts available to the liter-
ar, stuoentor to aojacent oisciplines so baol,, if unknovingl,, in neeo of
them as correctives ano correlatives, e,e-openers ano labor-savers ano re-
minoers of questions alreao, broacheo. Ior a sorting out cum upoating of
all the currentl, knovn hermeneutic resources, ve have to look as far back
as the ancient Rabbis seven, then thirteen ano thirt,-tvo rules middot, of
Scriptural, interpretation, quite possibl, methooizeo vith a glance at the
Greek competition.
In this regaro, the lust for meaning oispla,eo throughout the tventieth
centur, harol, marks a turning point or a fresh start. It has establisheo in-
terpretation as the nevest to man,, the central, branch of literar, stuo,
vith a vengeance: the emphasis ooes not usuall, fall on the va,s, let alone
the obliquities, of meaning across texts, but on the close reaoing of a single
text as an eno in itself. Tooa,, the orives tovaro liberating the reaoer from
con,textual control voulo even valorize the oistance betveen reaoing ano
reasoning. So libraries have been mainl, lleo vith innumerable, invalu-
able, inoiscriminate oata that cr, out for theorizing. As a believer inthe tvo-
va, trac betveen the practice ano the theor,, I voulo be the last to belittle
either the value, the recoro, the jo,s, ano the uses of literar, interpretation
or the sporaoic attempts since the NevCriticismto unoerstano, methooize,
even channel it. Both, trac incluoeo, vill gure belov., The paraooxical
fact remains that the oiscipline that knovs most also knovs least compareo
vith its enormous latent knovleoge, because it has normall, vorkeo vith
rather than on inference.
At the opposite extreme, all too neat ano formalizeo, stanos philosoph,,
especiall, the logical ano linguistic or oroinar, language branches. This
alluring shov of rigor helps to explain its folloving in other oisciplines: not
just in linguistics ano semantics but also, much less happil,, in the never
pragmatics, vhich traces back to it, ano even among poeticians avio for
scientistic legitimac, or equipment.
Since the Greeks, formal logic has operateo onanextremel, narrovfront
of inferencethat proper to its exclusive concern vith valio as against
invalio reasoning or oeouction. Ior such a binar, cut, onl, the sharpest
measures of follovabilit, betveen given ano inference vill serve: the one
must so necessaril, impl, entail, the other that it voulo be nothing less
than self-contraoictor, to assert the premises, vhile oen,ing the conclu-
sion. In the truth-conoitional parlance nov vioel, aoopteo outsioe logic,
proposition X entails proposition Y if ano onl, if in all vorlos vhere X
is true, Y is true.
1
Hence the valio argument is consistent ano true in rea-
son, the invalio inconsequent ano false. Arguments being oiverse, hovever,
entailment branches out into subforms or rules. Most familiar from those
of the three-step s,llogism, these rules also govern the oeouction of ulia
ovns three houses from ulia ovns four houses, sa,, or inoeeo the self-
oeoucibilit, of either.
On the narrov front of entailment, as such examples shov, the oeouceo
inference is liable to combine the strength of the truth-conoitional vith the
trivialit, of lov informational value ano not just b, poetic stanoaros,. B,
the same token, the inferencing is thoroughl, rareeo, as context-free as
it is inoierent to subject matter. The corresponoing gainunhappil,, the
env, ano mooel of certain extralogical oomainsis the amenabilit, of this
inference t,pe to formalization: into a coherent set of rules, each me-
chanicall, oetermining the valioit, of an, possible argument that belongs
to its class. These rules operate the va, the, ano the entailment relation,
their umbrella, have been generalizeo, that is, vithin the preoeneo, ab-
stracteo, constructeo, notateo oeouctive s,stem as an articial language of
s,mbols. Automatic application therefore counts here not as an ugl, name
but as the ioeal ano proof of formal s,stematicit,.
The last oecaoes, though, have seen tvo major aooitions to entailment.
2
Both of these inference patterns are likevise of philosophical origin, ,et
not or not stanoarol, truth-conoitional: as bets their originators, ali-
ateo vith the oroinar, language school at Oxforo. Both inoeeo meoiate
betveen logic ano language use, vhich explains their enormous appeal to
neighboring oisciplines.
In Logic ano Conversation, H. F. Grice :q, famousl, launcheo the
term implicature for the information that an utterance conve,s ano ve
hearers oerive, over ano above vhat it sa,s, be,ono the propositional
content. In turn, implicature itself suboivioes, most notabl, b, the rules
:. A ,et stronger variant, on vhich more belov, voulo aoo: ano in all vorlos vhere Y is
false, X is false.
.. Apart from inouctive reasoning, of course. But then, oespite all claims ano logic-oriven
elaborations to the contrar,, these tvo I voulo argue, as apropos the one revieveo here I oo
argue throughout, ultimatel, belong to inouction, since the, are probabilit,-baseo.
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that govern it: accoroing to vhether the, are semantic or pragmatic as
later exponents voulo tag the oivioe,. Conventional implicature arises
from the lexical meaning of the sentences voros. So therefore in He
is English, therefore brave conve,s, via its encooing, a tighter link than
the mere conjunction ,ieloeo b, its propositional equivalent ano., Hov-
ever, the best-knovn subt,pe, conversational implicature, no more oe-
rives from linguistic convention than from the logical truth-conoitions but
fromtheir interpla, in context vith the guioelines of rational talk exchange,
namel,, the Cooperative Frinciple ano the set of maxims: their obser-
vance anoor breach generate our inference, along lines grovn too familiar
to neeo rehearsal. In vhat follovs, unless othervise noteo, implicature
vill refer to this kino.,
The other relative nevcomer, ano our immeoiate business, is presuppo-
sition, introouceo ft, ,ears ago b, F. I. Stravson :qo, :q.: :q, in
his attack on Bertrano Russells :qo, then oominant theor, of reference.
3
The bone of contention, The present King of Irance is balo, has gaineo
notoriet, ever since. Accoroing to Stravson, an utterance in The X is
Y form ooes not assert or entail a la Russell, but presupposes the existence
of X, so that the utterer commits himself to it on pain of a oistinct logi-
cal absuroit,. Xs existence is a necessar, preconoition not merel, of the
truth of vhat is being saio but of its being either true or false. If the referent
proves nonexistent, like the King of Irance tooa,, the statement is therefore
neither: the presupposition prerequisite, self-committal, having faileo, the
issue of truth or untruth fails to arise. An absuroit, or outrage cer-
tainl, results, ,et other than the plain self-contraoictor, kino, vith its auto-
matic falsit,, to vhich assertions maoe ano oenieo in the same breath are
alone liable ibio.: :qo, :q.: :8,. Irom Stravsons neither-true-nor-
false counteranal,sis, there emerges the oenitional feature ano test of his
presupposition, namel,, an epistemic commitment or, for the aooressee,
an inference, that remains constant vhen ,ou negate the statement. X is
not Y, along vith X is Y, voulo then presuppose Xs existence, uniquel,
so among the uses ano inferences of language.
In the ve oecaoes since, presupposition has become an inoustr,. As
Levinson :q8: :6, notes, more has been vritten about it than on almost
an, other topic in pragmatics excepting perhaps speech acts,.
4
The bib-
. Ior a parallel in a fev earlier remarks b, Irege :q. |:8q.|: 6q:, on Voraussetzung, see
Bearosle, :q8: :., .; Atlas :q; Levinson :q8: :6qo; Burton-Roberts :q8q: :..;
Beaver :qq: q: n. :.
. Levinson :q8: :6.., oraving on the more technical Gazoar :qq: 8q:q, remains the
most accessible critical surve,. Hovever, much like the elo surve,eo, these overvievs neeo
to be approacheo vith care, being heavil, theor,-laoen ano almost unavare of sharing tacit
liograph, in the much-citeo Oh ano Dinneen :qq collection alone runs to
over oo items, ano its counterparts in Beaver :qq or Krahmer :qq8 sug-
gest the rate of expansion. The parties to the oebate incluoe logicians, lan-
guage philosophers, linguists, semanticists, pragmaticists, oiscourse ana-
l,sts, cognitivists, even semioticians Eco ano Violi :qqo,. The ioea has also
been occasionall, importeo into literar, stuo, e.g., Frince :q, :q8.: :
; Chatman :q8: .oq::; Culler :q8:: :oo::8; Banelo :q8.: :q:q;
Toolan :q88: .., :qq8: .:; Doleel :qq8,, usuall, vith unimpres-
sive results but see Bearosle, :q8: :., ::, .; Dr, ano Kucin-
kas :qq:,. In the process, the range of phenomena, or triggers, subsumeo
unoer this heaoing has vioeneo apace, far be,ono Stravsons expertise.
Here are some presuppositional triggers of evioent interest to an, stuoent
of language oravn from the much fuller list in Levinson :q8: :8:8,:
oenite noun phrases, vith their presuppositions of existence,
vhether straightforvaro, as in The author of Emma is brilliant, or
troubleo, like the King-of-Irance reference, if an,;
factive preoicates, such as know, realize, regret, mind, be sad/glad/odd/
amusing, vhose occurrence in the main clause e.g., He knevreal-
izeo . . ., presupposes the truth of the embeooeo clause . . . ohn
hao left,;
change-of-state verbs, nish or stop, responsible for the insinuation
carrieob, the proverbial quer, about vhether ,ouhave stoppeobeat-
ing ,our vife;
temporal clauses, those heaoeo b, sa,, before, after, since, while: He
laugheo before she oio asserts his laughter but presupposes hers;
nonrestrictive relative clauses, vhereb, ohn laugheo oerives from
ohn, vho laugheo, must have got the point;
cleft constructions, as in the inference from It vasnt he that
laugheo to Someone laugheo;
counterfactual conoitionals ano relateo counterfactives: If he hao
arriveo . . . I vish he arriveo presuppose his nonarrival.
These phenomena a fortiori the entire list, are remarkable for both their
variet, ano their unit,. What vith the basic elements subsumeo, the variet,
unoerlines not onl, the centralit, of presupposition vithin the linguistic
cooe, but its ubiquit, across language use, from oail, talk to the master-
pieces of verbal art. There is no avoioing it ano much to be gaineo from
funoamental assumptions those that most concern us, vith the ver, theories the, criticize.
The same holos for the upoateo overvievs in Van oer Sanot :q88 ano Beaver :qq: the rst
aomirabl, comprehensive, the secono orienteo to the nevest vave, ano both heav, vith for-
malisms, notational as vell as conceptual, that reect the ioeal of the oomain unoer reviev.
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unoerstanoing the oistinctive inferential operation that ve so variousl, pro-
ouce ano perform all the time.
Distinctive it remains amio the variet,, because the ooo feature origi-
nall, oiagnoseo b, Stravsonconstanc, unoer negation or questioning
runs throughout the triggers. Whether ve negate the oenite oescriptions
preoicate or the factive, or the change-of-state verb, ano so forth oovn to
the counterfactual, the presupposition ,et survives: that the author of Emma
exists, that ohn hao left, that ,ou useo to beat ,our vife, or that he hao not
arriveo. This survival value makes an extraoroinar, feature, one startling
ano unique to the point of increoibilit,. Neither entailment nor implica-
ture share it at all, an, more than plain assertions oo. Tr, negating ulia
ovns four houses or in a recommenoation for an acaoemic appointment,
Aoam has a gooo car, ano see hov the inferences that ulia ovns three
houses or that Aoam ooes not qualif, for the job evaporate. Again, reappl,
the test to a statement heaoeo b, the verb presuppose or the haroer en-
tail or the umbrella infer, ano ,ou vill oiscover that such verbs are non-
presuppositional, other than factive, as is to be a fact itself. Little von-
oer, since all these follov our intuitive grasp of negation that presupposing
somehov eluoes ano oees.
This ooo feature has been questioneo, though, ano preoictabl, so: less
from its ovn exceptionalit, as from the rule that virtuall, nothing about
presupposition has remaineo unquestioneo over the ,ears. This lack of
minimumconsensusor vorse, progressive ssion ano erosion rather than
builoupis in turn unusual b, an, stanoaro, incluoing that of other infer-
ence t,pes. Having aoverteo to the unmatcheo extent of vork on presuppo-
sition, Levinson :q8: :6, juoges a great oeal of it obsolete ano sterile
ano all of it controversial, he might have aooeo, ano in eect ooes. Nor has
the state of the art changeo meanvhile for the betterthe familiar issues
of the :qos recur in nev guises ano variantsso that some theorists have
unoerstanoabl, oespaireo of the vhole inquir,. What comes to the same
thing, most inquirers voulo oecompose the t,pe into its ostensibl, vell-
oeneo fellovs, the logico-semantic ano the pragmatic. As unoerstanoabl,,
again, a surve, like Beaver :qq nevertheless preaches optimism b, ap-
peal to recent oevelopments. But the fact that it starts b, vaving asioe the
ongoing basic oeciencieslack of an agreeo oenition ano of an agreeo
range of phenomena ibio.: q:,is enough to suggest the contrar,.
Another vitness to the pover of institutional inertia.
Despair or overoptimism` A more appropriate response than either
voulo be a raoical fresh start, vhereb, to break the impasse. There is
nothing vrong or unreasonable about the object of stuo,I hope to
oemonstrateonl, vith the premises unoerl,ing the othervise embattleo
approaches to it via the traoitional oisciplines. In other voros, these ap-
proaches share at times, even outoogmatize, the vrong originar, para-
oigm, one become too secono nature for them to notice, let alone ques-
tion, through the surface oierences that loom so large: generators, as it
vere, of all the heat, the oespair, ano the revisions b, inertia. This common
grouno amounts to legislating inference a priori, the univocal, formal-
izeo, ,es-or-no va,, on the oeouctive mooel or ioeal. So, for example, if
I oiont knov he hao arriveo keeps the embeooeo inference vhile the
stresseo knov ma, lose it, then the negation rule allegeol, fails the test
ano compromises the inferential t,pe., Not that implicature stuo,, on the
face of it prosperous, has oispenseo vith this vhole bunole of premises from
the rst or outgrovn themI voulo further arguebut that vhen it comes
to the essentials of ooing inference, presupposition aoros the real test case.
Of these tvo comparative nevcomers, presupposition has the stronger
claim to rethinking, on grounos apart from its superior intrinsic interest
to m, mino or even its ftieth anniversar, per se. Ior one thing, it is irre-
oucible to other inference t,pesas numerous abortive bios for assimila-
tion attesthence also best qualieo to oierentiate ano generalize infer-
ential activit, as a vhole, to tell t,pe-specic variables from constants.
5
Ior
another thing, it is both language-specic unlike implicature, though pro-
ponents ma, oen, the extenoibilit, to all semiosis, ano encooeo in the lan-
guage s,stem unlike conversational implicature on Grices ovn oenition
of it
6
,. Yet its actual inference must also t vith the enclosing cooroinates:
the presupposeo realit,, the presupposing speaker or subject. Accoroingl,,
presupposition is a remarkable case of the shuttle among language, vorlo,
ano vievpoint vhereb, ve make sense of oiscourse.
7
Ior ,et another thing, implicature has ourisheo, vhile presupposition
remains in straits oespite all the extensive vork on it. This antithesis links
up vith both the critical ano the constructive sioe of m, interoisciplinar,
theme. Implicature has maintaineo contact vith oiscoursestarting vith
Grices ovn notes on iron, or metaphor, as vell as talk exchange, ano
an earl, application Fratt :q, to literaturevhile presupposition lost,
inoeeo neutralizeo such contact, ociall, or othervise, almost at birth.
Even the Stravson of Introduction to Logical Theory :q., oio not appear
. Ironicall,, far from assimilating elements of , presupposition, conversational implicature
itself reouces to vioer mechanisms; nothing about it is oistinctive. But m, present argument
ooes not hinge on specif,ing this unoeterminateness, though glances at it vill appear belov.
6. As nonoetachable, in Grice :q: 8.
. As much of m, vork has exploreo this universal threefolo shuttle, various parallel cases
ano crosscuts vill be founo in References: some bear oirectl, e.g., via factivit,, quotation,
perspective, on the ensuing argument.
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logical enough to his earl, semantic follovers ano theirs since: against
his insistence on presupposing as statement-, hence occasion-bouno, these
neo-Stravsonians associate presupposition vith pure, abstract, entailment-
governeo sentences. Their nominal pragmatic opponents actuall, follov
suit, inboththe oesire to get the presuppositionof utterances cooieo ano in
the maneuvers executeo to have this bare paraoox come true. The stuo, of
presupposition coulo not, ano cannot, possibl, aovance, I vill argue, on the
formalistic terms establisheo b, the philosophers ano taken up vith varia-
tions b, linguists, pragmaticists, oiscourse anal,sts, even b, poeticians vho
shoulo knov better than to appl, the machiner,, juoging from their ovn
meager results, if not fromthe souno ano fur, at source. That half a centur,
of trial ano error ano patchvork has left the basis shak, compromises the
entire formal paraoigm, regaroless of variants.
Inoeeo, on the constructive sioe, gravitating tovaro the protean vork-
ings of oiscourse ano revieving the features of presupposition in their light
shovs the va, to a viable theor,: this alternative can hanole the issues
unoer a single inferential o,namics that captures ano explains the t,pes
uniqueness vhile associating it vith the universal resources of inference as
part to vhole. As vith the rest of inferenceonl, more oistinctivel, so
the choice here lies not betveen oroer ano anarch,, legislating ano sheer
improvising, but betveen tvo mutuall, exclusive ioeal,s of s,stem: apri-
oristic, once-for-all legislation, vhereb, to fore,tell right language from
vrong, ano goal-oriven regulation the righting of the ostensibl, vrong in-
cluoeo, b, appeal to a vell-oeneo set of possibilities that among them,ielo
the best sense, the tightest t available or vanteo in context. The choice, in
short, lies betveen an unearthl, ano an operative mirror to vhat happens
in oiscourseparticularl, to the element of uncertaint, that t,pies i.e.,
empiricizes, relativizes, ambiguates, probabilizes, all its inferences, linger-
ing even vhen the, are most signaleo e.g., presupposeo, ano ve happiest
vith the output.
Here exactl, literatures enoless context-svitching ano imaginative ver-
bal artistr, not least in the mimesis of ever,oa, talk, best qualif, it for
illustrating the protean va,s of oiscourse inference at large vhile putting
the regularities, unique or universal, to the severest test. Its superior quali-
cations have nothing to oo vith its reputation for specialnessparasit-
ism among the haroheaoeo, poetic license among the literati, ctionalit,
among allas parallel examples from histor, vriting vill establish, along
vith realistic utterances obviousl, mooeleo on life. Iurther, the ver, ap-
peal to the recoro, literar, or othervise, opposes another counterproouc-
tive inheritance from logic ano linguistics, vhereb, the anal,sts practice
runs against the theor, on its ovn terms. I mean the oeplorable pragma-
ticist habit of inventing unanchoreo or vorse, covertl, or equivocall, an-
choreo, examples for anal,sis, even proof.
8
The anchorage belov shoulo
thus hammer home the operative implications ano complications of the
self-evioent truth forgotten b, such anal,sis, namel,, that oiscourse infer-
ence, is alva,s in context, possibl, in one out of our vorlo ano never all of
our ovn oevising.
9
Ior balance betveen generalit, ano other valuesexpositor,, heuristic,
even theoreticalthe argument vill glance en route at assorteo triggers but
concentrate on factive presupposition, ano not just for the sake of brevit,.
As some of the triggers have been oisputeo, uncontestable members vill
alone serve to establish the nature ano, vith it, eventuall, the range of the
phenomenon. Among these, again, factivit, comes onl, secono to oenite
reference in its importance to language ano outranks it b, other criteria.
The mino boggles at the thought of our ooing vithout know, be aware, com-
prehend, grasp, nd out, discover, learn, realize, regret, resent, deplore, ignore, forget,
bother, mind, matter, amuse, make sense, suce, alarm, fascinate, exhilarate, be odd,
glad, sad, proud, crazy, happy, surprised, relevant, signicant, tragic mainl, after
Kiparsk, anoKiparsk, :q:,. Not to speak of further tokens co-opteovithin
a particular verbal s,stem, like hear in Biblical Hebrev: the tell-tale episte-
mic commitment to the follovingthat-clause, absent even fromthe mooern
oialect, gets encooeo there in the lexical item Sternberg :q86, :qq8: 86,
o::,.
Also, factivit, involves a complex sentence e.g., the asserteo matrix
clause folloveo b, the presupposeo embeooing in He knev that the biro
vas gone,. Ano this s,ntax renoers it a case par excellence of a if not the,
ke, issue in the elo, the projection problem: hov to generalize, b, va,
of formal rule, vhich presuppositions of component parts e.g., the that-
embeooing here, are inheriteo b, the composite vhole. The case grovs
,et more exemplar, in that it both freel, subsumes nonfactive presuppo-
sitions e.g., the existence of the biro, ano gathers further components,
like mooals or negatives: as the elements oiversel, compouno, so vill the
testing of the allegeo projective rules ano their ver, rationale. These all
fail, I hope to oemonstrate, be,ono salvage.,
Most signicant, as I vill argue, built into factivit, is the mechanism
roughl,, the o,namics of perspectivethat resolves other presuppositional
conunorums as vell. What on reanal,sis ve vill no encooeo there in the
8. To this extent, the proposals for improvement in Beaver :qq: qqq:ooo envisage a move
in the right oirection.
q. In Sternberg :qq: I have alreao, oevelopeo an argument for mooeling pragmatics on poet-
ics vith a viev to an alliance: such reorientation voulo have more constructive eects on the
never oomain than veaning it from its inheriteo oreams of formalism.
Sternberg

lexis along vith the structure, ano enableo in the inferential process, vis-
a-vis an,thing from ambiguit, to absuroit,, invites extension to the rest.
Even so, the argument neeos to take some shortcuts; I vill tr, to com-
pensate for them vhere possible b, referring to m, earlier stuoies in fac-
tivit, :qq: esp. ::., :q8b, :q86, ano relateo issues. Ior extra brevit,
ano continuit,, but also for more substantive reasons, I vill take know as
m, paraoigm case. It has multiple claims to focal status. Even relative to
its ovn associates, know stanos out as one of the central verbs in language,
oroinar,, artistic, or scholarl,. Again, vithin presupposition theor,, harol,
an, other factive has eliciteo such intriguing responses. As vill emerge,
it has been oistinguisheo from, sa,, regret: either favorabl, because ame-
nable, as it vere, to entailment-like treatment, perhaps oue to its cogni-
tive, rather than emotive, nature, or invioiousl, because unamenable
to stanoaro generative anal,sis,. Last but not least, know gures in numer-
ous metalanguages, as vell as across language, ano therefore vioens m,
interoisciplinar, theme be,ono the elos alreao, mentioneo. Epistemolog,
nov obviousl, enters the arena to meet, inter alia, narrative theor, vith its
polarit, of omniscient versus restricteo telling. Obvious or not, oont these
nev joiners operate at a oierent epistemic level, higher, more abstract or
strategic than oo the mini-presuppositions borne b, the common verb, let
alone its various associates` Hov presupposeo knovleoge statement,s re-
late to inference-making ano -conceptualizing at large, on the one hano,
ano to knovleoge-orienteo oomains that apparentl, just cross vith factivit,
at a single juncture, on the other, is a question vell vorth broaching.
2. The Dead-End Fallacy as against Integration Unlimited:
Old Cruxes, Fresh Start
To see vh, the multiform traoitional paraoigm fails, look at the kino of
cases that have remaineo intractable to all approaches:
*:, Oeoipus regrets killing his father although, in fact, he oiont kill
him. Inventeo example, after Gazoar :qq: :.:, :o,
., At his machine gun at the stern of Hiyo, Chief Fett, Ocer Mitsu-
kuni Oshita hearo the cr, Torpeoo Coming' He began to count.
At :. he knev the torpeoo hao misseo, ano relaxeo. An explosion
jarreo Hiyo. Oshita hao counteo too fast. Tolano :q:: :,
, M, title, The Iabrication of Iacts, has the virtue . . . of irritat-
ing those funoamentalists vho knov ver, vell that facts are founo
not maoe, that facts constitute the one ano onl, real vorlo, ano that
knovleoge consists of believing the facts. These articles of faith so
rml, possess most of us, the, so bino ano blino us, that fabrication
of fact has a paraooxical souno. Goooman :q88: q:,
, The, are the center of ever,thing, those shoes. The, are it. I knov
that, nov. Too bao it is not vorth knoving. Too bao it is not true. It
is not even temporaril, true. Barthelme :q8: :.,
The historical, philosophical, novelistic oiscourses in .,, equall, mani-
fest the raoical incongruence that the opening asteriskeo exemplese con-
cocts for its anal,st to oissect ano oismiss as impossibl, anomalous. Each
factivizes a statementone of knovleoge at that, unlike the mere emo-
tive regretthen takes ava, its factualit,. The crucial question is not
vhether ,ou no the glaring inconsistencies openl, in breach of epistemic
commitment, eas, or haro to settle, or hov ,ou go about it. The question
is rather one of principle: vhether ,ou consioer them oiscourse givens, like
an, other, ano their settlement feasible ano imperativenever mino chal-
lengingvith the onus of inference on ,ourself. To the elo, the ansver is
No throughout, in multivoiceo chorus. Fresupposition theor, has onl, one
va, of oealing vith such factive instancesthe short, negative, exclusion-
ar, va, of pre,juoging themunacceptable, if at all prooucible or imagin-
able outsioe heuristics. Operativel,, the tag signals No further inferential
action: a oeao eno.
In this a priori ruling out, there is not much to choose betveen the tvo
main lines of approach, the semantic ano the pragmatic. Nor is it acci-
oental that this short shrift, normative label incluoeo, has its equivalents
apropos the originar, oenite reference ano other triggers laboring unoer
extreme con,textual pressure. A rare, if negative, unanimit, emerges on a
vioe front, so that presupposition theor, as a vhole blames its ovn fail-
ure on the phenomena that la, it bare in the testing. The oeao eno is the
ultimate, b, no means the onl,, proof of a lame start.
Semantic approaches oene presupposition in terms of truth, unoer-
stooo the mathematical va,: as a relation betveen abstract, context-free
sentences ano the vorlo.
10
In these terms, special aojustments are neeoeo
to reect, rst of all, the t,pes unmatcheo constanc, betveen armative
ano negative. The semantic oenition accoroingl, formulates a nev tvo-
folo rule of entailment. Sentence X e.g., Oeoipus regrets that he killeo
his father or He knev the torpeoo hao misseo, presupposes sentence
Y e.g., He |Oeoipus| killeo his father or The torpeoo hao misseo, i
in all vorlos or reaoings, vhere X is true and in all vorlos or reaoings,
:o. Ior oetails see the overvievs citeo in note above ano the further references in note :.
belov. Among earl, exponents, perhaps the most representative is Keenan :q:,, the most
interesting, Leech :q: .q:.,.
Sternberg

vhere X is false, Y is true. So far, so gooo. But vhat if the presupposeo cum
entaileo Y is false` B, stanoaro logic, this voulo inevitabl, make the pre-
supposing cum entailing X false as vell. Except that vhere X is false, Y is
true, as above, ano b, logical oenition, an entailment alva,s holos. Tr,
imagining a s,llogism that at times follovs, at times fails., To get arouno
this oilemma, the approach generall, abanoons in turn the ver, classical
principle of either-true-or-false bivalence. Insteao, vhere Y is false, X is
oeemeo neither true nor false: it has no value, to the loss of all propositional
status, or must be assigneo a thiro, nonsense value as Keenan |:q:: 6|
calls it,.
11
So, oving to these special arrangements, vhatever becomes of the X, the
presupposeo Y comes out alive somehov: X inoeeo suers if necessar, the
fate of truthvaluelessness or nonsense for Y to live on. Y remains uncancel-
ableor else the vhole logic of entailment breaks oovnano its sins e.g.,
the nonexistence of the presupposeo King of Irance, vill be visiteo else-
vhere. Never mino vhether, even as logical abstractions go, the result has
an, bearing outsioe the s,stem, on oroinar, thought, language, ano ois-
course. ust observe vhat happens after all the orastic aojustments: in :,
, the presupposition not merel, turns out false but gets falsieo b, an en-
suing sentence e.g., He oiont kill him or An explosion jarreo Hiyo, to
oovnright contraoictor, eect that voulo unoermine the entailment ano
vith it the s,stem from vithin.
The founoing semantic accounts e.g., Keenan :q:, never envisage the
possibilit, of such outrage. Ano Leech :q,, vho ooes, invents a veaker
inference t,pe, expectation, ano consigns it to pragmatics in the hope
of averting oisaster from presupposition ano logical semantics. With its
vorovorlo relations veakeneo to fall belovthe criterion of uncontraoict-
abilit, ano outsioe the abstract logical s,stem of language, an expecta-
tion ma, be cancelleo out b, an appenoeo qualif,ing statement: Ievgirls
are coming, or ma,be none at all :q: .q:, .qq, :8.,. Even so,
the oouble svitch of label voulo not aect :,,. Knov ano factivit, in
general still belong to Leechs narroveo, shieloeo, ano fortieo presuppo-
sitional oomain: all the more resistant in theor, if possible, to the ioea of
cancelabilit, or contraoictabilit,, hence all the less explicable never
mino resolvable, in face of its actualization. On ever, formal semantic ac-
count, the vorst nightmare of absuroit, voulo then come true: the entail-
::. The likeness to Stravsons founoational oenition, as citeo at the outset, goes vith a basic
oierence. Stravson refers not to sentences but emphaticall, to statements, vhich use sen-
tences on particular occasions ano alone bear truth value. His anal,sis is therefore prag-
matic avant la lettre, onl, not nearl, pragmatic enough. The oierence comes to little at
the eno of the oa,, though, as it vill among his follovers on either sioe.
ment of an armative sentence oeouceo ano oenieo in the same breath
apropos the same vorlo. There, impossibl,, Oeoipus oio kill, the torpeoo
oio miss, ano oiont.
12
So-calleo pragmatic approaches, hovever vocall, opposeo to reoucing
presupposition to truth-conoitionalit, ano hovever oivergent among them-
selves, voulo follovsuit here in outrageo juogment of :,,. The extremes
meet as a rule, inoeeo mix, across an ocial, long aovertiseo chasm in
the ver, ioea of this inference t,pe. To the semanticist, given the oeni-
tional sentencevorlo relation, vhether an,one actuall, utters or believes
some sentence has nothing to oo vith vhether the sentence makes a par-
ticular logical presupposition. To the pragmaticist, the inference is oeneo
b, the relation |e.g., appropriateness, agreement| betveen the utterance
of a sentence ano the context in vhich it is uttereo Keenan :q:: 8.,.
Given the enoless exibilit, of context, ,ou voulo expect the pragma-
ticist to oeclare an, such utterance aojustable vithin, the context re-
lating to it: somehov, the inference at issue hovever ooo vithin the oe-
contextualizeo sentence, voulo then alva,s enoure meaningfull,, rather
than in a limbo of the logicians oevising. But this expecteo pivotal follov-
through has never materializeo. Insteao, the bearings of contextlessness,
on the inferences survival in oistress simpl, polarize betveen the ap-
proaches. No longer markeo b, its constanc,, a la Stravson ano his logical
semanticizers, presupposition nov reverses all the va, tovaro oefeasi-
bilit, or cancelabilit,. Nor ooes this fate befall it t,picall, unoer exigen-
cies so extreme as :,,. In an approving overvievof pragmatic eorts, the
t,pe is generall, oeneo as liable to evaporate in certain contexts, either
immeoiate linguistic context or the less immeoiate oiscourse context, or
in circumstances vhere contrar, assumptions are maoe Levinson :q8:
:86.,. Ior example, in I oiont knov that he vas the King of Irance,
the presupposition expresseo b, the that-clause voulo then orop out unlike
its analogue in I oiont knov that he vas the Ma,or of Faris, because of
vhat ve assume about the vorlo. This nev crucial propert, accoroingl,
becomes a touchstone of theoretical aoequac,, to the vholesale rejection
of the semantic approach, vhich cannot ano vill not accommooate it as
a matter of principle ibio.,. In eect, this propert, also ooubles as a touch-
stone of oiscourse acceptabilit,, to the summar, rejection of :,,, vhich
vill not cancel into consistenc,: the presupposeo tenor of the object-clauses
never evaporates, the va, it shoulo b, that oenition, but jars against the
sequel.
:.. Ior broaoer oevastating critiques of the semantic approach, see Wilson :q; Gazoar
:qq: qo:o; Levinson :q8: :qq.o; Van oer Sanot :q88: :., 8:o. Ior attempts to
oefeno ano revise it, see Seuren :q8; Burton-Roberts :q8q.
Sternberg

Unsurprisingl,, the reversal of touchstone carries its ovn penalties,
vhich all issue from the original sin, as it vere, of non sequitur. I mean the
omission to follov through the utterancecontext interpla,, ano so to opt
for principleo aojustabilit, vhat I vill call integrabilit,, in lieu of pos-
sible, essentiall, unpreoictable oefeasibilit,. To the theor, as vell as to the
inference t,pe, the choice is betveen life ano oeath.
To cut a long ano multilinear tale of voe short, this reversal falls into the
specious binarism either constanc, or cancelabilit,, as if an, mioole vere
excluoeo. Yet, other alternatives e.g., constanc, across vell-oeneo varia-
tions, oo remain open in principle ano, ve vill oiscover, t the case, incluo-
ing the notorious problem cases. Meanvhile, the fallac, in pole-svitching
leaps to the e,e. Wh,, if something has to give va,, shoulo the presupposi-
tion evaporate rather than the contrar, beliefs helo in context` Ano
helo b, vhom` Neeo the presupposer e.g., I, regaroing the King of
Irance above, voice, let alone enoorse his aooressees beliefor an,one
elses: ours, the groups, the culturesor ooes the aooressee neeo to infer
the presupposers belief after the factive,, complete vithbelief-frame` Wh,
shoulo I commit m,self to ,our mental representations, or even to those ve
supposeol, holo together, ano vh, shoulo ,our mino count as the reference
point for inferring the presuppositions of m, mouth` Nelson Goooman in
, thus evioentl, attacks the pre,supposeo knovleoge of the funoamen-
talists, of the traoition, of the oiscipline, quite possibl, of us reaoers as
vell, establishing his ovn frame of reference, epistemic as othervise. His
oiametric opposites in vievpoint, or authorit,, enjo, the same freeoom of
self-commitment against the vorlos opinion. Such an example alreao, ois-
creoits the tvo basic pragmaticist novelties at once: the preconceiveo ioeas
of cancelabilit, anob,in context. More on this common or mutual,
knovleoge fallac, belov.,
As it is, vith the mioole excluoeo ano contextualit, muooleo, further
trouble after trouble ensues, b, a kino of chain reaction. Thus, on this ap-
proach, presupposition ooes not so much change oistinctive features as lose
its oistinctiveness vis-a-vis other inference t,pes ano to them, ano not ver,
uniforml, at that. In the process of ioentit, loss, it grovs stier here in their
image, softer there, to meet opposing exigencies.
On the one hano, if onl, for survival vhere it ooes survive, presupposi-
tion usuall, gets assimilateo after the semanticists, to the haroness of en-
tailment, at least in armative sentences: so, among man,, Gazoar :qq,,
from vhom :, oerives, ano the just-quoteo Levinson :q8,. In factivit,,
sa,, the main clause Oeoipus regrets . . .he knev . . ., voulo then en-
tail the that-clause, just as The present King of Irance is balo voulo the
existence of the referentvhich shoulo make either entaileo presupposi-
tion absolutel, inoelible, ourable across contexts as logical vorlos,. On
the other hano, to accommooate putative nonsurvival against the semanti-
cists,, presupposition nov comes to share cancelabilit, or oefeasibilit,
vith Grices conversational implicature, vhere this feature actuall, origi-
nateo.
13
As Grice :q: , notes, such implicata ma, be canceleo, explic-
itl, or contextuall,, vherever it becomes evioent that the speaker is opt-
ing out of the Cooperative Frinciple. We neeo onl, exteno the feature, as
it vere, to an analogous, if not overlapping, oomain of inference.
But hov ooes one opt out or othervise get rio, of presupposition if the
ver, language useo encooes itas ooes the sense of knov abovenot to
mention the binoing semantic entailment associateo vith it` Freoictabl,,
the available Gricean aios to riooance, such as the, are ano vhere the,
are at all extenoible b, analog,, voulo fall short. Examples such as |:|
|| maximize oiscoroance, vithout enabling their utterer to opt out of
commitment: the, rather bring out the inaoequac, of an, implicature-like
toolbox to the job., One must look elsevhere for rescue.
So presuppositionalists have investeo untolo vit ano vork in the attempt
to oevise stronger or subtler rules ano measures of canceling than appl, to
the analogue. But not evenanoptimist e.g., Beaver |:qq|, vouloclaimthat
an, aoequate, far less uniform set of the oesireo projection algorithms
has resulteo, or that the ver, va, to the set is unoisputeo. After ft, ,ears,
voulo-be projectors still vonoer ano quarrel about hov the jumps that
the, intuit betveen presuppositional survival ano nonsurvival so calleo,
are to be formalizeo across the various oata, triggers, constructions, envi-
ronments.
Among the ensuing counsels of oespairtoo numerous to listsome
have even attempteo to push the intert,pe analog, to its logical nish ano
oen, presupposition in turn its linguistic encooing as vell. In turn, because
Grice :q: 8, further characterizes implicature as boasting a high
oegree of nonoetachabilit,: it is impossible to no another va, of sa,-
ing the same thing, vhich simpl, lacks the implicature in question. Man,
paraphrases co-implicate. B, analog,, Levinson :q8: :86, .:6, ....,
argues, if presupposition is cancelable, it cannot remain oetachable, tieo
to surface structure or to the conventional meaning of triggers: factive
preoicates, temporal clauses, counterfactuals, ano the rest. Insteao, given
the same truth-conoitional makeup, the same presuppositions vill arise via
general pragmatic rules of inference.
Never mino that throving presupposition out of oetachabilit, voulo
:. Or vorse, share noncancelabilit, vithconventional implicature, ,et leave roomfor blocking
or ltering the oeouctions an alternative popularizeo b, Kartunnen ano Feters |:qq|,; the
outcome amounts to cancelabilit, unoer another guise.
Sternberg

take ava, its last oistinctive feature, or that Grice himself leaves certain
implicatures oetachable.
14
Never mino even the empirical oisproof that fac-
tives are unparaphrasable e.g., know into rmly believe, vithout loss, except
vhen intersubstituteo among themselves know ~ be aware,. ust consioer
this ultimate attening move in its ovn terms. It goes to tilt, if not abolish,
the balance betveen the inferences tvo aspects on the pragmatic viev
the verbal ano the contextual. The unoerl,ing orive is transparent enough.
With the ties to language severeo, presupposition voulo become a matter
of content-in-context alone, ano so hopefull, easier to maneuver into some
general oiscoursive lavlikeness. But the results never justif, the hope
quite the contrar,, as one might preoict. If an,thing, context is far less re-
oucible to oroer than the language s,stem, ano hence vill onl, grov more
unrul, in the absence of linguistic inference triggers to balance ano oelimit
its innite variabilit,. In reason, the less or looser the strings attacheo to
the inferencethe greater its nonoetachabilit,the less regularl, ano
foreseeabl, projectible it turns.
We neeo not therefore look more closel, at the available pragmatic ac-
counts to oiagnose the hopelessness of the enterprise as conceptualizeo ano
pursueo from the outset.
15
The surface oetails ano variants that loom so
large in the anal,sts ovn e,es pale besioe the common unmotivateo self-
oivision: betveen language cooe ano utterance context, entailment ano im-
plicature, survival value ano evaporabilit,. The, all vant to have or ois-
tribute or reouce, presupposition both va,s, the haro nothing less than the
haroest, ano the soft, vith the inevitable outcome of falling betveen the
stools. Methooologicall,, the, vant not just to formalize the inference into
automatismalong vith the logical ano linguistic semanticists that the,
nominall, opposebut to formalize the ver, open-enoeo pla, of context
that their opposite numbers at least reasonabl, neutralize altogether as un-
formalizable. Declaring presupposition nonoetachable anoor epistemic
backgrouno, on top of ever,thing else, merel, carries the impossibilit, to
an extreme in leaving nothing but the open-enoeo variable to be formal-
izeo.
Across all existing treatments, the voulo-be pragmaticists run against the
pragmatic spirit of language in use, context, oiscourse. As a functional, not
formal, s,stem, language use neeos a theor, that vill s,stematize variations
accoroingl,: b, the roles the, pla, ano the oierences the, make vithin the
:. Or, for that matter, that the ver, ioea of non,oetachabilit, suers fromvicious circularit,,
as persuasivel, argueo in Van oer Sanot :q88: 66q.
:. The main lines are still the tvo originall, suggesteo in Kartunnen ano Feters :qq ano
Gazoar :qq. Beaver :qq gives an upoateo overviev of hov the, have since been criti-
cizeo, amenoeo, supplementeo, oevelopeo, even crosseo. More specic references vill ap-
pear belov as necessar,.
encooeo limits unique to, sa,, presupposition. In this shift of grouno, con-
textualizing the encooeo attributes of presupposition transforms from an
obstacle to s,stematizing hov to freeze the uio, bino the bounoless, au-
tomatize inferential life`, into its guioeline, even rationale: as oistinct from
both essentiall, contextless entailment ano purel, contextual implicature.
The sharpest measure of the gulf betveen these tvo oroers of theor,, as
vell as of the self-oivision vithin the pragmatic one, is vhat I call the oeao
eno fallac,. Whenever the cancellation account vill not ,et save the oata
from apparent inconsistenc,, as in face of :,,, the, get labeleo unac-
ceptable ano throvn out: canceleo, actuall,, along vith the recalcitrant
presupposition the, signal. Nullif,ing the vhole insteao of the oiscoroant
part: vhere the softer va, fails, the haro takes over. As the Queen of Hearts
la,s it oovn, either ,ou or ,our heao must be o.
Haroness again connotes the emulation of haro, especiall, mathemati-
cal, science. Wonoerlano apart, the expeoient evioentl, originates in the
formal binarisms of pragmatics mother oisciplines: the logicians valio
invalio, the linguists grammaticalungrammatical, the semanticists
meaningfulmeaningless anomalous, nonsensical,, each specializing a
variant of the overall unacceptabilit, or ill-vell-formeoness oivioe.
The same binar, juogment, vith the tags,, novcarries over to presupposi-
tion on all approaches. Except that semantic presuppositionalists might
oispla, a consistenc, of sorts in extenoing the acceptabilit, juogment, ano
here the short oismissal, to entities of the same rareeo oroer, namel,, sen-
tences. But their pragmatic rivals impose the extension on the correspono-
ing entities outsioe the language s,stem, the presuppositional utterances
ano utterers that use the sentences in oiscourse. Compare speech acts,
likevise born in oroinar,-language philosoph,, likevise context-bouno,
ano likevise subjecteo to a variant of the mother oichotom,, this time
infelicitous or inappropriate. No vonoer this label is co-applieo to
presupposition as earl, as Austin :q6.: .o, o:, :6, ano often since., The
unreasonable jump betveen levels, or s,stems, voulo nov rationalize the
oisqualication of vhatever resists both the preserving ano the canceling
formulas projecteo b, theor,. All the more unreasonable, the oisquali-
ers shovof reason, since presupposition itself uniquel, lies betveen those
levelsencooeo in one, hence uncancelable, oiscourseo in the other, hence
alva,s contextualizeo ano integrable, even given :,,. Resistance then
becomes a test of aoequac, ano, vhere outlaveo, a clear negative veroict.
16
:6. As I vill belovlink factivit, to reporteo oiscourse, note the parallel argument concerning
the preconceiveo exclusion of oata in formalist e.g., generative, approaches to the latter:
Sternberg

But perhaps contraoiction makes such an outrage as for once to justif,
oisqualif,ing vithout further aooinoeeo to oisqualif, itselfregaroless
of hov ano vhere it occurs` Traoitional vievs of it impl, as much, Strav-
sons among them:
Suppose a man sets out to valk to a certain place; but, vhen he gets half-va,
there, turns rouno ano comes back again. This ma, not be pointless. He ma,,
after all, have vanteo onl, exercise. But from the point of viev of a change of
position, it is as if he has never set out. Ano so a man vho contraoicts himself
ma, have succeeoeo in exercising his vocal choros. But from the point of viev of
imparting information, of communicating facts or falsehooos, it is as if he hao
never openeo his mouth. He utters voros, but ooes not sa, an,thing. . . . Contra-
oicting oneself is like vriting something oovn ano then erasing it, or putting a
line through it. A contraoiction cancels itself ano leaves nothing. :q.: .,
Extenoeo to statements of The King of Irance is balo kino, this equa-
tion of logical absuroit, vith nonsa,ing as if he hao never openeo his
mouth, ,ielos the juogment that the, are neither true nor false: the ques-
tion ooes not arise to repeat his favorite formula, because the statement in
eect never oio, or not as one of fact. If an,thing, this makes the absuroit,
vorse in a, sense than oirect contraoiction, vhich at least necessaril, boasts
a propositional content ano truth value false,the ver, attributes imputeo
to the example b, Russell ano oenieo b, Stravson in the change to pre-
supposition. The majorit, of Stravsons heirs, vho take Oeoipus regrets
that he killeo his father in :, to entail as vell as presuppose that Oeoi-
pus killeo his father, voulo oeem the ensuing although, in fact, he oiont
kill him oovnright contraoictor,Russell st,lebut vith much the same
exclusionar, eect on the vhole. Stravsons metaphors for the unaccept-
able oul, recur, too. The, even sharpen, if possible, from the as if unut-
tereo ano voros uttereo vithout sa,ing an,thing into the unutterable
see, e.g., Miller ano ohnson-Lairo :q6: :6; L,ons :qq: :.., .q8, or,
on the aooressees part, the unreaoableuninterpretable Van oer Sanot
:q88: :.6, :8:,. Whatever its locus ano t,polog, ano subrules, presupposi-
tion then assimilates to the cross-oisciplinar, grouno rule of ruling oata in
or out a priori, b, formal at.
17
B, itself, grammatical anal,sis can at most ,ielo grammatical features; ano it is preoictable
that vhen pulleo out of its circumscribeo limits to hanole context-oepenoent oiscourse, it
shoulo onl, expose its ovn inaoequac, Sternberg :q8.b: :, :qq:; cf. also the oetaileo cri-
tique of Banelo :q8. in McHale :q8,. Here, vith our inference t,pe, the empirical oisproof
onl, assumes a sharper theoretical eoge because the victim of exclusion b, at proves even
more s,stematicall, explicable along lines unknovn to its excluoers.
:. Here is an echoing counterpart on the level that Stravson voulo be the rst actuall,,
vas among the rst, to oistinguish from statements, namel,, the abstract sentences of the
Given this alignment, presuppositional oeao-enoers nonstarters b, at,
join oropouts in context, on a scale of incongruit,. It onl, remains for the
theorist to construct the machiner, from vhich ever, possible utterance
vill emerge markeo as acceptable utterable, or unacceptable, ano if the
former, vith the right survivors rightl, interpreteo in the right context.
Nothing approaching such formalization has been nor, as I argueo, can
be, oeviseo, but hope springs eternal regaroless. Miller ano ohnson-Lairo
:q6: o, report at secono hano on a computer program that returns an
error vhen faceo vith presuppositional violation: if genuine, the article
voulo long have maoe histor, b, nov. In the most oevelopeo neo-Gricean
theor,, Sperber ano Wilson :qq |:q86|, its equivalent is envisageo as a
thing of the future, ,et of such a range that presupposition backgrouno
entailment, vill unoergo its vetting, or vetoing, along vith all other com-
municateo obliquities.
This formal oeouction s,stem aspires to mooel the s,stem useo b,
human beings in spontaneous inference. At ever, fork, if all goes vell, onl,
the stronger of an, tvo incompatibles vill survive the processing:
The oeouctive oevice has the pover not onl, to reao ano vrite assumptions
|factual representations| in its memor,, but also to erase them. Let us assume
that vhen tvo assumptions are founo to contraoict each other, if it is possible to
compare their strengths, ano if one is founo to be stronger than the other, then
the oevice automaticall, erases the veaker assumption. When an assumption is
eraseo, the oevice also erases an, assumption vhich anal,ticall, implies it, ano
the veaker of an, pair of assumptions vhich s,ntheticall, impl, it; this proce-
oure applies recursivel, until no more erasures can take place. When such a pro-
ceoure is possible, the contraoiction is eliminateo at the root, ano the oeouctive
process can be resumeo. Sperber ano Wilson :qq: qq, :::,
Aomitteol,, though, such a proceoure vhereb, to break the impasse ano
resume inferential vork is not alva,s possible. Nor ooes it greatl, mat-
ter vhether one further ioealizes the mooel of spontaneous inference b,
having it, somehov, sometime, overcome the if s to enable the exclusion-
ar, choice along vith its vhole chain reaction. Meanvhile, the pressure
on the aooressee here-ano-nov to oo something in real time about irre-
oucible contraoiction ooes not appear to trouble the mooel-builoers, vhile
the possibilit, that the aooressor meant something b, it, or that the meaning
language cooe. On then amThursday furiously bed exemplies strings of recognizabl, English
voro-forms . . . vhich are neither grammatical nor ungrammatical. . . . The question vhether
the, are grammaticall, vell-formeo or ill-formeo ooes not arise L,ons :qq: :,. Unutter-
abilit, cuts across oroers of language uses,stem, ano of value grammaticalepistemic,.
When it comes to the infringement of an existential presupposition, the ioiom oul, occurs:
the oenoer fails to express an, proposition at all ibio.: .q8,.
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is inferable, escapes notice altogether. So oo the ampl, attesteo facts that
humans have manageo to aooress the exigenc, quite vell, that their inter-
locutors ano ours, have relieo on this abilit, to no a va, out, ano that the
communicative process has aovanceo not onl, through but via the horns of
the oilemma. The vorlos of art ano quantum mechanics ano ever,oa, talk
alike thrive on contraoiction. We oo better ano other than the fancieo regu-
lator of our spontaneous ooings: the mooel, actual or ioeal, builos upon
false premises that literall, eno in oeaolock.
Were not articles of faith so liable to bino ano blino, as Nelson Goooman
reminos us, all this pseuoo-logic of the terminall, unacceptable voulo be
haro to believe.Whatever holos for sentences, hovever ano vherever the,
exist, utterance ano unutterabilit, make a contraoiction in terms
nonetheless so vhere the metalinguistic pairing appeals to the contraoic-
toriness of the language useo. The former clash alone is unresolvable in
reason.
A piece of oiscourse once uttereo, hov to unutter it` Granteo, it can be
struck out vithout trace, but that is another thing altogether: applicable
onl, to private vriting or thought, never a matter of recoro, contact, ao-
oress, acceptance. In utterance, vocal or vritten, even if retracteo or re-
paireoa thiro thingthe oiscourse vill have been communicateo never-
theless, vith all its infelicities: vithoraval vill onl, re,oravthe aooressees
notice to it, especiall, to the infelicities, most of all the contraoictions. Ano
if left on the table vith them all intacta fourth thing, least imagineo b,
the theories at issue, presuppositionalist inter alia, ,et no less vioel, evi-
oenceohov can the aooressee help accepting itthem as the ocial
recoro, for better or vorse`
18
As no viable oiscourse s,stem or mooel rejects an, token out of accept-
abilit, before the event, nor ooes the aooressee after it on grounos of un-
reaoabilit,, not even in extremis. Some va, into reaoabilit, alva,s arises.
Come to that, the sharper the encountereo oense against reason, or the
rules, the higher the interest, the challenge, the gains, ma,be the stakes of
reasoning it outano the losses that punish resolution failure.
19
With all
oue respect to the lav of contraoiction, ve must not take its breach for a
terminal oisease, much less one vith immeoiate eect; ano a fortiori lighter
:8. The last tvo oiscourse-vith-oiscoro cases vill soon be reneo ano exemplieo in terms
of m, ovn approach to inference as multiform integration. Ior nov, recall the vast boo, of
vork on the genetic fortunes of texts e.g., the Bible, ano the upsurge of interest tooa, in con-
ictual, ambiguous, or unoeterminable meaning, respectivel,; see also McHale :q8: qq:oq
on postmooernist vriting unoer erasure ano van Feer :qq on mutilateo signs.
:q. Even b, the negative oenitional measure of relevance in Sperber ano Wilson :qq
|:q86|, the cost of processing shoulo at least be veigheo against the cost of nonprocessing.
oenses such as presuppositional inconsistenc,. The, all rather make, even
mark, our starting point for inference in the living realit, of communica-
tion.
More generall,, such breaches ano oenses fall unoer the all-embracing
principle that I voulo call the Lavof Reciprocit,: vhatever is expresseo, or
imaginabl, expressible, is b, the same token explainable. Astrict teleo,log-
ical necessit,, if ,ou think about it. Wh, voulo the speaker give utterance
to the absuro The King of Irance is balo or to :,,` That this is the
right question to ask, the one ve aooressees must ano oo in realit, ask, has
been clean forgotten b, the voulo-be pragmaticists. So has been the inni-
tuoe of inferable ansvers, man, of them not even concerneo to rationalize
the statement as such: Hes insane, Hes experimenting vith iambic tri-
meter, Hes alluoing to the StravsonRussell oebate . . . Whatever ,our
ansver, ,ou have thereb, explaineo his expression, contextualizeo his ab-
suroit,. Here, ,ou even literall, reciprocate b, inferring some closure
from the troubleo presuppositional inference., In our communicative af-
fairs, this Lav far outranks that of contraoiction, to the extent of using it as
one premise ano trigger for making sense of the expresseoon a par vith,
sa,, its ver, opposite, reounoanc,.
20
Inversel,, our explanator, resources
vis-a-vis oiscoro far outreach the unilinear rationale of or born of , logic
proper, single-minoeol, intent on vhether the givens ano their oerivations
compose a noncontraoictor, propositional vhole, a frictionless represen-
tational tenor, ioeall, a follovable chain. In presupposition, as in all other
spheres ano oisciplinar, guises, the articial rigor of formalism is therefore
a rigor mortis, out of touch vith this or an, oiscourse vorlo.
Literar, stuo, tenos on the vhole to the opposite extreme. Its normal prac-
titioners vill no an institutionalizeo oeao-eno fallac, haroest to believe.
Coping vith absuroities of oiverse kinos, in oiverse va,s ano texts, has been
their oail, breao for millennia. As alreao, noteo, hovever, inference theor,
in the elo lags saol, behino the mass of oata stuoieo. Collective knovl-
eoge on viev ooes not even match inoivioual if ,ou vill, intuitive, practice
ano competence, far less those of the best reaoers over the ages.
The obstacles to ongoing conceptualization here are too man, to num-
ber, ano themselves t,picall, unoerexploreo. But the, incluoe amnesia, fac-
tionalism, overemphasis of oierence, lust for novelt,, alongsioe objective
factors such as the complexit, ano the intrinsic value of the artvork, hence
.o. M, pairing of the informational extremes alluoes to the fact that reounoanc, has eliciteo
from presuppositionalists much the same oeao-eno veroict: a rioer like ano he killeo his
father in :, voulo then be as unacceptable as its actual inconsistent mate. See note as
vell as example :6,.
Sternberg

of the unoerstanoers operations, ano the sheer, increasing magnituoe of
the taskall so enoemic as to be taken for granteo.The vastness ano variet,
of the heritage associable vith the issue, even if kept oovn to the fraction
bent on the hanoling of textual problems, accoroingl, make the state of
the art oicult to outline. An, ranoom selection, though, vill reveal it as
the babel vithin the babel of inference stuo,.
Consioer one series of lanomarks: the Rabbis arra, of interpretive mid-
dot, Aristotles Poetics on actional ano verbal resolution, the meoieval levels
of signication, Homeric ano Biblical lov ano high criticism, William
Empson :q |:qo|, on t,pes of ambiguit,, Monroe Bearosle, on liter-
ar, explication in his unusuall, empirical ano meaning-orienteo Aes-
thetics :q8: esp. :: .,, Rolano Barthess :q, book-length exercise in
post-structuralist reaoing . . . These mark a broken line, rich in fresh
inference-relateo oepartures ano terminologies, thin in back- ano cross-
reference, let alone s,nthesis, vith Bearosle, a shining exception that
proves the rule. Even on a front ,et narrover ano of more oirect con-
cern to us than assorteo aooitions to reaoerl, equipmentthe sense, or
sense-making, of representationmuch the same positivenegative bal-
ance emerges Sternberg :q8a,. Hence, if ,ou vant to focus the existing
oisciplinar, resources on a nev inferential crux like presupposition, ,ou
scarcel, knov hov to begin, vhere to turn, vhat voulo align vith vhat.
The elo might env, its neighbors their comprehensive, upoateo textbooks
ano surve,s, vhich orient the inquirer for better or vorseexcept that, as
the foregoing anal,sis testies, oroerliness is not all. Their chapters on the
subject, like the given references themselves, just mirror-image the liter-
ar, critical imbalance: entailment, implicature, ano presupposition unvit-
tingl, isolateo fromthe rest, as though there vere nothing else, ano the rst
alone tolerabl, conceptualizeo or aoapteo after the logicians. We shoulo
not have to make the choice betveen the imbalances.
In the stuo, just citeo, I formulate a research program oesigneo nall,
to subsume all our vork ano va,s of inference, literar, or othervise, unoer
the master heaoing of integration. Or the other va, rouno, the program
is oesigneo to break inference oovn into the t,pes, factors, forces that eno-
lessl, compose in practice. The, compose in our reaoing of a oiscourse or
a genre or just an excerpt, in our assorteo reaoing st,les, in our encoun-
ters vith ambiguit,, in our hesitanc, betveen intent ano giveava,, in our
quest for a certain meaning or eect or conguration: vherever ano hov-
ever ve integrate parts b, appeal to some vhole not necessaril, a propo-
sitional vhole, not even vhen presuppositions, sa,, are to be integrateo,.
Iolloving fromthe Lavof Reciprocit,vhat is expressible is explicable
the program voulo translate it into operational terms:
What informs the multiform activit, I have calleo integration is not so much a
sense of purpose as a rage for oroer. If in other voros such a theor, like the
interpretive activit, it s,stematizes, alva,s vorks vith an opposition, it is vith
the all-inclusive one oirecting the vhole process of reaoing: betveen the coher-
ent ano the opaque, the fragmentar,, the incongruous. So an, mechanism that
serves to establish or unoermine, initiate or terminate, reveal or conceal, re-
solve or ambiguate a pattern ano thus to oetermine intelligibilit,, oeserves equal
consioeration, though its integrative role vill of course var, in particular cases.
Thus, the mechanismof integration ma, be functional authorial strateg,, or ge-
netic authorial slip,, formal incluoing t,pographic arrangement, or semantic
from co-reference to vorlo-picture,, sequential like causalit,, or suprasequen-
tial fromrh,me to thematic counterpoint,, extratextual historical circumstance
or philosophical s,stem, or intratextual repetition, built-in probabilit,-register,
or intertextual from allusion to convention,. It ma, be normative or empiri-
cal, lexical or grammatical, ps,chological or ioeological, perceptual or perspec-
tival, referential or rhetorical, logical or chronological or analogical, ubiqui-
tous or archet,pal or generic or unique. Ano so on, till the vhole repertor,
of oroering resources ano sense-making combinations available to humans has
been covereo. Sternberg :q8a: :66,
Irom this vioe-ranging repertor,, Tamar Yacobi :q8:, :q8a, :q8b, .ooo,
has pickeo out ve mechanisms of integration in her vork on narra-
tive un,reliabilit,; ano the, ma, novconvenientl, exemplif, the principle,
vith special regaro to our business vith inferring inference, or reinferring
it unoer pressure. In rough outline, the genetic mechanism integrates ooo
features b, appeal to accioents in the oiscourses proouction e.g., Ireuoian
or authorial slip, or transmission mutilateo, censoreo, baol, eoiteo text,:
to noise, in short. The existential logic assimilates them to the unusual
e.g., supernatural, ontolog, positeo b, the text, the generic to latituoes ano
breaches of stanoaro expression, causalit,, mental life, cooieo in the texts
famil,. The functional logic makes teleological sense of incongruities, b, ref-
erence to the enos shock, amusement, quest for closure, the, full; ano per-
spectival integrationattributes themto the lapses of the meoiator as speaking,
thinking, vriting subject e.g., an unreliable narrator ironizeo b, the au-
thor or the ever,oa, quoter,. Let me novshovhovthese universal mecha-
nisms inter alia, operate inter alia, on our inference about or tovaro infer-
ence, most specicall, about presuppositional inference at the oeao eno, as
it vere.
Among this set of resources, none has suereo such theoretical neglect in
inference stuo,ano across oisciplinar, linesas the genetic. Logicians
oo at least envisage ano name the possible misapplication of entailment
Sternberg

rules, if onl, in varning against a bao eno vhere a gooo one might ano
shoulo come as sviftl,. Their pragmatic ano literar, counterparts scarcel,
recognize the human liabilit, to mischance in prooucing ano transmitting
oiscourseor to noise in receiving itbecause of the ioeal mooel of com-
munication assumeo. Some visionar, variant of error-free competence
lters out the bleaker realities of performance, along vith their infer-
ential bearings. The shareo lust for ioealizing is aioeo ano abetteo b, more
oiscipline-specic forces. Thus the Saussurean langue/parole antinom,, oou-
bling as that betveen the s,stemic ano the fortuitous, hence ungeneral-
izable; or the presumptions of rationalit,, intentionalit,, econom, rele-
vance, in language use, on vhich more belov; or poetic articles ranging
frominspiration to self-conscious artistr,. Theorists vill accoroingl, ignore
the trials of genesis that the, must oail, experience as vriters, reaoers,
speakers, listeners alert to the self-exposure of others, consumers of tex-
tual criticism, heirs to Ireuos ps,chopatholog, of ever,oa, life. It is not
so much that the, theorize against their better knovleoge of the ever-open
oistance betveen intention ano expression, then betveen expression ano
transmission, as that the, consioer the knovleoge unvorth, of theoriz-
ing into a universal mechanism of integrative inference.
21
All this has even
larger consequences than ma, appear, because ioealizing error out of the
s,stemalso minimizes the subjective element, hence the perspectivit, l,ing
at the heart of oiscourse ano marking o factive as presuppositional ois-
course. Wioe asunoer in intentionalit,, betra,ing ones ovn self ano enact-
ing anothers self-betra,al e.g., via contraoiction, ,et refer the giveava,
alike to the vorkings of the subjects mino.
As a reminoer of oiscourse life ano trouble outsioe the Ivor, Tover, con-
sioer a simple pinpoint example. One novelistic character enters brovn-
e,eo; a hunoreo pages later, she xes the hero vith an artless blue e,e
Gilbert :q8: 8, ::,. Those of us vho spot the inconsistenc,ano our
memories are not perfect, eithervill easil, enough suspeno or qualif,
the mooel of ioeal competence in face of it, at least ao hoc. After all, even
Homer sometimes noos. We then refer the clash to the authors amnesia,
oversight, inoeeo lapse into artless-ness, the va, ve voulo geneticize
an, oroinar, t,po, onl, perhaps vith more oeliberation. Ior, in principle,
all other sensemaking resources than the genetic are co-available, vhether
as substitutes or partners. The question is onl, vhat ts the text best: the
.:. Contrast, for example, L,ons :qq: .q8 or Sperber ano Wilson :qq |:q86|: .. Much
the same holos for the othervise richer integrational semantics presenteo in Hrushovski
:q8.: amio the fortuitous likeness in terminolog,, its emphasis on semanticizing oiscounts
the unoerstanoers hovering betveen the authorizeo, or semantic, ano the genetic as rival
routes to integration.
appeal to a performance error or to some communicative, competence-
preserving oesign, ano if the latter, vhich.
Thus, the color of the e,es might literall, have changeo from brovn to
blueano vith it the principle of integration, fromgenetic to existential
given the appropriate realit, ke,: that of fantastic vriting, sa,, or of Robbe-
Grillets La maison de rendezvous, vhere characters keep svitching attributes.
Mooern literar, fantas, even prefers to open vith a realistic-looking vorlo
that shockingl, tvists out of realism thereafter. Hence such othervise im-
possible metamorphoses oo ano, if positeo here, voulo, compouno exis-
tential grounoing vith generic license ano vith the functionalit, of surprise
o,namism. In lieu of one resolution, three at once; insteao of a slip betra,eo
in the vriting, thick sense conve,eo in the process of reaoing. But voulo the
alluring alternative save the text, or rather substitute another, larger incon-
gruit, vith its ver, cooroinates as a oetective novel, realistic inferential ke,
incluoeo`
The fth, perspective-orienteo logic also applies here in theor, change
of color vith change of observer` ve vonoer,. It ma, even cross the genesis,
keeping the ooo lapse as such in pla,, but nov vith an invaro turn ano ois-
course role. Ior the genetic misaoventure can itself get oramatizeo, hence
nevl, integrateo from vithin, in terms of the generators self-repair:
, She voke, blinking in the sunlight, upon the opening of the attic ooor
anomoveoto rise fromthe beo. A,oung voman, a blue-e,eo, brovn-
skinneo Israeli, came in. No, a blue-e,eo Arab voman, oresseo in a
blue shirt ano oark skirt, like a lithe Israeli. She vas carr,ing, over
her arms, some cloth that lookeo like the black-out curtains of var-
time Englano. Whats the time` Barbara saio, feeling oovn into the
pocket of her oressing-govn for her vatch, ano realizing, then, that
the ,oung voman vas Suzi Ramoez. Spark :q6: :8,
6, Tight-lippeo, she tolo him that she vas going back to Aroen post-
haste. She coulont be expecteo to hang arouno vith the press ano
ever,one else knoving that she vas responsible for last nights false
alarm. Or, to be more accurate, that her husbano vas responsible.
Critchle, :qq: ,
, Youre avful smart, ,ou knov that` I vish I hao a college eouca-
tion. . . . Oh, ,eah, ,oure right. I did have a college eoucation. I must
notve been pa,ing full attention. Higgins :q8: :,
Observe the explicit markers of self-repair: No, to be more accurate,
Oh, ,eah, ,oure right. Observe also the variations betveen speech
ano thought unoer instant repair; betveen genuine ano pretenoeo e.g.,
joking, as in the last case, slips of tonguemino; or among the existential
Sternberg

Israeli ,, factive knoving that . . .,, ano counterfactive I vish I
hao . . ., presuppositions that get aojusteo in mio-oiscourse, to the limit
of reversal. Throughout, hovever, the mouth or mino in question enacts a
presuppositional stammer, usuall, folloveo b, an aovance leap, groping,
outsioe orive, tovaro stable commitment.
Real-life equivalents ooubtless suggest themselves, except that the ge-
netic process unfolos in ,, at a remove from rst-oroer speakingano
presupposingano so betveen inverteo commas, visible or oeoucible. We
in turn eavesorop on the characters oramatizeo at eventful self-expression,
rather than pla, their aooressee. Dramatizing the problematic genesis ac-
coroingl, involves its, ano the lapses, relativizing to a certain subject other
than the author: perspectival sense-making, in brief, complete vith narra-
tive energ,. Afar cr, fromthe purel, genetic kino exemplieo at the outset,
vhereb, the responsibilit, for the clash fell straight on the novelist him-
selfor on ourselves in our ever,oa, ill-performance.
Thicker meaning apart, this last option rounos out the exposure of the
oeao-eno fallac,. Novhere inoiscourse vill contraoictions ano lesser absur-
oities just cancel themselves out into nothingness.Unoer the genetic mecha-
nism, though, onl, one of the contraoictor, terms survives the inference,
the others, being ousteo in repair for all communicative purposes. Either
brovn e,es or blue, rst or reviseo eoition, vhichever suits best. But ever,-
vhere else the survivors number the vhole oiscoroant lot. Even vith per-
spectivizeo genesis as vith all nongenetic rationales,, both terms outlive
the nevl, establisheo oroer as joint facts or eects. Insteao of either being
sacriceo to the repatterning, the ill-sorteo pair cohere ano cooperate to
a oenite eno in its light e.g., mimesis of stammering, character portra,al
via self-betra,al, emplotment of thought inano action,, oving to their ver,
shov of inconsistenc,.
Among the alternative mechanisms, the existential integrates the ois-
coroant items b, referring them to some vorlo-frame, novel or establisheo,
actual or possible or ctional. A clan listeo in Watt incluoes Sams other
marrieo oaughter Kate ageo tvent,-one ,ears, a ne girl but a bleeoer
(1 )
,
ano her ,oung cousin husbano, her uncle acks son Sean ageo tvent,-one
,ears, a sterling fellov but a bleeoer too Beckett :qq: :o.,. If ,ou have
misseo the breach of natural lav, a footnote ao loc. vill ensure ,our outrage:
:, Haemophilia is, like enlargement of the prostate, an exclusivel, male
oisoroer. But not in this vork, or rather vorlo. Having aunteo the incom-
patibilit, betveen oisease ano sex, the gloss resolves it ao hoc to maintain
ano, logicall,, normalize the presuppositions of existence vithin a nev ob-
jective context. The notorious The present king of Irance is balo can
alva,s a fortiori, return to presuppositional normalc, along such lines,
as can the most far-fetcheo h,pothetical statement. Ano the objectif,ing
shift ma, in turn range from the unique or one-o to the conventional,
as in the fantastic traoition. More evioentl, ,et, the same holos for inter-
nal realit,, vhich even realistic ontologies in life ano art often picture as
torn b, contraoictor, orives. Thus the age-olo topos of loving ano hating at
once, or Mrs. Dallova, feeling ver, ,oung; at the same time unspeakabl,
olo Woolf :q6o |:q.|: :o,, or the putative unreason of the criminal mino:
The,ll la, tvo completel, incompatible things sioe b, sioe ano contem-
plate them vith the most unquestioning content. You cant make them see
that the, cant have both Te, :qo: :.,. If the, fail to see that the, cant
have both, then ve can have both, too, properl, mappeo onto their cog-
nitive sightlessness as a form, enclave, oiscourse of existential alterit,.
Alva,s a matter of operative context, one texts or one reaoings, in-
consistenc, is anothers ontic intricac,, if not sheer oierence in premises.
Moreover, given the enolessness of possible vorlosvariants of the actual
one incluoeothe frame of reference counting as objective lenos itself to in-
nite aojustment. In or out of presupposition, therefore, it boasts universal
applicabilit, to match its rivals for the best t.
Genres e.g., trageo, versus comeo,, are often oeneo b, their peculiar,
st,lizeo ontolog, as vell as b, their thematics, verbal register, partvhole
coherence, ano artistic license. Therefore, vhile genetic, source-orienteo
necessaril, opposes existential integrationrecall the example of the color
changethe generic principle ma, vell join forces vith it in making sense
of the oiscourse. Hovever oensive against the va, of the vorlo, possibl,
all other vorlos, the breach vill then have its repair in some genres unique
vorlo of oiscourse, oiscourse of the vorlo. Such is the case vith the follov-
ing piece of Carrollian nonsense, vhere incongruit, rises from means to
eno b, generic lav, as vell as, onticall, ano sequentiall,, from the oeviant
to the impossible:
8, But four ,oung O,sters hurrieo up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats vere brusheo, their faces vasheo,
Their shoes vere clean ano neat
Ano this vas ooo, because, ,ou knov,
The, haont an, feet. :qo: .,
The vhole pla, of inconsistenc, about their shoes enacts itself on the
presuppositional stage, builoing up to a oirect clash betveen factives. Ob-
serve hov the process of inference tvists forvaro. The opening reference
to the o,sters shoes jars against our normal vorlo scheme. Yet the ver,
presupposition of existence carrieo b, the referential term ano renoereo
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both more casual-looking ano more appropriate b, the list that casts the
vearers as gooo chiloren groomeo for the treat, implies the normalit,
of the footgear vithin this peculiar literar, frame of reference. No neeo, as
it vere, to assert the existence of the shoesan, more than of the preceo-
ing ano easil, assimilable, coats ano facesonl, of their propriet, for the
treat. ust another itemin an ascenoing series of literalizeo personication,
all explicable b, appeal to generic combineo vith existential license that
proouces the fantas, Wonoervorlo.
Our objections having been anticipateo ano normalizeo, hovever, the
next line at once proceeos to revive them through the backglance this vas
ooo. Oooer, inoeeo, than vhen ,ou think of the follov-up ooo as merel,
voicing our earlier sense of incongruit, vith the oroer of things. Ior vas
ooo is a factive preoicate, hence itself presupposing the truth of vhat it oe-
clares incongruous, namel, the shoes existence this,. B, itself, though,
the tension betveen the presupposeo ano the asserteo is ,et resolvable vith-
out oetriment to eithers claim: man, true things are ooo, surprising, as-
tonishing, increoible. Which is exactl, vh, these oouble-eogeo preoicates
got factivizeo in the rst instance.
But if the asserteo ooo can live vith the references presupposition ano
its ovn, the grouno aoouceo for it cannot. Ooo, because, ,ou knov, The,
haont an, feet piles factive on factive, then after the line break, pits ar-
mative against negative presupposition. The footgear can no longer remain
an oooit, but must turn outrageous if ,ou knovthat the vearers haont an,
feet, nor can ,ou knov about the feets absence amio the footgears ooo
presence. With the forces in conict equall, matcheo, the o,sters eno up
having ano at the same time not having shoesfeet. A logical absuroit,, an
impossibilit, in terms of an, vell-formeo possible vorlo` Of course, but
for that ver, un,reason acceptable ano velcome, inoeeo meaningful along
vith the tvisteo route of inference leaoing up to it, vithin the oiscourse
vorlo generic to Carrollian nonsense.
The famil, likeness to the vriting of Kafka or Beckett, oovn to the oppo-
sition in immeoiate juxtaposition, shoulo be evioent. Not that the ,oking
together of ontic incompatibles strictl, turns on membership in a oenite,
preexisting genre. Consioer hov permanent ambiguities oualize vorlos
events, characters, or inoeeo realit, ke,s, othervise so vioe asunoer as
those of Biblical ano amesian narrative; or, vithin ames, those of the
ghost stor, ano high realism.
22
Onl,, the oeniteness of the t,pe e.g., non-
sense, paraoox, gives its tokens a local habitation ano a name, a stanoing
... Ior oetails ano comparisons, see Sternberg :q8: .6o, :q8: :86.
ano recognizable licenseif not an exclusive imprimaturvhich facili-
tates our oealings vith the absuro.
A generic vorlo being maoe for a purposelike the escalation of incon-
gruit, abovefunctional sense-making necessaril, comes into its piecing
together. Communicative teleolog, motivates representational t,polog,.
As I argueo elsevhere, this accounts even for the largest ontological polarit,
of all: betveen the vorlos at rest associateo vith oescriptive oiscourse ano
the vorlos in motion attaching to narrative. Ior narrativit, lies in a oe-
terminate set of functions, vhose exigencies regulate the pla, of tempo-
ralit, along the sequence, complete vith the appropriatel, emplotteo gaps
ano oiscontinuities Sternberg :q8, :q8: esp. :86.o, :qqo, :qq., .oo:
vith earlier references,. Iromthe integrators sioe, then, the gaps left in the
storieo realit, point ano assimilate to the unique forces of stor,telling: the
three plot o,namics that I call, for short, curiosit,, surprise, ano suspense.
But far from being conneo to an, oomain, generic anoor existential,
sa,, the integration of elements in terms of unoerl,ing goal, eect, means-
eno nexus cuts across oiscourse levels ano ultimatel, unies them all into
a communicative vhole. On the st,listic level, for example, observe hov
glaring clashes ma, no their rationale in a vell-oeneo eect:
q, You have saio vhat` she got out, at last, in a voice as silk, as a
burnt crust of toast. Chanoler :q6o: :o,
:o, She ,avneo again. You interest meso little I coulo harol, tell
,ou. ibio.: .o,
::, The thing vas a life-size stone job of some goo or varrior vhoo
oresseo in such a hurr, heo forgotten to. L,all :q: :o,
:., He lookeo up at me ano nall, askeo in a tragic va,, Do ,ou think
Fhill, |his vife| vill ever speak to me again`
Oh ,es. I imagine so. If onl, to sa, gooob,e. Mortimer :q8:
:oq,
Assorteo-looking, these are all variations on one st,listic oevice: rather than
canceling themselves b, sa,ing one thing ano then unsa,ing it, each utter-
ance veers arouno for surprise. Throughout, the sequence generates the o,-
namics of a tvisteo mini-plot: it lures the aooressee internal hearer anoor
us reaoers, into false unoerstanoing expectanc,, securit,, vith an e,e to
a shock of recognition ano belateo repatterning. This universal surprise
functionalit, even branches out b, genre. The abrupt reversal of the simile
from the pregureo silk-like to an anti-silk, term of comparison, ano of
the expression of interest to an inexpressible lack thereof , both t,pif, Ra,-
mono Chanolers haro-boileo oetective stor,, vhere visecracking passes
for vit ano toughness. More comic are the tvo ensuing inversionsfrom
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the statues oress to unoress, from reunion to parting, from metaphorical
to literal speak, ano from s,mpath, to tvisting the knifeboth in throv-
ava, st,le.
If oovnright assertions ano their entailments are functionall, contraoict-
able, as these reverse for surprise, hov much more so vith the less oirectl,
binoing forms of presupposition:
:, EDWARD vas bloving his mino, unoer the boarovalk. Well m,
mino is blovn nov. . . . Those cream Corfam shoes clumping over-
heao. I unoerstano them nov, for the rst time. Not their molecular
structure, in vhich I amnot particularl, interesteo, but their sacreo-
ness. Their centralit,. The, are the center of ever,thing, those shoes.
The, are it. I knov that, nov. Too bao it is not vorth knoving. Too
bao it is not true. It is not even temporaril, true. Well, that must
mean that m, mino is not full, blovn. Barthelme :q8: :.,
Knovn for a moment to be sacreo ano the center of ever,thing,
the shoes revert b, svift oegrees to their olo, normal footing. Unlike the
earlier quartet, hovever, this re,turn against factive presupposition makes
b, itself functional sense but no onto,logical vhole: it generates surprise, b,
another tvisteo mini-plot, vithout othervise reconciling the inconsistent
terms. Nor voulo it onto,logicall, reconcile them even if ,ou compouno
generic or thematic vith aective function, overall vith sequential eect,
ano have the oiscourse bestov an intrinsic value on incongruit,, nonsense
st,le. Hov voulo attributing tvo enos to the reversal eliminate or oecioe
the antithesis betveen the shoes sacreoness ano oroinariness, centralit,
ano marginalit,` The breach of factive commitment ma, then oouble its
gains, ,et alva,s short of healing.
Unhealable b, an, of the rationales so far examineo, the breachstill lenos
itself to closure in terms of the perspectival mechanism. Actuall,, the en-
tire quoteo passage is ankeo b, the apparent incompatibles, m, mino is
full, blovn nov. . . . m, mino is not full, blovn, vhich together capture
ano foregrouno ano enclose a peculiar subjectivit, at vork. Thus the tvo
heao-on clashes, the innermost one I knov as against not true, ano the
outermost one, explain each other b, reference to a single il,logic, even a
single trajector,: the zigzag movement of a ps,che unoer the inuence of
orugs. Aristotle, if equal to the culture gap ano the lovlife, might ioentif, it
as peripet, cum reoiscover, ano self-oiscover,, vith appropriate surprises
along the va,.
Blovn for a time, perhaps onl, vishfull, so, Eovaros mino ooes or
voulo experience knov, the transformation of the shoes; ,et, not full,
blovn after all, the realit, principle gains control over his mino again
ano negates b, oegrees the hallucinator, insight into things. The imagineo
knovleoge rst loses its value not vorth knoving,, then its valioit,
not true,, then its valioit, for the ouration not even temporaril, true,:
a process, not a point, of return to humorum existence. In face, in place,
even in light of an apparentl, unstable, contraoictor, ontolog,, ve trace a
o,namic vievpoint on it vhereb, to motivate i.e., unif,, its shifting images
ano artful operations through a lov epistemic, re,cognitive aoventure in
progress; insteao of a broken, there emerges a oelusive factivit,, vithoravn
b, the subject once he comes to his senses.
As the minos subjective experience comes full circle, so ooes our out-
line of sense-making logics. Ior :, loops back to the stammers folloveo b,
corrective touches, even oroeals that vere vocall, or vorolessl, enacteo as
earl, as ,,, exemplif,ing perspectivizeo hence narrativizeo, genesis at
vork in less unusual circumstances. Ano ,et, hovever striking the likeness,
it extenos much further, because instances of perspectival integration share
a vioer common oenominator than self-repair.
Even at its most oiscernible, this famil, likeness neeo not run to a vhole
trial-ano-error process unoergone b, the subject. It just involves some error
e.g., factivizing an untruth, that ve coherence-seekers attribute, ano thus
relativize, to some fallible subjectas oistinct fromthe appropriate higher-
oroer subject quoter, narrator, author, e.g., Barthelme in |:|, Spark in ||,
taken to knov better, vith ourselves, ano counting as objective. The latter,
ve then infer, has the formers perspective expose itself in ano through its
oeviant subjectivit,, vith or vithout self-correction, more overtl, or less, for
artistic or oroinar, pragmatic enos. Of these, neeoless to sa,, the common-
est is iron,, built into the oiscrepanc, in vievpoint, epistemic or othervise.
Nor inoeeo ooes the launching of such operation require so much as the
surfacing, or suspicion, of error. An, gap, blur, excess, oooit,, oissonance,
ill-formeoness, peculiar turn of phrase or mino vill oo for trigger. Whether
it justies perspectivizing, even vhether it shoulo trigger a quest for inte-
gration at all, is another, empirical matter, outsioe the scope of oiscourse
theor,., Onl,, the less salient the clues to perspectival inference compare
|8| or |q| vith ||,, the more ooes some rival logic suggest itselfor none
vhatever, as is usual in oeao-eno presuppositional orthooox,.
In illustrating a research program vhere ever, oeao eno counts as a begin-
ning for enoless inferential movements tovaro sense, hovever, this quick
outline also generates to some, voulo oeepen, a ooubt about the particu-
lar movement in question here, inoeeo about its ver, particularit,. Or, at
least, it highlights a oesioeratum regaroing the arguments sequel. As al-
reao, generalizeo ano nov, I hope, brought out, integration encompasses
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the vhole repertoire of oroering resources ano sense-making combinations
available to humans. This follovs from the Lav of Reciprocit,, since the
abilit, to explain vhatever is expresseo, or expressible, hinges on ones
being as full, equippeo at the receiving integrating, as at the transmit-
ting oisintegrative, eno. So, vere integration at large our topic, then
stretching ano variegating ano lling out the range chosen here voulo nov
be oemanoeo, along the lines telegraphicall, ennumerateo at the outset.
One might also proceeo to concentrate on those lines, the va, I have oone
elsevhere onintegrationof anovia time, space, analog,, narrative function-
alit,, quoteo oiscourse, stereot,ping, for example, or Yacobi on un,reliable
telling. As it is, the set of mechanisms just pickeo out rather urge the neeo
for ner oiscrimination; onl, thereb, ma, ve suit the inferential proceoure
to the inference t,pe unoer anal,sisespeciall, vhen gone vrong on the
surface ano left for oeao b, theor,.
Those ve integrational logics are ever-available, variousl, combinable,
extenoible all the va, from voro to vork, applicable to each ano ever,
trouble spot in oiscourse. B, the same token, hovever, their ver, univer-
salit, must restrict their oierential pover, as crosscutting vill alva,s blunt
the cutting eoge. Left at that, the, vill harol, capture the specialness of an,
special caselike presuppositional trouble ano resolution, for example
but vill insteao group it vith all others: unoer the heaoing of genesis, exis-
tence, genre, ano so forth. We ma, vant or neeo to invoke them for that
ver, reason, of course. Hov to make tolerable sense of the clash of factives
in the nonsense example vithout appealing to high-level generic purpose`
But then, hov to oiscriminate that non,sense-making ano its beneciaries
from their assorteo factiveless even presuppositionless, equivalents in the
same nonsense text ano text famil,, never mino oiscourse at large`
The pla, of perspectives, I vill soon argue, oers the ke, to the reoe-
nition, unoerstanoing, ano, as necessar,, unraveling of factivit,, hence to
troubleo presuppositional inference in other shapes. Let me therefore em-
phasize that, unless oul, aoapteo to the specic task, this pla, is no excep-
tion to the rule. At the high level of generalit, so far maintaineo, the imbal-
ance betveen the inclusiveness ano the oierentialit, of resolution shovs
itself in the perspectival mechanismas elsevhere. Like the rest of the master
ke,s, it unlocks too man, ooors here, oistances too man, infelicities ava,
from the author, to single out ano ioentif, for us an, particular one.
Ior example, compare :, vith breakoovns of alternative inference pat-
terns, notabl, entailment ano implicature:
:, M, bearo is resenteo because m, philosoph, is resenteo. Fhiloso-
phers vear bearos; ulian vears a bearo; therefore ulian is a phi-
losopher ano ma, share vith that subversive tribe sentiments hostile
to the superstitions of the Galileans. Vioal :q: .o8,
:, This vas Mr. Hacketts attituoe tovaros things that pleaseo him. He
knevthe, vere not his, but he thought of themas his. He knevthe,
vere not his, because the, pleaseo him. Beckett :qq: ,
:6, Its long, saio the Knight, but its ver,, very beautiful. Ever,boo,
that hears me sing iteither it brings the tears into their e,es, or
else
Or else vhat` saio Alice, for the Knight hao maoe a suooen pause.
Or else it ooesnt, ,ou knov. Carroll :qo: o6,
The s,llogismin :, boasts stanoaro formano oroer: major premise, minor
premise, conclusion. Yet the argument is evioentl, invalio, since the con-
clusion about ulians being a philosopher much less the rioer vilif,ing him
b, association, is not oeoucible fromthe premises. Or, the other va, rouno,
the, fail to entail it. What exactl, has gone vrong` The simplest label is
the fallac, of accioent: even if all members of the philosopher class happen
to vear bearos, sharing the inessential attribute of bearoeoness vill not ,et
make an,one e.g., ulian, a philosopher. Hence the oeouctive chain breaks,
regaroless of the truth or falsit, of the constituent propositions.
Q.E.D., the logician voulo concluoe, as vill the logical oetector in us
reaoers ano text anal,sts. As such, though, ve must proceeo further, the
oemano for our ovn logics arising exactl, here. To us, the real question
is not vhere but vho the breach of oeouctive argument comes from, ano
vh,. The non sequitur, ve go on to infer in our turn, is perpetrateo against
rather than b, the overt teller in this historical ction, the emperor ulian.
If an,thing, he cites it to explain ano oerioe another non sequitur, that is,
the putative resentful causal linkage betveen his bearo ano his philoso-
ph,. All along, he ellipticall, argues, the one term issues from the other
the eect fromthe because of resentment, the s,llogistic consequent from
the anteceoents, the latter fromthe former chainonl, in the mouths, ano
perhaps the minos, of his Christian enemies, the Galileans.
The false entailment sequence is theirs accoroingl,, virtuall, tvisting for-
varo betveen inverteo commas. They oeno against reason to oestabilize
a philosopher-king hostile to their superstitions; all the more freel, so
because the art of reasoning like philosoph, ano rationalit, as a vhole,
stanos for the pagan Greco-Roman culture to vhich the so-calleo apostate
voulo restore the Empire. Whether traineo or oabbling in the hateful art,
the, never scruple to vielo it in their hol, propaganoa var. Theirs, in short,
are not logical but ps,cho-logical rules applieo vith theo-logical license.
His superstition being the true faith to them, his philosoph, their sub-
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versive tribe, his Galilean their Christ, his goos their ioolatr,, the enos
of anti-ulian rhetoric justif, the means.
Conversel,, so far from sharing the train of fallacies, the philosopher
king vants his reaoer to oetect ano savor them, in the hope that the irra-
tionalit, in rational form vill boomerang on its originators ano publishers.
Little vonoer he so follovabl, because, then the s,llogism, complete
vith therefore, oroers the aspersions cast on him into inferential or argu-
mentative sequences that oo not follov. He inoeeo beats the Christians at
their supposeo game of aoopting the others abominable veapons. To this
extent, at least, in turning antagonistic voros, thoughts, ano plo,s against
the vievpoint that has generateo them, ulian reveals himself an heir to
that subversive tribe.
B, the eno of the inferential process, then, ve no i.e., arrange, tvo
minos ano tvo orives in scalar oppositiontvo varring perspectives con-
textualizeo as high versus lov, ironist versus ironizeobelovthe surface of
one illogical oiscourse. We gure out not onl, vhere ano vho the unreason
comes from but also vh,. A oouble vh,, actuall,: vh, incurreo b, the
original subjects, ano vh, transmitteo to us b, the rational narrator of the,
ano their, oiscourse.
The basic explanator, principle carries over to :,, vith four main vari-
ants. Here ve reconstruct afresh tvo minos in hierarchical opposition, ,et
not those of tvo speakers: a subjects thought Hacketts attituoe tovaro
things,, rather, gets exposeo b, an other-minoeo teller. Moreover, the ex-
posure is graoual ano tortuous. It rises from the strangeness of the but
a jealous or a self-oeluoing ps,che` ve vonoer, to the non sequitur of the
because vhereb, either inference about Hacketts ps,che must unoer-
go orastic revision to suit vith the nevl, revealeo irrationalit,,. In turn,
hovever mino-boggling, the non sequitur shifts oenses from oeouctive
il,logican entailment failure, as in the ulian s,llogismto im,proba-
bilit,: it takes anabnormal minoto forge a causal chainthat grounos avare-
ness of nonpossession in pleasure.
Last, the chain startsor, as bets the tvisting ascent of the insioeviev,
restartsvith a factive, He knev the, vere not his, because. . . . The
ensuing non sequitur therefore orives the reaoer back to question the fac-
tive statement itself. Are ve to unoerstano that Hackett reall, knev it or
that he onl, imagineo he knev` Does the narrator oissociate himself from
the subjects mental causation as a vhole, or vithorav commitment from
the eect alone, subjectif,ing relativizing, ironizing, the ostensible knovl-
eoge of nonpossession` Whatever one makes of this ambiguit,ano ve vill
come back to the issuethe resolutions harol, var, in essentials. The, in-
volve constructing some perspectival oualit, to accommooate a series of
oissonances, ooo factivit, among them: not even at their heao in either text
oroer or scale of importance.
But oovnright unreasonitself coexists vithother triggers for perspectival
removal, as for integration in general. Thus :6, manifests neither a break-
oovn of entailment nor even an improbabilit,. If an,thing, the oisjunctive
proposition that the song either . . . brings thetears into their |the auoitors|
e,es, or else. . . . it ooesntvith factivit, ,ou knov, again throvn in
is all too logical: so much so as to become necessaril,, anal,ticall, true,
hence tautological.
Ior once, therefore, the surface failure in coherence has nothing to oo
vith an, textbook logic but is purel, oiscoursive ano accoroingl, referable,
as illogic, to another rationale altogether. The oiscourse here changes of-
fenses against meaningfulness from the polar extreme illustrateo b, the
earlier cases, namel, inconsistenc,, to another extreme, that of reoun-
oanc,.
23
Yet the informational value of either ma, still appear to remain nil:
as the rst ostensibl, contraoicts itself to leave nothing, so the secono pre-
oicts itself to aoo nothing. Necessaril, true in all possible vorlos, incluoing
Wonoerlano, hovcan the tautolog, be othervise than uninformative` The
opposeo routessemantic as vell as oisciplinar,voulo then leao to the
same oeao eno.
Our example eluoes sense-making even on the best knovn approach to
inference in pragmatics, Grices Logic ano Conversation :q,. Accoro-
ing to it, the oisjunction voulo come unoer infringements of the rst maxim
of Quantit,, Make ,our contribution |to the talk exchange| as informative
as is requireo ,, ano so possibl, generate some implicature.
I for one no Gricean implicature, along vith the maxims ano the Co-
operative Frinciple behino it all, much too ill-oeneo to establish an infer-
ence t,pe on a par vith entailment or presuppositionor to cover the entire
range of our h,pothesis making throughout oiscourse. But lets assume the
machiner, for the sake of argument.
In its terms, such nonconformit, to the maxim as the White Knights
opens four possibilities Grice :q: q,. But none of them applies to him,
because all presume the speakers control ano the reference in eect,
the smooth assimilation, of the noncompliance to his ovn intentionalit,.
Speaker-baseo variants of functional reasoning, ,ou might call them from
.. I have elsevhere vritten on hov these tvo extremes in the shape of gaps or ambiguit,
versus overtelling, join oenses, ano ultimatel, forces, even in genres vhere ,ou voulo least
expect it: narrative vith a strong truth claimano the oiscourse of the lav. See Sternberg :q8:
esp. 6o, :qq8 esp. Inoex unoer Gaps ano gap-lling, Reounoanc,,, ano, vith special
regaro to factivit,, :q86.
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our higher grouno. Ano that presumption of the utterers choosing among
meaningful alternatives fails here, as often elsevhere, all along the line.
Iirst, the Knight ooes not quietl, ano unostentatiousl, violate a maxim,
least of all vith a misleaoing intention or outcome. Nor, secono, ooes
he opt out from the rules, if onl, because he contributes to the best of
his abilit,. Nor, thiro, is he faceo b, a clash betveen the oemano for in-
formativeness ano some other maxim. Norleast of allooes he out
the maxim of Quantit, itself, blatantly going against it vith a viev to
generating an implicature. The poor Knight is as little capable of such oe-
vious exploitation as of hiooen misoirection; ano even if he vere, neither
plo, voulo explain his aberrant oiscourse, to Alice or to ourselves. B, a
nev route, ve arrive at the usual oeao eno.
An inference call it implicature if ,ou vill, albeit b, oefault onl,, ooes
avait computation here. Yet the lines betveen vhich it lurks ano the logics
vhereb, it operates or emerges are unoreamt of in Grices philosoph, as
such, because raoicall, other ano vioer than speaker-orienteo. I refer not
just to the compounoeo generic ano functional integration, vhereb, all
nonsense makes sense in Carroll, or Beckett, but also specicall, to a fresh
perspectival variation.
The Knights suooen pause betveen the tvo oisjuncts, unoerlineo b,
Alices nuoging for closure, evioentl, heightens expectanc, to reoouble the
anti-climactic eect of the ois,closure. But ooes the Knight himself maneu-
ver for this eect on Alice, or is he maneuvereo b, Carroll into springing
it on us reaoers` Either fork voulo result in an insioeviev of his exigenc,,
character, subjectivit,.
If himself the maneuverer, to Alices oiscomture, he becomes Hatter-
like in antisocial perversit,, inoeeo uncooperativeness: a reaoing incon-
sistent vith his behavior as champion ano oialogist at once. If far more
probabl,, himself maneuvereo b, Carroll the author, then the oisjunctive
nonsense eect has its motivation in another perspectival inference, cast-
ing him as a benevolent bungler happil, transporteo to a oiscourse frame
be,ono his ken. The abrupt pause nov reects the speakers baement.
He has no ioea hov to nish ano, unoer Alices pressure, comes up vith
the most logical, tautological oisjunct: insteao of aooing an,thing nev
about the song, it betra,s the preoicament of the singer to-be as a oialo-
gist ano, more obliquel, ,et, his eectiveness as a ctional creature on this
ver, grouno. A piece of arrant nonsense in lifelike, rst-oroer terms, the
Knights is re,stageo vithin ano for a mimetic art of nonsense.
If Carroll specializes in communication trouble, all the va, to break-
oovn, it is less his pushing the universal ills to an extreme than his trao-
ing on them at the characters expense that makes the oierence from the
immeoiac, of talk in the real vorlo. Were a similar mishap to befall an,
of us, our conversational partners inference of it voulo, certainl, might
locate vhat has gone vrong in our mino, vithout proceeoing to make it
right b, appeal to some virepuller behino the scenes. Yet the giveava, g-
ureo out in the process remains a giveava,, ano as such informative about
its utterance-origin, hence integrative ano meaningful, though harol, com-
municative, because unintenoeo ano unfunctional. It takes ction or more
generall, quotation, vith its oouble originator, to make the giveava, com-
municative, too, on a level higher than the immeoiate, other than the ill-
performance born of genesis. As alva,s in genetic reaoingano never
in Grice et al.the inference maps the troublesome oiscourse givens onto
the speakers self-exposure rather than self-expression; the latter, if an,, fur-
ther entails the vantage point of the artful exposer in control of the vhole
shovironic perspectivizing, that is.
But then, this ver, open-enoeo range of applicabilit, shovs the prin-
ciple that I invokeo to be too strong for our neeos here, a counterpart of the
veak logical ano pragmatic alternatives entrencheo in the elo. If all is grist
that comes to the perspectival millall inference t,pes among the rest of
comersve might as vell acquiesce in the mainstreamlines of anal,sis that
voulo reouce factive, presupposition to entailment anoor the mixeo bag
of implicature.
24
This alignment might even plug various glaring holes in
either reouctive approach. Strategicall,, I have just exemplieohovto tran-
sceno the narrovness of speaker- anoor intentionalit,-baseo inferencing.
More to the immeoiate crux, take an apparent presupposition failure, like
inconsistenc, vithin a knovleoge statement. Confronteo vith it, our arra,
of mechanisms vill generate senseinoeeo, an embarrassment of riches,
as abovevhere the unitar, entailment anal,sis legislates a oeao eno ano
implicature theor, lacks the pover to break through on its ovn grouno or
oeouctive oevice. But the aovance in integrabilit, voulo then proceeo
on such a vioe front as to merge presupposition afresh vith neighbouring
kinos of inference, even less extricabl,, if an,thing.
To have the best of integrative vorlosano to prove either assimilation
vrongour universal resources must nov be specieo in keeping vith the
crux itself, the toolbox geareo to the target ano the task. Having shovn the
various va,s of rescuing factive inconsistenc, from sheer oeao-eno nullit,,
that is, ve must go on to shov hov, vh,, ano to vhat eect factivit, can
.. Among these attempts, alreao, exemplieo above, the most piquant is Grice :q8q: .6q
8: in a stuo, oeoicateo to Stravson, Grice argues for the assimilabilit, of the oeoicatees
inference t,pe to his ovn implicature ano at a pinch to Russell-st,le entailment. The notes
on factivit, there ibio.: .88:,, b, the va,, are particularl, veak.
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be saveo from the inconsistenc, that ostensibl, threatens its ver, oening
attribute: from the breach of commitment to the truth of the proposition
expresseo b, the suboroinate clause. Does the coherence ve gureo out be-
tveen knov ano not true in :,, sa,, illustrate the oiscoursevioe prin-
ciple that applies ever,vhere or a suboivision of it aoapteo to the particular
bono-violating incoherence arisen there` If the latter, vhat becomes of the
analogous factive incoherences othervise settleo in 8,` Ano vhat of the
other, nonfactive incoherences analogousl, settleo in :,:6,` The ansver
requires a closer look at the oistinctive properties of factivit,.
3. Factivity as Quotation
The ke, to factivit,b, extension, also to a host of presuppositional issues
ano triggerslies in the oistinctive perspectival pla, built into it. This pla,
oerives in turn, as I have long argueo :qq, :q8b, :q86,, from its quota-
tional nature, vith component vievpoints to match, especiall, the quoters
ano, or against, the quotees. This perspectival interpla,, I voulo further ar-
gue, subsumes, interrelates, ano o,namizes all orientational parameters
incluoing those usuall, lumpeo together unoer contextso as to enable
a principleo ,et exible account, ano vhere necessar,, resolution, of fac-
tivit,s vorkings. But let me oevelop the arguments in oroer.
A verb like knov entails quotation: oiscourse about oiscourse, one
subjects report of anothers utterance or, most evioentl, here, thought
e.g., knovleoge state,. It therefore shares, ano inoeeo richl, manifests, all
the universals that oene this protean form of representing or, better, re-
presenting, the vorloat a remove. But then, so oo its nonfactive equivalents,
believe for example. The peculiarit, of knov is accoroingl, founo less
in than vithin quotation, vhose high common oenominator ooes not ,et
suce to tell the verb-t,pes apart. Ior oistinctiveness, ve neeo to align the
factives specics as a variet, of secono-oroer, bifocal oiscourse ano as a
presuppositional trigger commitment, inference,.
In this section, ve vill explore the former crux: vh, quotation attaches
to the verb-t,pes at issue, hov it maps itself on them, ano vhere the pre-
suppositional variable must enter to orav the line. Though a rst step, it
shoulo bring out the ruoiments generall, misseo as vell as clear some mis-
unoerstanoings out of the va,.
25
Compare tvo simple hence, for once, maoe-up, examples, opposeo vith
regaro to factivit,:
.. Incluoing the strange obstacles to the ver, treatment of such obvious mental preoicates
as reportive or as hallmarks of inoirect report: see note o belov.
:a, We faceo each other in silence. He knevthat I hao got the evioence.
:b, We faceo each other in silence. He believeo that I hao got the evi-
oence.
In either case, the oiscourse traceabl, moves fromrst to secono level, from
speaking proper to quoting. It goes fromthe self I, representing the vorlo
in his ovn name, vith us hearersreaoers as immeoiate aooressees, to the
self penetrating the mino of another he, to meoiate ano thus re-present
vhat this other has supposeol, alreao, representeo knev, believeo, to
himself, namel,: the evioence gathering oone b, his former interlocutor
ano current quoter.
Broken oovn into more rigorous terms, either movement exhibits ano
traverses in oue sequence all the three necessar, elements of quotation.
26
What ma, be calleo the overall frame of oiscourse that the speaking-I shares
vith his ovn auoience the implicit ,ou, here ourselves, leaos the va,.
Shares, that is, in the oouble sense of commonalit, ano communicative-
ness, as exemplieo b, the opening stage oirection. There ensues the re-
porting clause vith its cognition or, elsevhere, utterance, verb, or thetrans-
former. Via this intermeoiar,, self-expression still orienteo to the frame on
the oeictic axes of time, novthen, ano person, Ihe, mooulates into
quotation bearing on the thiro-person knoverbeliever,. Iinall, comes the
quote itself, or inset, vhich purports to transmit the other subjects origi-
nal thought, what he knevbelieveo. Here our aooressor has altogether
shifteo roles ano voices from speaker to quoter in re,imaging for us the
quotees mental image of their interrelation at the time. Thus far, the ex-
amples run parallel.
The parallel extenos to the choice maoe out of the quotational reper-
toire, that is, to the surface form assumeo b, the oeeper musts of trans-
former ano inset. Both examples combine the s,ntactic embeooing ano
the oeictic one-centereoness that t,pif, the quoting form of inoirect ois-
course. Observe hov the transformerinset nexus surfaces, or ooubles, as
a passage from main clause to object, that-clause, ano hov the anchorage
in the I establisheo as earl, as the frame, persists throughout.
27
Con-
.6. Necessar,, I mean, to the ver, constitution hence, reversel,, unoerstanoing, of quota-
tional oiscourse as such, ,et not necessaril, as manifest i.e., actualizeo, on the surface as
in inoirect oiscourse. E.g., both the oirect ano the free inoirect schemas ma, oispense vith
an overt quoting context frame, anoor quoting clause transformer,, vhich ve then
mentall, suppl, to re,constitute the appropriate schemas. The quoteo utterance or thought
inset, alone oemanos material surfacing, if onl, for the reason that it can trigger the repair
of its hiooen fellov elements, but not vice versa.
.. Likevise vith the alternative set of main clause preoicates, vhich take a subject rather
than an object complement, e.g., It mattereoseemeo to him that I hao got the evioence.
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versel,, among the same quoting repertoire, neither example might in prin-
ciple opt insteao for the oirect form. He knevbelieveo: You have got
the evioence jars at such a profouno level as to oeter even literar, ex-
perimenters. Directness, vhere transformer ano inset enjo, both s,ntactic
ano oeictic inoepenoence of each othertvo sentences, tvo zero points
is unavailable to these mino-quotations. Nor to them onl,, since the rule
constrains nearl, all mental preoicates, the philosophers so-calleo verbs
of propositional attituoe. Among the likevise constraineo are suppose, real-
ize, observe, forget viththink the ooo verb out,. Hovever ,ou name them, the
limitation visibl, ano literall, raises their common oenominatoras high
as the surface form. What vith the unconstraineo utterance verbs say, ex-
claim, at the other pole, ranging at vill betveen oirect ano nonoirect st,le,
the famil, likeness vioens in :a,:b, from the matter to the manner of
re-presentation: from insioe-vieving transformer He knevbelieveo, to
tvice suboroinateo inset.
28
The nev light throvn on our tvo paraoigm cases is alreao, easil, enough
measurable. The ke, of quotation once supplieo, the traoitional balance of
equivalence ano oierence betveen them unoergoes a sea change, even on
the funoamental level of anal,sis, along vith the anal,tic tools themselves.
Across the line of factivit,, the overlap multiplies in extent ano areas vhile
the oiscrepanc, shrinks on further reanal,sis.
As to the overlap, it far outreaches the narrovcorresponoencein com-
plementation, semantic representation, propositional attituoe, ano the
likeoravn b, earlier theor,, starting vith Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk,s classic
Iact :q:,, the most intensive ano inuential vork on the topic. Before
shoving vh, their anal,sis fails, let me emphasize the comparative reason-
ableness of their general assumptions, intent on oierentiating, for better or
vorse, vhere successors have proouceo a mishmash. The Kiparsk,s never
confuse factive, presupposition vith entailment anoor implicature, but
rather vant to mark it o from nonfactivit, e.g., He believeo that . . . in
|:b|, that takes analogous surface forms. The, locate the oierence in the
speakers commitment to the truth of vhat the embeooeo clause expresses
an echo of Stravson on existential presupposition, rather than in appro-
priateness to some muooleo context. Nor voulo the, oream of severing
factive presuppositionalit, from its anchorage in the languagethe factive
Here the transformer still controls the that-inset, across the variation in the latters grammati-
cal role, as vell as across the factivenonfactive bounoar,.
.8. The exceptional freeoom of think probabl, oerives from the immemorial mooeling of
thought on speech, if not vocal utterance: the soul at self-oiscourse.
main-clause preoicate, or trigger. On the contrar,, the trouble is that the,
voulo overconnect, attempting to package the oistinctive, commitment-
bearing lexis vith the grammar, the higher-clause verbs sense vith the
overall s,ntax: as if the factive t,pe vere sui generis on tvo levels at once,
an ioeal linguistic match.
In their ovn voros, the, unoertake to explore the interrelationship of
s,ntax ano semantics in the English complement s,stem. Our thesis is that
the choice of complement-t,pe is in large measure preoictable from pre-
supposition as a semantic variable, so that a series of s,stematic oier-
ences reveals itself betveen the factive ano non-factive preoicates ibio.:
,. What actuall, reveals itself is the oefeat of the matchmakers inter-
level unoertaking: their ver, limiteosuccess amounts to a boomerang eect.
In overpolarizing the t,pes, the neater, fuller the tvofolo binarism the
Kiparsk,s voulo impose, the more numerous the actual intert,pe conti-
nuities that emerges,ntactic ano semantic, oeep ano supercial, built-in
ano optional, given ano resistant to the linguists ioea of s,stematizing. In
turn, I vill argue, the continuities pinpoint the real oivergence operative
on the factivenonfactive axis.
That Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, oo glance at the phenomenon of quotation,
onl, to excluoe it from the issue unoer anal,sis, highlights the oversight.
Ior the, prelimit the term to oirect quotesassociable vith neither be-
lieve nor knovano b, va, of false transformational conjecture at that:
vhat one quotes are surface structures ano not oeep structures 6,.
29
So
factives ano nonfactives are oenieo a priori the attributes, resources, inoeeo
the ver, name of quoting, along vith all surface-preserving value. Both
alike remain mere semantic representations expresseo vithin the com-
plement s,stem 68,: a tag as little unif,ing ano as little oierential as
the philosophers bracketing the tvo preoicates unoer propositional atti-
tuoes.
An aliveness to the multiple forms of quoting raoicall, changes the pic-
ture, inoeeo the paraoigm. It at once brings out the markeo common oe-
nominator of representing as re-presentingsemanticall, as othervise
ano apropos a pair like believeknov, the still higher commonalit, of
re-presenting thought. This in turn has constructional implications, among
others. Either re-presenteo thought necessaril, assumes some frame-
transformer-inset shape peculiar to quotational, secono-oroer oiscourse.
.q. On the unoerl,ing oirect speech fallac,, as I call it, see the arguments ano evioence in
Sternberg :q8:, :q8.a, :q8.b, :q8: 6o, :qq:, nov vioel, accepteo. If ,ou vonoer vh,
the obvious-looking factivit,inoirectness tie still neeos to be argueo ano oierentiateo
against continuing opposition, ma,besuch attachment to reao,-maoe oisciplinar, labels
,ielos at least part of the ansver.
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That constructional peculiarit, sharpens further in the movement tovaro
the actual oiscourse as proouceo ano encountereo, given the categorical
absence of oirectness from the quotational repertoire elsevhere open to
the quoter. Within the common inoirectness of the thought re-presenteo in
the believeknov examples, the unoerl,ing quotation-vioe construction
even maps itself onto a oeterminate surface structure, ioentiable b, the in-
sets tvofolo suboroinac, to the transformer: s,ntactic as that-clause, ano
oeictic as frame-orienteo, or backshifteo, in time, space, ano, above all,
person,.
Frior to such lov-level specicit,, the issue of clausal, let alone object
that . . .,, complement never arises at all hereliterall, ooes not break
surfaceano evenso it arises ina markeo realm, compan,, ano role: among
other features of inoirectness the equall, specic oeixis incluoeo, that ao-
vertise ano enform the multifolo famil, likeness betveen the knov ano
the believe sets. Novhere outsioe inoirect re-presentation is the object
clause founo, novhere else oistinguishable as such from ioentical-looking
thats embeooeo in sentences.
30
The embeooing of the inset i.e., the re-
presenteo speech or, here, thought, in the form of object clause exhibits a
cross of s,ntax, oeixis, ano mimesis unique to inoirect reporting but not to
factive inoirectness: on the contrar,, the transformer in the higher clause
ma, equall, orav its verb from the nonfactive set. The cross makes, or
makes over, a bono rather than a barrier.
Ior nov, this aovance fromoepth to surface, fromthe mimetic to the con-
structional to the formal properties, shoulobe enoughto clinchthe point. In
uncovering, interlinking, ano explaining all these properties, the approach
via quotation alreao, establishes its superiorit, to the traoitional Kiparsk,-
t,pe line of anal,sis. So relocateo ano reconceiveo, the factivenonfactive
continuit, thickens, sharpens, oenes itself to an extent ano on levels be-
,ono the reach of such blanket-terms as complementation, semantic rep-
resentation, or propositional attituoe.
Inversel, vith the areas of s,ntactic oierence that voulo separate our
tvo examples accoroing to Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk,.These novoramaticall,
shrink, because the criteria for oelimitation vill not bear scrutin,. Here, of
o. One must guaro against overextenoing inoirect report to all sentences vith complement
clauses, vhich voulo orag in the nonreportive It is a fact that . . . ano the like. On the
other hano, ano vith even less reason, Cohn :q8, taken up in Iluoernik :qq, voulo ex-
cluoe most such sentences from inoirectness: she vants to associate the linguistic form vith a
certain representational function. This arbitrar, package oeal voulo in eect consign factive
reports inter alia, to the miscellan, of Cohns ps,cho-narration. It also vorsens ano, as
it vere, vinoicates the prevalent tenoenc, to oiminish the extent ano the art of inoirectness,
factive or nonfactive, among the forms of thought report.
course, ve move oovn to the next lovest levels of specicit,: those belov
clausal complementation, the forking into object versus subject clause in-
cluoeo see note .,. Even at such levels, though, the presupposition-laoen
ano the presuppositionless sentences turn out to eluoe formal oichotomiz-
ing. In other voros, the, resist the attempts to correlate semantic vith s,n-
tactic oierence into a xeo package oeal. The resistance, total or partial,
shovs all along the line that the linguists voulo orav; unit, replaces, or
at least mooerates ano complicates, the allegeo oivergence. The respec-
tive correlations, hence the overall antithesis, prove on scrutin, to be veak,
oouble-eogeo, never univalent.
Take the attempt to mark o factive fromnonfactive constructions b, the
placement of the embeooeo clause m, inset, betveen the beginning ano
the eno of the sentence relative to m, transformer,. With subject clauses,
accoroingl,, extraposition |eno placement| is optional for factives, vhile
obligator, for nonfactives. Thus,
That ohn has come makes sense factive,
*That ohn has come seems non-factive,
vhere the secono sentence must become
It seems that ohn has come.
Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, :q:: 6, 66,
Must it alva,s, ano b, an iron rule of s,ntacticsemantic correlation` ust
replace seems vith the equall, nonfactive is possible, or even seems
possible, ano the subject complement vill enjo, the same positional mo-
bilit, betveen limits as ooes the factive equivalent. The attempt to general-
ize the rule of polar im,mobilit, from subject to object complementsour
main businesslikevise fails vith a vengeance. Neeoless to sa,, That ohn
hao come vas vioel, knovnbelieveo is as grammatical across the seman-
tic oivioe as the extraposeo, sentence-terminal that-form, complementing
It vas vioel, knovnbelieveo. . . .
But Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, actuall, orive a still more ambitious claim,
one that postulates a general tenoenc, for sentence-initial clauses to get
unoerstooo factivel, or associateo vith a factive sense. The comple-
ments initial positioning voulo then b, itself exercise such metamorphic
pover as to factivize a nonfactive. In sa,ing
The UFI reporteo that Smith hao arriveo
It vas reporteo b, the UFI that Smith hao arriveo
the speaker takes no stano on the truth of the report. But
That Smith hao arriveo vas reporteo b, the UFI
normall, conve,s the meaning that the speaker assumes the report to be true. A
non-factive interpretation of this sentence can be teaseo out in various va,s, for
Sternberg

example b, la,ing contrastive stress on the agent phrase by the UPI, not the AP,.
Still, the unforceo sense is oenitel, factive. Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, :q:: 66;
also, Horn :q8: :; Seuren :qq; Gruno, :qqq: ,
The line oravn here betveen the positional variants, in terms of the
speakers stano, blurs even regaroing the case in point on the given argu-
ment. If the that-initial variant aomits of an alternative, noncommitteo
reaoingvith contrastive stressthe oesireo rule to the opposite eect
alreao, veakens accoroingl,. Ever, utterance being unoerstooo as vell as
proouceo in context, moreover, vhence the normalit, or unforceoness
of the factive sense` Wh, privilege, or encooe, one intonation contour over
another` Ano be,ono the tell-tale concession, once ,ou substitute other
nonfactives helo, sa,, or oenieo or inoeeo believeo, for reporteo,
the allegeo forking b, placement evaporates altogether.
So oo all other attempteo package oeals betveen grammar ano seman-
tics, linguistic, form ano oiscoursive, force. Interestingl,, on the Kiparsk,
list of factive preoicates that take object clauses, there appears be avare
of , but not the more common ano pregnant near-s,non,m knov ,.
Wh, omit the epistemic exemplar, vith its manifest commitment to the
truth as vell as interoisciplinar, netvork` The reason for this selectivit,
graouall, emerges from the ensuing notes or silences on knows s,ntactic
intractabilit,, vhich goes a long va, tovaro marring the neat tvofolo oivi-
sion into factive ano non-factive preoicates that comes vith the list.
Among these oivisive rules, for example, the most central or thematic
one alleges: Onl, factive preoicates can have as their objects the noun fact
vith a geruno or that-clause ibio.: ,. But then, vhile He vas avare
of the fact that I hao got the evioence is ooubtless grammatical, He knev
|or realizeo, or the possible factive anticipateo, or the counterfactive pre-
tenoeo or visheo| the fact that . . . is not, an, more than is the nonfactive
He believeo the fact that. . . . As though to multipl, confusion, knov
oispla,s the extra peculiarit, of alloving insteao the aoverbial, rather than
objective, sequel for |or, as| a fact., Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, come to aomit
as much, if onl, in the question-begging argument that such exceptions
are semanticall, factive ,et s,ntacticall, non-factive 8 n. A,. Nor
oo the, ever account for this exceptionalit, or acknovleoge its range ano
seriousness.
31
:. The same holos for other instabilities the, aomit, some not ,et mentioneo: e.g., regaroing
the use of gerunos , or of the accusative ano innitive construction 8, or of the sub-
junctive q,. In another, semiotic framevork, Eco ano Violi :qqo, likevise no know ver,
embarrassing, though for a oierent reason: as a verb of propositional attituoe, along vith
be aware of ano believe. Such is the embarrassment that the, treat it unoer this larger, nonois-
These omissions vitiate their funoamental explanator, h,pothesis,
vhereb, the polar s,ntacticsemantic correlations allegeo issue from the
respective oepths.Though factive ano nonfactive sentences ma, look super-
ciall, alike, presupposition of complements is reecteo in their s,ntactic
oeep structure. At the oeeper level, factivit, voulo be appropriatel,, in-
oeeo literall, representeo in the noun heaoing the object clausefor ex-
ample, I regret |Imavare of | the fact that ohn arriveoano preservable
or oeletable in the movement to the surface form ibio.: .,.
But hov voulo the putative base-structure generate a knov either
manoatoril, ooing vithout the fact as immeoiate object or reinforceo
vith for a fact as a nonobjective complement`
32
Or, more generall, ano
oamagingl, still, the other va, rouno: the allegeol, factive-specic oeep
ano, at vill, surface, heao noun ma, consist in the possibilit, as vell as
in the fact ano vill then exteno to nonfactives. This oblivion to the entire
range of mooal choices is impossible to patch up. Most oamagingl,, vithin
the factive set itself, hov oo ve reconcile the h,pothesizeo oeepsurface
the fact knovn, as it vere or ignoreo, oeploreo, resenteo,, vith its non-
factualit, to the speaker in examples like :,, above` If such factive usages
refute all theories to oate, here the, la, open a contraoiction in terms, be-
cause of the extra commitment to truth falsel, trumpeteo b, the oenitional
on the h,pothesis, ano othervise superuous heao noun.
This last oisproof outreaches the horizons of the Kiparsk, approach,
vhich never envisages presupposition failure or implicit cancelation
oefeasibilit,,. Within its limits, a commitment is a commitment, ano
therefore neeos formalizing vis-a-vis the noncommittal sentence, rather
than explaining, let alone in apparent breach. But then, vere the move-
ment betveen bono ano breach taken into account, vhat voulo become of
the sought factivenonfactive polarit,` What voulo justif, the anchorage in
the formation of oecontextualizeo sentences rather than in context-bouno
statementsquoteo, hence tvice-bouno statements about states of mino at
thatvhere alone pleoges take or lose eect`
The theoretical implications ensue to reinforce our earlier anal,sis. A
oiscourse matter par excellence, hov a factive arises, vorks, pla,s, chan-
nels inference, stanos to its opposite number, ano so forth, are issues that
transceno the linguists along vith the logicians antioiscoursive occupa-
tinctive rubric .8:,, apart fromthat of factive verbs such as regret .,, b, appeal to
the oesperate argument that the propositional variet, transcenos the normal use of natural
language .q,.
.. Nor ooes the incorporation of the fact vithin Montague grammar escape trouble: see
Van oer Sanot :q88::6qo on Delacruz :q6.
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tion, beginning vith their alien ioea of hov givens reouce to a s,stem, even
vhat givens to vhat s,stems. The binar, linguistic formalism having pre-
oictabl, collapseo, ve ma, nov explore the commissive, presuppositional
force activateo b, factivit, as a branch of secono-oroer oiscourse.
4. Whose Commitment to What? Perspectivizing Factivity
Hov exactl, ooes factive oier from nonfactive in the commitment to the
proposition expresseo b, the suboroinate sentence` The ansver has gener-
all, seemeo too obvious, or unitar,, to be vorth pursuing. Even apropos the
classic knovbelieve exemplars, one must throv a brioge over othervise
removeo elos to locate the oierence in both the oegree ano the ourabilit,
of the commitment.
33
Return to :, ano ,ou vill see hov this juncture alreao, compounos oif-
ferentials. As factive, knov encooes a truth bono so strong that an, at-
tenoant oenial of the presupposeo knovleoge statement e.g., . . . but I
haont in fact got the evioence, incurs absuroit,. It also uniquel, survives
the negation or questioning, of the preoicate in the main clause itself He
oiont knov . . .,. The believe counterpart, on the other hano, remains
oeniable in either form: the subsequent vithoraval of the belief claim vith
impunit, or its aovance lifting from all concerneo via the preoication of
oisbelief. The misgivings voiceo b, revisionists about the presuppositional
negation test can vait. Hovever tacit, the consensus on the relative scaling
enables us meanvhile to proceeo vith the anal,sis ano comparison of af-
rmative utterances.
Granting this oierentialit, of factive commitment, hovever, still leaves
further questions open, either m,sterious or vorse than unresolveo. Ior ex-
ample, vhere ooes the commitment here, to the truth of the embeooeo
presupposition, spring from` Hov oo ve infer, graoe, verif, it` Ano vho
unoertakes it` Of all questions, Whose commitment` most neeos to be
reopeneo, since none has been so generall, ano oamagingl, forecloseo.
Who else, as it vere, shoulo bear the commissive loao if not the speaker`
. Epistemologists traoitionall, privilege the rst variable, oiscourse anal,sts the secono,
vith little contact for once betveen the philosophical ano the pragmatic approaches. Even
. L. Austins anatom, of knov as performative in Other Minos :qo: 6::6,, his most
inuential vork among philosophers, has left no mark on presupposition theor,. As a result,
both oisciplines have lost. Ior example, epistemologists incluoing Austin, have never relateo
their paraoigm knov to other factives, in or out of negation; vhile presuppositionalists
voulo shrug o I believe . . . as a nonfactive, in oisregaro for its evioent, if lov, commissive
force vis-a-vis I knov ano the ostensible evaporation thereof in He believeo . . . . Yet see
L,ons :q: qq6 for the attempt at correlating the factors vithin epistemic logic.
On this ver, grouno, inoeeo, some voulo excluoe categories like verbs
of juoging e.g., accuse, from the presuppositional oomain. The implica-
tions are not attributeo to the speaker, so much as to the subject of the
verb of juoging Levinson :q8: :8., also :8 n. :.,: to the accuser, for ex-
ample, vhose hostile attituoe tovaro the accuseo is implieo vithout being
enoorseo b, the verb.
34
On pain of exclusion, nothing must threaten the
speakers monopol,.
But vhat if the speaker of the factive oiscourse as such proves to be a re-
speaker, re-presenterinoirect thought-quoter, sa,` The commitment to
the given re-presentation then turns oouble to incluoe the quotee as origi-
nal representer ano novthe overt subject of the factive verb that introouces
ano governs his re-presenteo thought. We neeo sharper tools to capture the
oualit,. Ior nov, observe hov :a, enacts tvo knoversof vhom, more-
over, the thinking he rather than the vocal I is ociall, saooleo vith
the epistemic loao. B, contrast, :b, exhibits a single believer onl,, ,et the
part ano its epistemic posture again falls to the he, nov re-presenteo for
a change in m, altogether noncommittal voice.
This renes afresh the oierence betveen factive ano nonfactive state-
ments but also unoerscores the copresence in them of at least tvo attituoes,
like-minoeo or othervise, tovaro the embeooeo proposition. In like- or
other-minoeoness, the speaker must live vith the subject. The vioer ano
sharper the commissive oierence, the more salient ano inevitable the com-
mon oualit, in vievpoint. Iactivit, is a ke, variable ano variet, of inoirect-
ness, vhile bi-perspectivit,, or vhat I term perspectival montage, is a constant
of inoirect as quoteo oiscourse. The former hinges on the choice of quot-
ing preoicate, the latter inheres in quotations criterial tvo-in-oneness: ois-
course about oiscourse must ,oke together the respective oiscoursers.
Given a factive armation in inoirect oiscourse, like :a,, the built-in
perspectival montage exibl, extenos fromthe transformer, vhich surfaces
here as main clause, to the inset as that-clause or its othervise embeooeo,
e.g., innitival, equivalent,. Ano given the universalit, of such montage
across quoting formsthe inoirect among themit remains to oiscover
. Within factivit, proper, compare hov Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, :q:: q, oeem excep-
tional situations vhere tvo egos are involveo, as in the case of an actor oescribing his part.
The exception is actuall, the built-in rule. Conversel,, ano ioios,ncraticall,, Ann Banelo
:q8.: :q.q, voulo rather excluoe the speaker: Iactives in main clauses in narrative vith
no overt rst person seemnot to impl, the truth of their complements. . . . We reao these sen-
tences onl, as the private realization of their subject of consciousness. This reversal of the
usual one-sioeoness is of course simpl, false. Also, in the light of example :6,, compare hov
the xture on the speakers univocalit,, as vell as intentionalit,, hampers Gricean implicature
anal,sis.
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vhat singles out the oe,composition of the factive variet,, ano vh,. With
this in viev, let us reconsioer the clause-length segments in oroer.
The transformer has alreao, been oeneo inoeeo nameo, as a transitional
link in the chain of quotation: intermeoiate betveen quoter-occupieo frame
ano quotee-evoking inset, it is necessaril, tvo-faceo. Ior the extra precision
requireo here, ve neeo to oovetail componential vith perspectival anal,-
sis: to unpack the quotingtransforming verb b, reference to its meaning
in the lexicon as vell as to its meoiac, in the chain of oiscourse. Exemplar,
as ever, know oecomposes into three relevant nuclear semantic features or
factors that in turn oivioe unevenl,, betveen the transformers tvo joint
perspectives, the quoter ano the quotee. Let us unpack these montages in
tanoem.
Among the verbs sense-components, one mentalizes the report, another
intensies the mental statement, reporteo, ,et another validates it. I vill name
ano assign them accoroingl,.
35
Iirst, there is evioentl, the thought compo-
nent, or mentalizer, vhich encooes the factive preoicate together vith the
factivizeohere, knovninset itself , as a reex of a ps,chic event: an
insioeviev, in short. Denoting the quotees secret life, the mentalizer op-
poses the preoicate to all communication verbs e.g., say, tell, answer, vhile
grouping it vith other verbs of cognition, perception, or emotion believe,
think, suspect, assume, presuppose, observe, feel, etc.,
Yet know oiers from the latter, too, in encooing a higher conoence
on the quotees part in vhatever his mino represents to itselfthe high-
est possible among quotational preoicates. The oierence nov accoroingl,
gravitates, or extenos, from the ontic axis of subjectivit, publicprivate,
outerinner, to the epistemic rank oroer certainuncertain, necessar,
impossible,. Intensied b, this sense component, the verb uncovers a thought
entertaineo vith certituoe.
The built-in presence or absence, of the intensier explains vh, the
quoteo knovers his, mental re-presentation in :a, oeters the kino of
attenuating follov-up that the quoteo believers exact counterpart in :b,
tolerates: . . . but he vasnt reall, sure, sa,. Here precisel, the verbs re-
spective locations on the scale of intensit, make the oierence.
36
In this re-
. I have opteo for the terms mentalizer, intensier, validator, rather than mentaleme or the
like, because of their helpful forkeoness. Their reference can alternate betveen the semantic
particle ano the oiscoursive part, vho brings it to the verb: exactl, the tvo issues corre-
lateo here.
6. Therefore the claimthat Xknovs S presupposes S ano asserts that Xbelieves S Bea-
ver :qq: q:, unoul, lovers, or oe-intensies, Xs mental state to equal that asserteo in X
believes S.
garo, though the tvinning of mentalizer ano intensier proouces a unique
composite that resists paraphrase, the nearest equivalent to :a, voulo be
:c, He helo true strongl, |vith all his heartvith the utmost assurance|
that I hao got the evioence,
as oistinct from the mere He helo true that . . . of :b,. The explicit ao-
verbial booster tackeo on to the one preoicate voulo then oo out, for the
semantic component built into the other.
But ooes the paraphrase of :a, into :c, mean that factive, presupposi-
tion, like Grices implicature, is nonoetachable,triggerable b, s,non,-
mous voroingsano therefore reoucible to the fellov inference` Not at
all, if onl, because an, such paraphrase vill lack the originals ke, com-
ponent ano vill accoroingl, leave the inference or commitment here, the
that-clause, oeniable. Even amiost such possible tvofolo likeness in inoirect
oiscourse preoication, :c, might ,et reasonabl, nish, no less than might
:b, itself, vith the counterstatement but he vas vrong or but I haont.
So might nish even quotes heraloeo b, nonfactive verbs that, like knov,
come vitha built-inintensier: felt sure, for example, or vas convinceo.
The amenabilit, to a counterstating sequel no more oepenos, then, on the
formthan on the ver, occurrence of the reinforceo start. An outrageous tail
eno to :a,, the same but . . . pinpoints at last vhere knov as factive
parts compan, vith nonfactives, hovever intensieo: in the presence of ,et
another semantic feature, vhich encooes the quoters enoorsement of vhat
the quote expresses. This validator loaos the verb vith the commissive force
of presupposition.
37
The knowbelieve oivioing line thus consists in neither of the respective
transformers earlier features: the one mentalizer, for thought preoication,
shareo, the other intensier, for thought reinforcement, sharable in a man-
ner, ano both orienteo to the thinking subject, the knover or believer. It is
rather the factor of valioation ano vith it the quoters ovn epistemic atti-
tuoe to the truth of the thoughtall the va, betveen full enoorsement ano
nonethat makes the presuppositional oierence. The built-in, semanti-
cizeo valioating component explains vh, the quoter ma, not contraoict the
putative knover or the oiscoverer, regrettor, resenter, vithout absuroit,
vhile freel, contraoicting the believer or emoter, sa,er, guesser, observer,.
It also explains vh, no amount or manner of :c,-like, or sure-like, in-
tensication voulo proouce a comparable result outsioe factivit,. Ior such
a possible analogue, the aooeo transformer-strengthening ersatz must shift
. M, valioator bears some resemblance to the neustic in Hare :q6q |:q.|: :.:, :q::
q as the noo of assent to the speech act performeo: see also the oevelopment b, L,ons
:q: q., 8o..,.
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its bearing origin, vievpoint, responsibilit,, fromquotee to quoter. It must,
in other voros, turn from rst-oroer subjective, intensier to secono-
oroer objective, valioator of the thought: from re-presenteo particle, to
re-presentational posture.
:o, He helo-true, rightl,, that I hao got the evioence.
As :c, approaches :a, in intensication, so :o, ooes :a, in valioation,
either nonfactive substituting a makeshift surface phrase for the appropri-
ate xture in knows oeep semantic make-up. Even so, negate either para-
phrase, ano the analog, vill collapse to re-establish the lexis-bounoness
oetachabilit,, of presupposition.
B, the same token, inversel,, aooing those ver, makeshifts to the fac-
tive :a, voulo incur reounoanc, literall,, surface on top of implicit
enoorsement, rather than ,ielo novelt, value quoteo belief elevateo in
quoting gloss to the status of factualit,,. Again, the opposite aoverbs, in-
correctl,, for example, voulo make nonsense of the factive comparable
to the sentential follov-up but he vas vrong, vhile simpl, ano informa-
tivel, invalioating the nonfactive.
Most revealingl,, the unoerl,ing logic holos even vhere the surface up-
or oovn-graoing is alike informative in both preoicate t,pes. Regaroless
of vhether ano hovever ,ou mooalize the factive preoicate out of its basic
categorical form, the valioation vill remain unaecteo. Thus He perhaps,
or certainl,, knev that I hao got the evioence vis-a-vis He knev . . . in
:a,: the mooal aoverbs qualif, or overinsure his knovleoge of the fact,
not the factualit, of the knovleoge statement itself in the reporting other-
qualif,ing, overinsuring, Is ovn e,es. The mooalization, ano vith it the
novelt, value, bear either va, on the insioeviev, rather than on the state of
aairs vieveo from the insioe but alva,s valioateo from vithout, b, m,-
self.
Moreover, not the valioating feature alone but the entire inoirect-
oiscourse transformer He knev, comes from the meoiating activit, of
the quoter vho shares the overall frame vith us. The quotee in :a,, as in
:b,, voulo originall,, at least normall,, refer to himself as I, not he.
Nor, vhatever his certituoe, voulo his original private expression preoicate
of himself his I, knovleoge, an, more than belief: he feels the cognitive
state rather than states the cognitive feeling.
38
On the plain inoirect reaoing, then, the quotee never originateo the
threefolo factive preoicate, an, more than he necessaril, verbalizeo the en-
suing statement. It emanates fromthe quoter, vho selects it in transmission
8. In case ve oo assume such original self-preoication, :a, vill reao as free inoirect ois-
course, on vhich more later.
out of the repertoire of quoting verbs in oroer to characterize in aovance,
for our benet, the oiscourse act to be transmitteo. So in :a, the quoting
Is transformer evioentl, serves t,pical expositor,, pre-contextualizing enos.
The grammatical subject having ioentieo the quotee or subject of ois-
course as he, the three-component verb proceeos to locate his oiscourse
beforehano on the speechthought axis, on the hierarch, of certituoe, ano
on the range of truth. The mentalizer in knev establishes the knovl-
eoge claim to follov as an originall, interior representation; the intensier
encooes the original representers voroless conoence in it; ano the vali-
oator stamps it vith the re-presenters ovn approval. In rough paraphrase,
their meanings compose into something like, He helo true, strongl, ano
rightl,, that. . . .
Much the same threefolo nuclear composition unoerlies the kinoreo
preoicates be aware, resent, regret, etc.
39
Across all oierences in the quotees
state of minobetveen cognitive ano emotive interiorit,, sa,, or betveen
more or less salient intensit,the quoters enoorsement never vavers. The
same goes for counterfactives like wish, except that the, have an invalioating
semantic particle insteao., A series of conclusions follov:
:, Although the entire composite verb has been supplieo in meoiation, tvo
of the components bear jointl, on the meoiateo oiscourse or subjectivit,,,
one on the meoiators oiscourse about that oiscourse: as bets the factive
version of the oouble-facing, ooubl, orienteo transformer in its specicit,
regaroing presupposition.
., If the valioator is built into the here, factive, language, so is the pre-
supposition: the valioateo quoting sentence itself then necessaril, presup-
poses the factualit, of the quoteo sentence. The quoter just actualizes ano
ociall, assumes the presupposing as the user of that language schema,
complete vith binoing verb, in oiscourse.
This alreao, la,s the grouno for reconceptualizing the issue against
either of the traoitional approaches or, in the usual h,brio theories, an, of
their mixtures,:
, Against the semanticists: locating the presupposition in the sentence,
betveen the transformer ano inset, sentences, enforces no break vith
oiscourse ano its anchorages ano role-pla,ers, but a principleo continuit,.
Novhere more evioentl, so than apropos factivit,, vhose ver, intersenten-
tial construction as vell as enunciationthough uniquel, manifest in lan-
guageperforce bear on oiscourse about oiscourse about the vorlo. Hence
the smoothaovance fromsecono-oroer sentence to its secono-oroer speaker
q. So, vhen Grice :q8q: .8o8:, translates regret into think ano be anti, he leaves out its
factive oierential vis-a-vis, sa,, fear; ano cf. note ..
Sternberg

as carrier of the presupposition. Nor ooes the inter,sentential locus go vith
translating presupposition into ao hoc ano unearthl, entailment rules, or
an, substitute. The onl, entailment involveo concerns the strict necessit,
of the linguistic basis: given the inherence ano the meaning of valioator,
the encooing of factive, presupposition in the language s,stem is a logi-
cal truth.
, Or the other va, rouno, nov against the pragmatic approach: given
such encooing, factive, presupposition is uncancelable in oiscourse, vhat-
ever the context, just as is the semantic feature -male throughout the uses
of bo,. Once inbuilt, alva,s inferable. Ior that matter, if ,ou recall the
inference t,pes to vhich pragmaticists voulo assimilate presupposition: it
no more lenos itself to canceling than ooes entailment on all accounts ano
conventional implicature onGrices ovntheor,. As to conversational impli-
cature, it is precisel, oeneo as unencooeo, nonoetachable, hence cancel-
able., What becomes, then, of presupposition unoer con,textual pressure,
notabl, from inconsistenc,` Ior an ansver, ve have to bring in the rest of
the factive oesign, vhere the presupposeo statement constitutes the quoteo,
inset object.
The perspectival montage necessaril, carries over from transformer to in-
set: fromthe reporting to the reporteo clause, ano vithin inoirectness, from
the matrix to the embeooing. I vant to reemphasize this necessit,, as a uni-
versal vith factive specics ano corollaries, because it has not just been
ignoreo but in eect categoricall, oenieo in various quarters, ano because
so much hangs on the issue.
In the specic framevork of presupposition revieveo here, this necessit,
alreao, oerives its rationale ano its hallmark alike from our earlier anal,-
sis. B, oenition, a factive armeo in inoirect report not onl, enforces
but also oistinctivel, enforms such continueo montage on at least one per-
spectival axis, namel,, the informational, vorlo-imaging, epistemic. Ior
the ver, make-up of its transformer heralos a tvo-part, statement in the
inseta meeting of minos apropos, sa,, the obtaining of evioence, tvice
uphelo in :a,s re-presentation. The rule applies throughout factive pre-
supposition, vhere the arming presupposer is the inoirect quoter cum
inferreo valioator of the thinking e.g., knoving, subjects position. If non-
factivit, bi-focuses, then factivit, equi-focuses, as it vere, the state of aairs
thus obliquel, transmitteo.
On top of this oenitional imperative, moreover, come the universal li-
censes of reperspectivizing attacheo to secono-oroer oiscourse. Whether
taken vill,-nill, or freel, or guilefull,, the, enhance the quotes maneuver-
abilit, betveen the vievpoints. Which also reooubles its ambiguit,, since
ve unoerstanoers ano oecomposers oont usuall, knovbeforehano, if ever,
vhich composite issueo from vhich licenses.,
Qua re-presenteo thought as against speech, for example, the inset here
neeo not have been originall, verbalizeo, either. The transformers combi-
nation of quotee-orienteo mentalizer ano intensier vith quoter-orienteo
valioator ma, accoroingl, alva,s stretch to the that-clause in another
guisethe quotee provioing the mino-stu, the quoter the voros. Iirst the
mentalizer built into the quoting verb, then the mentalese translateo into
the quoteo clause, vith an analogous ooubling of input ano outlook. Ex-
cept, to repeat, for the quantum leap in ambiguit,: the material to be oi-
vioeo no longer consists in three semantic elementslexicalizeo, hence
preoetermineo at thatbut in an entire nevl,-maoe sentence.,
Again, regaroless of the originals full, partial, zero, verbalization, there
is the gamut of more or less faithful re-presentation. The inset image can
alva,s gloss, rephrase, shorten, expano, oespecif,, enliven, veight, subvert
the original in transfer, to the limit of misre-presenting. Ior all ve can tell,
he in:a, ma, have reall, thought an,thing fromThe bastaro has naileo
me to The liar has got nothing. Ano if ve cant tellthe epistemologist
in us vonoershov coulo the quoting insioe-viever ano guarantor of that
hiooen knovleoge`
In short, the less meoium-preserving, verbatim, scrupulous, varranteo,
or just the less oeterminable the echo of the subjects original thought, the
larger the quoting-Is share in the montage be,ono the inherent valioating
minimum.
Given that the perspectival montage vill,-nill, extenos to the inset,
another tvo of the axiomatic assumptions about factivit, neeo to be re-
thought together: that it involves commitment to a proposition, or merel,
a proposition, ano no more than one commitment, the speakers. Neither
axiom can possibl, be true, since quoter alias speaker, ano quotee
co-occup, the inset oiscourse that expresses ano subsumes the factivizeo
proposition. The expressive manner as vell as the expresseo inter alia,
propositional, matter, therefore, must issue from both of themjointl, or
also apart, harmoniousl, in all regaros or otherviseano lie betveen them
in the text ve encounter. As the one purports to re-present the others here,
inner, representation, the onl, problem is hov to break oovn the nisheo
composite ano assign the proper share, as best ve can, to either contribu-
tor. Where ooes, or oio, the line pass betveen the original oiscourse ano
the secono-hano oiscourse about that oiscourse founo in the inset` Evi-
oentl,, the insets perspectival montage is haroer to break oovn though,
as vill emerge, onl, relativel, speaking, than its componential anteceoent
ano equivalent in the transformer: to the extent that linguistic performance
Sternberg

enjo,s b, nature much greater freeoomthan the language e.g., lexical, s,s-
tem. Whether the licenseo performance has its ovn s,stematicit,, that is
rather the question; ano factivit,, partaking of both language ano oiscourse
in its ver, composites, again suggests a principleo armative ansver.
At the quoter-maximizing extreme stanos orastic misquotation, garbleo
out of truth to the original, possibl, even reverseo. Here is an insioeviev
factivizeo vith gusto but on omniscient authorit,, counter to mental fact:
:8, |A vife bent on treating her husbano to a peoicare session:| I en-
jo, it. Its such a nice cos, thing to oo. Ano ,ou knov ,ou love it
,ourself.
Ireooie knev no such thing. Amis :qq:: .o,
The realit, bumps against the pretense to like-minoeoness or vhat I calleo
equi-focusing: equal oelight, avareness, self-engagement. The putative
quotee voulo a less henpeckeo husbano than Ireooie vill, oen, outright
the knovleoge statement about his state as one unknovable of ano un-
thinkable b, himself. He voulo justl, oisclaim the vhole lot, from st,listic
manner to presupposeo matter, from the uncongenial ioiom to the untrue
substance of love for vifel, foot treatment. So, vhere authoritativel, in-
formeo or increoulous on empirical grounos, vill ve hearersreaoers can-
cel the presupposition in context unoer threat of inconsistenc, vith the
facts` Of course not, if onl, because the presupposer remains bouno to vhat
she factivizes: the perspectival setup is itself a context inoeeo the master
context of oiscourse, though still unappreciateo as such,. We rather assign
it all to the fallible, vishful, inventive, mino vhere it exclusivel, all too
consistentl,, belongs. The nominal inset then comes to reect, ano reect
on, the frame.
It likevise reects on the atteners of inoirect to univocal, in eect mono-
logic, oiscourse see references in Sternberg :q8.a ano :q8.b passim, :qq::
., ano particularl, of factivit, to the epistemic outlook of the factiv-
izer as speaker. But even a oemonstrabl, inventeo or inverteo quote en-
tails a perspectival montage, oving to the heao-on clash betveen attrib-
uteo ano original subjectivit,, betveen the like-minoeoness equi-focusing,
harmon,, pretenoeo ano its negative truth-value. The resulting oialogue
among the minos in pla, onl, specializes in frictions. Aunivocalit, of sorts,
:8, thus comes vith a vengeance: against the quoters vish to speak for tvo,
against the quotees voroless oenial, against the authors ano our knovl-
eoge of the respective states of knovleoge. Within this netvork of ironic
oppositions, the monopol, on voice is multipl, perspectivizeoto a greater
extent, if an,thing, than in usual, more harmonious oouble-voicing, factiv-
izeo or othervise inoirect.
With comparable eectiveness, our simple example also la,s bare a set
of further misconceptions. I refer to the fallacies of common, or mutual,
knovleoge, of samesa,ing or samethinking, ano of ctionalizing. One
bears oirectl, on factive, presupposition, ,et has vioer consequences for
oiscourse; the secono voulo generalize over inoirect ano the thiro over
quoteo oiscourse at large, ,et both receive their ultimate quietus from fac-
tivit, that goes counter to fact, as here.
Of these, the rst tvo require onl, summar, mention b, nov. The vioe-
spreao ioea of commonmutual knovleoge is among the vorst fallacies
in pragmatics, especiall, its inferential branch, ano ma,be the strangest.
In general, such knovleoge comprises the backgrouno assumptions
shareo b, the parties to the oiscourse as the context vithin or against
vhich the foregrouno of the utterance operates. Regaroing our inference
t,pe, the speaker voulo then presuppose vhat speaker ano aooressee
mutuall, knov e.g., the truth of the factive complement, m, inset, to the
highlighting of the novelt, e.g., the factive preoication, m, transformer,.
Ano vice versa: the speaker voulo allegeol, never contraoict the mutuall,
knovn, hence such contraoictor, presuppositions evaporate. This voulo
holo even on less extreme variants, vhereb, the commonalit, ooes not
necessaril, resioe in the foreknovn but embraces the consistent Gazoar
:qq: :o., or the uncontroversial Grice :q8q: ., betveen the parties.
Accoroingl,, the common epistemic grouno oenes context ano at times
as late as Ka, :qq: .:., presupposition itself, oovn to the limits of its
survival in context. Ior an approving overviev, see Levinson :q8: esp.
:8.. passim.,
This oogma has been progressivel, ano, given its strangeness to an,one
outsioe pragmatics, a fortiori to narrative theorists, unsurprisingl,, re-
futeo ever since ve encountereo it: apropos the muooleo equation of such
commonalit, or concoro of avareness vith context, oeao against ex-
ample , from Nelson Gooomans sneer at funoamentalist metaph,sics.
Nor ooes its exposure stop here. Essentiall,, though, the fallac, betra,s
a multiple confusion about the vorlos, the voices, the vorkings of ois-
course, ano presuppositional oiscourse above all. Ior the confusion gets
vorst confounoeo vhere the ver, terminolog, abets it, vith the result that
anal,sts bracket the strict technical sense of presupposition as commit-
mentinference t,pe, vith the loose, oroinar, usage as vhatever goes vith-
out sa,ing,.
Thus, the oiscourse parties involveo freel, oscillate in current anal,sis
betveen the interlocutors ano the average common`, hearerreaoer,
ourselvesas if their realit,, knovleoge, posture, truth bono vere ansver-
able to hence inferable from, some extraoiscoursive, even universal norm
Sternberg

of context. An obvious utopian absuroit,. But vh, shoulo the interlocu-
tors proper fall unoer an, norm of joint avareness ano goal` The, ma,
at vill ano often oo use, sa,, the factive complement not to reiterate olo
information shareo, loosel, presupposeo, but to spring on the aooressee
nev, uncommon, oiscoroant, controversial matter, incluoing knovleoge,
vhether Gooomans in , or the vifes in :8,. All the more so because, as
factivizers, the, are quoters rather than just speakers, hence commit them-
selves in presupposing knovleoge to like-minoeoness vith their quotee
rather than an, actual or possible aooressee. Irom the aooressees sioe, in
turn, uncancelabilit, ensues, regaroless of hov contraoictor, the putative
context. EventhoughIreooie combines the roles of quotee ano aooressee,
the fact that he knev no such thing cannot ,et erase, but onl, ironize, his
vifes presupposition that he ooes knov. Our reanal,sis of negation vill
inoeeo oeal the last blov to this unearthl, fallac,., Her truth claim about
their joint knovleoge is one thing, maoe ano retractable b, her alone; its
truth-value is another thing altogether, juogeo in relation to the overall ois-
course frame. Here, omniscience itself explicitl, falsies the vhole knovl-
eoge statement,through an insioeviev of the quoteeaooressee allegeo
to knov ano co-falsif,ing the allegationvithout in the least aecting the
knovleoge claimants ovn pleogeo viev to the contrar,.
Another oogma of commonalit, bears on the inoirect quoter vis-a-vis the
subject quoteo, as if the image here equals the original proposition. Donalo
Davioson :q86: :o, famousl, puts it in terms of samesaying: vhen I sa,
that Galileo saio that the earth moves, I represent Galileo ano m,self as
samesa,ers, for an utterance of mine matches an utterance of his in pur-
port. Likevise vith samethinkers, though Davioson ooes not ociall,
exteno the term to them or call the relation inoirect oiscourse ibio.: :6
6,. But this ioea of matching recurs across terminological, conceptual, ois-
ciplinar, lines. Thus accoroing to ohn Searle :q8:: :868q,, the inoirect
reporter is committeo to repeating the speakers propositional act or to
propositionalizing vhat the thinker believes,. Such reporters are not same-
sayers, but same proposition expressers. As vith the philosophers, so vith lin-
guists ano poeticians. These voulo frequentl, even bracket the reputeo uni-
vocalit, of inoirect oiscourse vith its being an interpretive mooe, vhich
paraphrases or translates someone elses expression into ones ovn voros
Banelo :q8.: 6., to generate a single content-minoeo vievpoint.
That inoirectness must anoor ooes paraphrase, hovever, is simpl, a
veaker version of the fallac, that oirectness reproouces, ano I have alreao,
exposeo it as such especiall, in Sternberg :qq:,. Three aspects of the fallac,
are of vital concern for us. B, immemorial license, there neeo not be an,
original for the quoter to matchparaphrase, re,propositionalizeas in
future-orienteo, h,pothetical, ano negative quotation He villmightoio
not sa, |or think| that . . .,. Evenif there supposeol, is one, as allegeob, the
quoter, ve often cannot tell vhether it actuall, vas ano vhat it representeo;
the ensuing montage then leaves the original proposition unoecioeo, at best
inferable. Again, even in the optimum conoitions, vhen ve have access to
the original ano the quoter stanos not just tacitl, but lexicall, knov,
bouno to its truthful paraphrase ano ver, truth, as in :8,, vhat happens
if ve no it misrepresenteo, inoeeo countersaio or counterthought`
Woulo ve excluoe the counteroiscourse from inoirectness anoor fac-
tivit,` Surel, notan, more than ve voulo the quoting of nonexistent
or ambiguous originalson pain of confusing re-presentational form ano
function, epistemic pleoge ano value. The nonfactualit, of a claim as high
as a knovleoge statement highest on the scale of allegeo samethinking, if
,ou vill, onl, recoils on the factivizer more poverfull, than on an, analo-
gous inoirect quoter.
The thiro misconception in eect begins vhere the secono enos, vith the
collapse of an, rule of samesa,ing. Throughout her book The Fictions of
Language and the Languages of Fiction :qq,, Monika Iluoernik aoopts to gooo
purpose m, exposure of the age-olo reproouctive fallac, in oirect, a fortiori
othervise reporteo oiscourse, ano its consequences for a viable theor, see
note .q,vith one unhapp, tvist that she herself consioers so important
as to merit titular oignit,. Whatever falls short of one-to-one reproouction
ano ever, secono-hano image of utterance or thought ooes, along vith
ever, other image, thereb, becomes ction.
Unoer this categor, Iluoernik subsumes especiall, in chapter 8, m, ar-
ra, of anti-reproouctive quotational forces ano forms, vhether constraineo,
licenseo, or possible. The arra, incluoes oespecif,ing e.g., an original sum-
marizeo or compresseo,, oeconcretizing one quote for man, originals,,
st,lizing for intelligibilit, or generic eect,, mooalizing a prospective or
h,pothetical quote,, giving utterance to oumb realit,, memor, lapse ano
so forth, as vell as the pressures alva,s exerteo b, the frame on the inset
liable to reverse even a verbatim echo,. Irom these mooes of oeviance, she
concluoes vhat never follovs in reason nor inoeeo is the case in practice:
|A|ll linguistic speech ano thought representation relies on a mechanism
of schematization ano t,pication vhich is inoepenoent of actual speech
ano thought process ano can be anal,seo in terms of a ction manufac-
tureo b, means of language, b, means of linguistic oevices :qq: q8,.
Even mimesis in oral |real-life, as oistinct from literar,| language voulo
then be of the same qualit, as in ctionnot imitation, but invention ano
projection ibio.: .6,.
If it oio follovto single out one outcomethis conclusion voulo nec-
Sternberg

essaril, rule out factivit, altogether fromlanguage use. As factive quotation
must both assume a nonoirect formano image a nonverbal thought, ob-
ject, it cannot even reproouce the original to the extent possible for a oirect
quotation of speech. Ano if the nonreproouctive amounteo to the ctional,
vhat voulo become of the oistinctive commitment to the truth expresseo
b, the inset quote` The compounoeo formobject exigenc, voulo alone
oisable the presuppositional force. One neeo not aoo such licenses as para-
phrasing or mooalizing to see hov this ooo ctionalizing tvist reouces to
absuroit,, vith large consequencesthe largest, since the, bear on the ver,
grouno rules of representation.
Novhere in reporteo oiscourse, or for that matter in oiscourse at large,
ooes this categor, mistake so glare as in factivit, ano vith it the pernicious
inuence exerteo even on rational scholarship b, tooa,s lust for assimilat-
ing ever,thing nonfactual, or just about ever,thing, to ction,. Ano :8,,
because it marks such a raoical oeviance from the original, highlights the
non sequitur. Does the vife manufacture, invent, project` In a sense, ,es,
but this sense has nothing to oo vith ction. Her You knov, as a factive,
binos her to the truth of the ensuing report on the husbanos state of mino.
When that report proves nonfactual, inoeeo counter to fact, she ooes not at
all stano revealeo amio continueo self-binoing, as having ctionalizeo but
as having falsieo the matter in error. She simpl, got it vrong. Nor voulo
she turn ction-maker if she vere a oeliberate inventor, speaking against
her better knovleoge of his loves.
In epistemic commitment, then, the question of ctionalit, never arises,
because the values applicable to the enoorseo e.g., knovleoge, statement
polarize, or at most range, betveen the factual ano the false alone. Checkeo
against the facts, a factive truth claim elicits in reason either a positive or a
negative truth juogment, ano if the secono, counts as either a lie or a miss.
40
What m, repertoire of antireproouctive forms establishes, inter alia, is the
exibilit, of such values or juogments, rather than their vholesale suspen-
sion, let alone abrogation. Accoroing to the frames rigor or permissiveness,
the same quote e.g., a knovleoge claimreporteo in shorthano, ma, moou-
late betveen the true ano the untrue: betveen the operationall, equivalent
or nonequivalent to the original. Whenever assigneo, oeviance integrates
accoroing to the logic of functionalit,the va, the text resolves itself in
contextnot of ctionalit,. Iictionalizing never comes into it, on pain of a
contraoiction in terms, a breach of onto,logical premises. Hov else voulo
the oomain of suspenoeo truth migrate to the axis of truth, assuming an
existence oiscontinuous vith its ovn nature`
o. Ior a more oevelopeo argument see Sternberg :q8: ., :q86, :qqo, :qq8: :.
Nor is a factive voiceo or thought b, a ctive character exceptional, for
the grouno rule vill then operate vithin the ction, as it ooes in :8, ano
numberless counterparts, at a proper remove that ve easil, eect. Once
positeo, a ctional vorlo enacts its ovn truthsa,ers, falsiers, menoacious
or mistaken, and ctionalizers: hovever imaginar,, the bounoaries among
themare essentiall, as vell-oeneo, ano our abilit, to tell themapart some-
times as challengeo, as in real life. Ano the same holos for all inoirect, all
quoteo, all rst-oroer oiscourse i.e., all the va, from the presuppositional
to the assertive, from the re-presenteo to the representational, unoer such
epistemic commitment, genuine or mimetic.
Last, if re-,presentation in all these varieties has a oenite generic,
even ontic bearing, it concerns narrativit, rather than ctionalit,. As an
image of the vorlo, no matter hov static-looking, representation implies
time, change, ano so hi,stor,; as a oiscourse event, it further implies the
participants vievpoints,, itself time-bouno, on the hi,storieo vorlo. Re-
presentation, as an image of a vorlo-image ano a oiscourse about oiscourse,
b, nature multiplies these latent objective cumsubjective narrativities. Ano
oeviant re-presentation, factive or othervise, maximizes in turn this high-
level energ,: it bristles vith the tales of perspectival oiscoro that ve have
begun inferring, ano vill progressivel, replot ano generalize, to make sense
of incongruous oata.
Among the rest of its manifestations, this logic cuts across the varieties of
montage in factivit,. At the other, quotee-favoring pole, opposeo to :8,, ve
encounter near-verbatim echoes of the original thoughtor vhat counts
as suchreporteo vith the same factive transformer. Look at this scene of
cross-examination betveen a prosecutor ano the passenger of a hit-ano-run
oriver:
:q, Counsel: You knev that ,our frieno |the accuseo| hao lieo about it`
Smith: That heo saio he haont been in an accioent,es.
Counsel: That heo lieo about it`
Smith: Well,es. Cecil :q6. |:q8|: :.,
Note hov this refutes anev, from the opposite oirection, the ioea of c-
tionalizing in quoteo oiscourse, the connement to univocalit, ano same-
sa,ing in inoirect oiscourse, ano the premise of epistemic mutualit, in
presupposition. Either interlocutor here schematizes the original thought
neither even pretenoing to reproouce it, as the, might in the oirect form
but their quarrel nevertheless strictl, concerns a matter of fact, vith grave
legal ano practical implications for the accuseo, possibl, for the vitness too.
Re-presentations that var, from the oiscourse-event ano from each other
Sternberg

oo not ,et entail ction, an, more than ooes one maoe of vhole cloth. Iur-
ther, not onl, coulo the legal, as vell as the marital, scene happen in real
life; it even eschevs the omniscient insioeviev associable vith imaginative
literature.
Again, the assumption of epistemic commonalit, or consistenc, regaro-
ing the presupposition nov breaks oovn the other va,. If the requirement
proves much too high in :8,, absurol, so, here it proves too lov.The clash of
vills embooieo in the variant quotes ano heightening the narrativit, latent
in ever, variance into a tense reportive orama, starts, rather than enos, vith
an agreement about the bare propositional content of the vitnesss knovl-
eoge at the time. That the accuseo oenieo to the police his involvement
in the accioent forms common grouno, to vhich either part, binos himself:
the one having factivizeo it in point-blank aooress You knev that . . .,,
the other assents in elliptic resumption That . . .,. The quarrel betveen
reporter ano self-reporter turns insteao on the mental expression of the re-
portees knovleogeon the originals hiooen linguistic surface, especiall,
the operative topic ano verb.
The prosecutor at factive reporting is not content vith letting the facts
speak for themselves, as it vere, vhich voulo in eect make him alone re-
sponsible for the voroing. He vants the recoro to shov the ugliest here
also the genuine, version of the happening ano the thinking: eliciting as-
sent to ,our frieno hao lieo vill most incriminate the accuseo oriver ano
renoer the hostile vitnesss knovleoge of it, then as nov, guiltier to suit.
Inversel,, to avoio these penalties, the vitness at self-reporting voulo var,
into aomitting onl, his avareness b, elliptic implication at that, of his
frienos negative statement he saio he haont been in an accioent,es,.
Iar from a theoretical nicet,, he so minimizes the oesireo common grouno
that his apparentl, obliging ,es amounts to a half-no in practical jurioic
terms. It takes repeateo pressure to compel him to abanoon the euphe-
mism for the plain vhole truth, re-presenting the oeeo, the thought, ano
the operative language in their original ugl, unit,. Inoeeo, having once as-
senteo to the bare-bones proposition, he cannot help aomitting the other
half, namel,, that his mental ioiom tteo his knovleoge as his knovleoge
oio the action. It voulo be iole for him to object that he knovs the ioiolect
of his ovn mino best. The veaker-sounoing Well,es nov carries the
stronger meaning, Yes, m, frieno oio lie ano I knev it to be a lie.
Iactive valioation, then, accommooates oisharmon,propositional or
othervisebetveen the valioating ano the valioateo perspectives in the
given composite quote as vell as betveen either ano the truth,. Sheer re-
portive inversion, as in :8,, onl, carries oisharmon, to the eitheror ex-
treme. Transmitting the original thought essentiall, ungarbleo ,et leaves
room for such oivergences ano implicit tales of oivergence, on the va, to
the nisheo inset that the montage can alva,s get throvn out of ioeal, lit-
erall, equi-focal balance, to the privileging of one contributor. When bal-
anceo, the inset reects total harmon,, vith enoorsement to suit; vhen un-
balanceo, the harmon, ma, consist in the propositional gist, exclusive of
the rest, a fortiori of sa,, the language ano the value juogment, vhich ac-
coroingl, turn oivisive. Depenoing on vhich of the perspectives the, fall
to, the quoters presupposition vill then outreach or abstract the quotees
proposition. In raoical imbalance, the factive presupposer vill stano com-
mitteo not just to more or to less of the inset, respectivel,, but to all of its
aspects or to one alone, vhat it states about the vorlo.
Balance or imbalance` Ano if the latter, tippeo vhich va, be,ono the
shareo propositional minimum` These are the basic possibilities that the
factive inoirect report leaves open for us unpackers, or oisambiguators, to
test incontext. Conversel,, the extent ano inferentialit, of this maneuvering
grouno alreao, militate against an, projection rule vhereb, to foretell
the presuppositions that a complex sentence takes over or orops, from its
clausesan, formal part-to-vhole inheritance lav. Since the earl, :qos,
presupposition theor, has enoeavoreo to cooif, such a rule; but the quest is
hopeless, because misguioeo, in light of the variabilit, attaching to the oata.
Hov vill ,ou legislate the projection from component e.g., inset sentence,
to vhole vhen the component turns out a preoictabl, unpreoictable mixeo
quantit,, so that ,ou never even knov in aovance what to project from an,
single given exemplar: the factual content or also the voroing anoor the
norms` The oierence among such heritages is still oeeper than appears,
if onl, because the voroing ma, carr, further, nonfactive e.g., existential,
presuppositions that hover betveen the tvinneo vievpoints. The ioea of re-
oucing all possible variants to unitar, rule therefore goes against the grain
of factivit, ano oiscourse at large. In vhat ensues, its hopelessness vill onl,
vorsen as the roomfor ambiguit,, ano proportionall, for the contingencies
of inference, vioens. The vorse projective legislation fares, the stronger
the claim of the opposite ioea, vhereb, theorizing means generalizing ano
explaining the interpla, of unit, vith variet, as a functional o,namics: the
lines ano rationales of variation are alone preoictable, the outcome unrelat-
able to them before the oiscourse event.
Thus, the imbalance vithin the that-complement neeo not even run to
either extreme. In betveen, there range enoless possibilities of combining
or, from our sioe, oisentangling, the vievpoints that necessaril, go into
the inset. Ever, vievpoint boasts a variet, of oistinctive featuresexpres-
Sternberg

sive, emotive, informational, ethical, logical, metaph,sical, aesthetic, ano
so forthvhich make up its unique subjectivit,. The tvo-in-one montage
can therefore issue from operations both along ano across all the respective
perspectival lines. Not onl, is the quoter free to compose his ovn peculiar
st,le vith the quotees unequal avareness or other-minoeo juogmentano
inversel,but the oivergent st,les, avarenesses, juogments are themselves
mixable.
41
The interpla, of reference vill best exemplif, in miniature hov ano
vh, factive oiscourse ma, variousl, throv the quote out of perspectival
balance vithout losing or canceling, the presupposition that lives on
quoterquotee agreement. Ior one thing, reference constitutes a meeting
grouno of the sunor, perspectival axes: the choice of terms for realit,-items
bristles vith expressive, cognitive, normative oierentiae, ano accoroingl,
guioes the unpacking of the insets extrareferential components as vell.
Ior another thing, the vexeo issue of reference engenoereo presupposition
ano revisiting it vithin factivit, nov enables us to correlate the tvo major
presuppositional triggersalong lines ano vith gains that alreao, suggest
themselves. Not onl, ooes reference, oving to the multiple perspectival fea-
tures it implies, help vith the oecomposition of factivit,s tvinneo perspec-
tives, ano vice versa. Iactive bi-perspectivit, in turn points a larger moral
about reference, vhen reference is in neeo of integration above all.
Negativel, speaking, vhere voro ano thing conict, as vithThe present
King of Irance, stanoaro approaches go against communicative realit, in
oooming the reference either to presupposition failure or to untruth, a oeao
or a bao eno. These approaches harol, seek to integrate the clash, not even
via the shift in perspective that vill normalize the reference at a remove: the
speaker possibl, ooubles here as quoter to meoiate anothers uninformeo,
biaseo, or just ooo, referential vievpoint in its ovn terms. Iactivit, encour-
ages such h,pothesizing, inter alia, b, its necessar, oiscoursive compos-
iteness, ano so brings home the general rule: ve must attentivel, infer all
propositions, as ve oo its specic presuppositions, fromthe given oiscourse,
vhich ma, alva,s equivocate betveen voices.
Here is the forkeo tongue of reference in action:
.o, I savthe ambulance orive o ano there vas police cars all over the
place, so I knev something hao happeneo. Forter :q66: :o,
.:, Charlie Hellers name is not exactl, a householo voro in America.
:. The openness of such multiformcrosses to inoirect quotation, factivit, incluoeo, has been
ampl, oemonstrateo in Sternberg :qq, :q8., :q8b, :q86, :qq:; see also McHale :q8: .
, :q8: ..., particularl, for expressive mixture, ano Iluoernik :qq: ::o.
Still, enough people are avare of vhat he oio vithout necessaril,
associating it vith his name, to make a book on the subject vorth
vhile. Littel :q8.: ,
.., The guilt, knovleoge that I vas going to rob Mrs. oeI never
thought I vas going to rob oe, for I never thought of an, of the
housekeeping propert, as his. . . almost orove me out of m, mino.
Dickens n.o. |:86|: ::,
., She hao not mentioneo the matter to |her husbano|, as she knev
him to be a man of the most rioiculous integrit,, vho voulo never
have agreeo to her signing the |bogus| form. Cecil :q6. |:q8|:
:.,
Throughout, the peculiar reference makes sense if orienteo to the quotee, so
that the choice of linguistic terms for the referent captures assorteo features
of the putative knovers subjectivit,generall, oefective in some va, ano
measure.
Although better informeo about vhat happeneo, the self-quoter in .o,
levels oovn the knovleoge to something so as to match the quoteo
self s avareness at the time. Likevise in .:,, except that nov the quotee
people, creoiteo vith avareness ooubles as the aooressee. The thiro-
person masculine pronoun he best refers to the hero in question, since its
emptiness has the virtue of open-enoeoness. In the absence of the higher,
nominal common grouno betveen the parties to the tale about him, the
pronominal vill oo. It strikes an epistemic balance betveen the authors in-
formeo Charlie Heller ano vhatever pseuoon,m vith vhich reaoers vill
associate the referent conceivabl, incluoing the present King of Irance:
not such a bao cover for an ex-sp, vhose pet name for his ex-emplo,er,
the CIA, is B,zantium. oking asioe, the logic of other-minoeo, perspec-
tivizeo reference ooes nevl, appl, to the philosophers crux,.
More overtl, ano evaluativel,, next, the grovn-up Fip aoheres to his
,oung experiencing-Is crovoing out of oe b, Mrs. oe as object of
rob, hence as ovner. He thereb, reects in miniature the bo,s varpeo
viev of the famil, circle, oeao against the balance of natural kinoness ano
aection he receiveo, as vell as tops,-turv, b, contemporar, Victorian
stanoaros. To crovn the incongruit,, the scale latent in the ver, names
chosenoe ano Mrs. oepolarizes vith the statuses actuall, ac-
coroeo to the respective name-bearers b, the little subject. Ovnership,
or the sense of it, oepenos on vhether the canoioates for reference exer-
cise brutal pover at home: guilt, knovleoge inoeeo, be,ono that of the
coming robber, ano the self s ken at the time.
Driving the insioe-vievers juogment of the knoving subjects ill-
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juogment to the limit, ., again encapsulates it, nov in a mini-portrait:
a vomans attributing to her spouse the most rioiculous integrit,. The
loaoeo attributive reference is presumabl, hers ano hers alone, because for
the narrator to share it even to the extent that the oloer Fip ooes the half-
truth about robbing Mrs. oe, he voulo have to co-rioicule the spouses
attituoe tovaro forger, along vith her. Rather, he ooes unoervrite ever,-
thingthe faultless eoucateo language, the husbanos image as a man of
integrit,, the likelihooo of the mans veto on the crookeo oealvith the
pinpoint exception of one value-laoen aojective.
This exemplies afreshhovthe inferencing about presuppositional infer-
ence, in quest of the best t, ma, eno up vith a focus on the quotee, ano
hovvioel, the focus ranges inter alia, in scope: fromthe entirethat-clause,
as in :q,, to a part that jars vithin an othervise shareo, equi-focal inset. In
factivit, as elsevhere, ve must not expect an, of the categorical all or noth-
ing, eitheror, outcomes long favoreo b, oogma across oisciplines, legis-
lateo vith the stick of unacceptabilit,. The inferential o,namics ma, leao
to our singling out an element of the vhole presupposition e.g., a referring
term, for oppositional inverteo commasas though it vere quoteo oirectl,
ano at a remove, if not unoer protest, amio factive inoirectness.
B, contrast, the folloving examples enact locall,, ano more inferentiall,,
vhat happeneo vholesale in :8,. The quoter obtruoes his ovn referen-
tial vievpoint ano all it signies, consciousl, or othervise, upon the inset
proposition allegeo to transmit the knovleoge originating ano shareo vith
the quotee:
., I saio pompousl,, We nov knov vhat vere looking for is the log
of the Skadi.
Willie saio, Oh, that ship` Well, sorr,, olo bo,, but ve arent looking
for the log. Do ,ou mean the oeck log or the engine log or the rough
orafts of either, or the ocial log` Not to mention the movements
bookvhat`
So oont mention it, then, I grovleo. L,all :q.: :8,
., |A muroer suspect questioneo b, a oetective:| We vere just gooo
frienos'
Ho' Ho' saio Dover sarcasticall,. But ,ouve alreao, aomitteo
that not long before she vas shot, ,ou ano Isobel Slatcher became
less gooo frienos than ,ou hao been. She knev ,ou vanteo to
marr, Mrs. Oelo here, oiont she` Ano she oiont like the ioea,
oio she`
Oelo lookeo contemptuousl, oovn his nose ano oiont oeign to
ansver. Forter :q66: :8o,
.6, What I likeo about her, she oiont give ,ou a lot of horse manure
about vhat a great gu, her father vas. She probabl, knev vhat a
phone, slob he vas. Salinger :q6o: ,
Each of these exhibits some referring term oescriptive, nominal, pronomi-
nal, that likevise attracts notice, but tovaro the other montage-partner.
The chosen term alva,s jars here, rather than agrees, vith the subjectivit,
in vhich it allegeol, originateo, the knoversbecause ve infer, it gives
ava, the meoiators oivergent, possibl, ooo vievof the thing re-presenteo.
The reference-making I in ., speaks to the ve-group of knovleoge
he consioers shareob, another role ooubling, the quoteo mino nov ex-
tenos fromthe aooressee to the speaker himselfonl, to betra, the holes in
his ovn expertise. His oenite oescription the log meets vith a superior
knovers at, echoing oenial ve arent looking for the log,, rubbeo in b,
a list of alternative referents Do ,ou mean . . . `, that isolates the alazon
from the group. He must therefore vithorav the oenite article in favor of
an inoenite counterpart pronominalizeo b, the anaphoric it, that re-
ects the groups true state of ignorance. The presupposition of singular,
existence, if not the vhole factive report, backres upon the pompous
lanolubber.
Example ., confronts us vith the proleptic oesignation Mrs. Oelo
here, ano, of all people, from the mino of a rival vho oiont like the ioea
of her becoming Mrs. Oelo at that. Nor coulo Oelo himself vant,
or be knovn to vant, to marr, a voman alreao, marrieo to him ano
bearing his name. The oiscoroant referential preoating surel, gives ava,,
not the knovers jealous, but the knovleoge attributors insensitive, mino.
Oelo ma, vell look oovn his nose, if onl, consioering the questioners
bao ps,cholog, ano general illogic. Still, though there vas no such thing
in the germane knovn vorloan, more than there vas, or is, a King
of Iranceall concerneo manage to ioentif, the referent of Mrs. Oelo
here. The prolepsis once noteo, integrateo, ano oiscounteorelativizeo to
the ill-quoting oetectiveever,thing claimeo b, the factive insioevievma,
therefore be true: the jealousl, of the quotee, Isobel Slatcher, even Oelos
suspecteo role in her killing. Whatever the truth, subjective or objective, no
failure of reference comes into it, far less makes it inoeterminate a priori.
In .6,, nall,, ve infer a oirect counterpart to .,, since the loaoeo
preoicative expression changes subjective poles. Whence the jump fromthe
oaughters absence of speech not giving ,ou a lot of horse manure about
her father, to the conclusion regaroing her harsh attituoe knoving him
for a phone, slob,` An insioeviev that reaos lack of enthusiasm into her
silence might appear in oroer, but such unlialit, as expresseo, let alone
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factivizeo, in the reference oemanos haroer evioence. The st,le along vith
the juogment in the thought-quote rather bear the traoemark of Holoen
Cauelo, vho co-ascribes them to the quotee he likes, t,picall, jumping
from liking to like-minoeoness about phone,s. But even Holoenour tale
of report concluoeshas enough ooubts ano oecenc,, left to mooalize the
factive, so as to qualif, one of the joint vievpoints. Her probable gets
markeo o from his ovn presupposeo knovleoge, implicit but categorical
oovn to the voroing.
This range of perspectival interpla, translates into one of commitment,
ano multiple commitment, too. About the truth bono attaching to the fac-
tive verb itself e.g., hov the preoication of knov asserts an intense men-
tal state in the allegeo knover, enough has been saio for nov. The trans-
formers assertive bono, hovever, nos a more complex sequel in vhat the
inset presupposes: in the obliquities of inoirectness.
Here, to begin vith, the talk of the speakers commitment to the
proposition expresseo b, the oepenoent clause mistakes the lover com-
missive limit for the vhole range, freezing it in the process. Unsurprisingl,,
because hovelse voulo the oesireo projection rule ever materialize, or re-
main imaginable at all`, The factivizing inoirect quoter stanos committeo
not to but at least to that proposition, or its gist: he ma, presuppose an,-
thing from the state of aairs re-presenteo b, the inset to the embooieo re-
presentation itselfoepenoing on the elements he voulo appear to share
valioate,, obtruoe, oistance ava, in quoting. The transformer onl, fore-
tells that he presupposes, rather than vhat, nor vill the inset itself tell us,
if ever, unless unpackeo rst into the component vievpoints.
Where an, given frame-occupant stanos vis-a-vis the inset, betveen the
lover ano the upper limit, is therefore a matter of inference. Each presup-
poses, hence guarantees, exactl, vhat ve hearersreaoers vork out as the
presupposition most appropriate to the con,textespeciall, to the quoters
vievpoint vhen oisembarrasseo of its tvin. The valioator undervrites as
much or as little as ve understano from the oata on the operative rules.
The s,mmetr, betveen these unders highlights a t,pe-oistinctive inferential
nexus that unoerlies the communication if ,ou like, the hermeneutic circle,
of factivit,, vith eects that vill keep branching out as ve proceeo. Fre-
supposition being encooeo in the language, an, trigger signals a commit-
ment obliquel, maoe through the oiscourse ano vaiting to be maoe out
from the oiscourse. Hence again the exemplar, role of factivit,. In its com-
missive as in its perspectival aspect at large, factive presupposing entails not
just oiscourse about oiscourse, but also inference about inferencetovaro
that attributable to the secono-hano oiscoursers ovn frame. Entails, I in-
sist, because noboo, can escape the exigenc,, not even those voulo-be for-
malists vho misconceive factive, presupposition in all the va,s alreao,
outlineo ano still to emerge. The, onl, oo the inferencing baol, or, to juoge
from the performance of communicators in life ano literature, ill-theorize
vhat the, oo quite vell.
At the same time, in the same inferential process, the inoirect quotee
also gets committeo, albeit the va, his vievpoint as a vhole gets commu-
nicateoat secono hano. The ver, ioea of secono-hano commitment vill
souno bizarre unless ,ou appreciate as presupposition along vith speech
act theorists, inter alia, oo not, the vioer, multifolo netvork of relations in
vhich inference necessaril, operates. Here, it is all too eas, to forget both
the inseparabilit, of the tvo parties to the quoteo oiscourse ano the ar-
ticialit, of isolating an, commissive act in vhich either gures e.g., the
ubiquitous sentence-length example, from the rest. Unoer such amnesia,
the quoteo subject fares vorse than the speakerto the point of exclu-
sionbecause he apparentl, cannot be helo accountable for the voros,
much less insioevievs, least of all knovleoge statement,s, attributeo to him
b, another. Where if not vith the attributorthe factivizer, above all
ooes the vhole onus belong`
But think of ,ourself, of ,our frieno, of a protagonist ,ou have just fol-
loveo throughout a hi,stor,, ano the oeceptiveness of this appearance vill
reveal itself. All subjects, historical or imaginar,, bear their recoros of com-
mitment vith them, ano these are oiverse as vell as incremental. Onl, part
of the recoro consists in vhat the subject himself has voiceo vith vhat-
ever assurance on recoro. The other part consists in vhatever has been as-
cribeo to him, vith vhatever intensit, ano valioation, b, quoters of the
most oiverse authorit,not least relative to that he enjo,s about himself. It
can possibl, unoerrank, possibl, approximate, possibl, exceeo, even tran-
sceno his ovn self-avareness, self-oisclosure, self-conoence, vith the all-
authoritative narrator vis-a-vis the narrateo gures as limit case.
In epistemic engagement, therefore, the recoro makes or breaks, ano our
piecing it out from all the evioence available re,constitutes, the subject.
Once constituteo, hovever provisionall,, it becomes the measure against
vhich ve test for consistenc, each nev engagement spoken or quotational,
autonomous or attributive or attributeo. Even vhen encountering a sub-
ject for the rst timein life, ction, or articiall, isolateo example
ve infer the recoro as best ve can, if onl, from the probabilities of the
ver, statement, that launches its builoup in the given con,text. The above
oiscussion has alreao, establisheo that an oooit,, a fortiori inconsis-
tenc,the quoters or the quotees, the valioatorspresupposers or the
mentalizersintensiersma, arise on the shortest acquaintance; ano
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hov voulo it arise vithout some past oiscourse, norm, to jar against` In-
versel,, the vealth ano universalit, of the resources available for integrating
it e.g., b, va, of attribution to another, more tting vievpoint, the quoting
or the quoteo subjects, testif, to the pressure exerteo on us unoerstanoers
b, the threat of an, commissive breakoovn.
If ve keep in mino that the commitment at issue here is one to consis-
tenc,the epistemic face of this oiscourse-vioe basis for sense-making, or
integration, ano not necessaril, attenoeo vith other pleogesits secono-
hanoeoness no longer rules it out from the inferential arena. In :q,, for
example, not onl, the juoge, the jur,, ano the eavesoropping reaoer but the
hit-ano-run oriver himself must somehov set the recoro straight: integrate
his ovn persistence in oenial vith the barristersvitnesss knovleoge claim
that he hao lieo to the police about his involvement in the accioent. The
trouble is rather that the exigenc, no longer seems peculiar to knovleoge
ano other presupposeo claims, either, but assumes universal jurisoiction.
Unlike the quoters commitment, the quotees in our examples ma, not
appear specicall, factive at all. The less so if ,ou go b, the sveeping
generalizations or, vhere silent on the topic, their corollaries, that have
beoevileo theor, in the oisciplines concerneoabout inoirect quoting or
propositional attituoes, as if the, vere reoucible to unit,. Doesnt this rule of
self-accoro holo, ,ou ma, then vonoer, for all thinking cognizing, perceiv-
ing, emoting, subjects` Doesnt it holo for all speaking subjects as vellqua
fellovpropositionalizersacross variations like, or vithin, inoirectness` In
brief, ooesnt one necessaril, subscribe to vhatever one thinks, or sa,s, a
fortiori vhen one samethinks, or samesa,s, it vith the quoter`
Yes, one ooes, except that necessaril, ooesnt mean uniforml,. As vith
the quoters ovn special commitment in factivit,, lost upon the overgener-
alizers, the tenoenc, to lump together quotees presenteo in the same in-
oirect, form again blurs a vital oistinction. To revert to m, componential
anal,sis, all thought-verbs encooe a mentalizer; but the minos oegree of
conoence in vhat it thinks varies vioel, outsioe factivit, ano rarel, as-
cenos to the upper limit of intensit,. Thus the oescenoing scale from feel
sure to believe to guess to daydream: the more subjective or, if ,ou vill, the
more perspectivizeo, the thought attributeo, the less binoing in regaro to
the thinking subject as vell as the invariabl, noncommittal thought-quoter.
The former ma, then silentl, aoo vith progressive libert, the kino of ois-
claimers alva,s open to the latter.
In factivit, alone ooes or at least can, this variable inverse ratio of sub-
jectivit,perspectivit, to self-commitment turn straight ano comparativel,
stable. Within the factive preoicate, too, the mentalizer attributes the origi-
nal thought to the quoteethe subject of the clause ano of consciousness
alike,et the intensier nov binos the quotee to the thought as fast as the
thiro, valioating element ooes the quoter. What the ones mino conoentl,
oeems true, ve gather in aovance, the others meoiac, presupposes to be
true ano vill next transmit vith the presupposers enoorsement. It being
the subjects assureo mental representation that the inset so re-presents, he
must co-shouloer the appropriate loaoan,thing fromthe propositional to
the vhole buroen, fromthe facts to the oiscourse as re-presenteounless
ve have grounos for inferring othervise. Ano inferring othervise means
locating a signicant oistance, if not chasm, betveen the quotee ano the
original subject vhose mino the inoirect quotation purports to re-present,
from vorlo-image ano truth commitment upvaro.
Among the grounos for oecreasing that quotees cosponsorship belov
the propositional thresholo, all the va, oovn to nothing, the preoicates
mooalization rst suggests itself b, its overtness. It signals an element of
uncertaint, about the original representation, hence a more or less unequal
partnership in the given re-presentation, fromthe surface to the vievs to the
ties involveo. Depenoing on context, the mooal qualies the ver, mental-
izer Dio X think or believe an,thing of the sort`, anoor the intensier
Was X sure, rather than onl, thinking or believing it`,, to an extent that
can shaoe o into the minus of negation.
Thus, the she probabl, knev in .6, throvs into open ooubt not just
vhether the allegeo knover silentl, refers to her father as a phone, slob,
but even vhether she ooes or voulo opt for a softer oescriptive equivalent:
inoeeo, vhether she thinks, far less knovs ill of him at all, but also vhether
the oescription on recoro is harsh enough to cover her knovleoge of him.
What Holoen introouces as probable lenos itself to reaoing as an,thing
from an unoerstateo to an illusive commonalit,, from the marriage of true
minos be,ono his oreams to a sheer vishful projectionof his mino onto hers.
This ambiguit, about the lial attituoe sta,s unresolveo. Anoinoperational
terms, as long as it ooes, she ma, proceeo to express sa,, think, factivize,
an,thing about her father vithout contraoicting herself, that is, her h,po-
thetical inner selves. No ensuing oiscourse in her ovn name can be juogeo
a breach of vhat ve have nov registereo as her mental epistemic commit-
mentor, strictl,, falsif, his qualieo commitment about hers. Gooo, bao,
or inoierent, her expression vill have been anticipateo somevhere along
the range of possibilities incluoing the quoters probabl,, that appl, to
her earl, cognition. Her commissive recoro on the topic is as openl, open
as the mooal leaves it; ano vere she a Queen Elizabeth, or a heroine in
a ames novel vith a likevise troubleo liation, the gaps interest ano the
pressure for ois,closure voulo mount accoroingl,.
Even so, the inoeterminac, stops vell short of Holoens ovn position.
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While qualif,ing his frienos knovleoge, he remains unreserveol, pleogeo
to the truth of the inset, phone, slob ano all, as vell as to the likelihooo
of cosponsorship: to the entire given stretch of inoirect oiscourse, in brief,
from mooalizeo assertion to categorical presupposition. Against Wilson
:q: :oq, vho fails to unpack the vievpoints.,
This brings us to a still vioer ano oeeper reason for variations in the
quotees imputeo or inferreo truth-bono, as for entanglements in perspec-
tival ambiguit,. Wh, ooes Holoen see t to veaken the preoication cum
partnership b, mooalizing it` The constraints of the human conoitionof
access to other minos, above allare no ooubt at vork. Less charitabl,, he
or, if too innocent, his fellovmooalizers, vants to compouno the epistemo-
logical oecorums of realism vith rhetorical gains, or to invoke the former
as camouage for the latter. Mutatis mutanois, qualif,ing the claim of in-
sight into anothers avareness oiscover,, regret, bother . . ., enhances the
creoibilit, of vhatever qualieo epistemic claim one ooes make about the
privilegeo secret life. Ano novhere in thought quotation ooes realism so
press or the enhancement come into such oemano as in factivit,, vhose
bare preoicate alreao, intensies the truth claim: fromthe quotees men-
tal attituoe to a mental certituoe on a par vith the quoters ovn. There
Holoen in eect asserts, ano oul, heoges, nothing less than his knovleoge
rather than, sa,, belief , of her shareo knovleoge oitto, of vhat he presup-
poses about the phone, slob in rst-oroer realit,. Such multilevel accoro
among humans can oo vith a grain of ooubt.
But mooalit, is onl, a special case of variation in other-binoing. Dont
ve alva,s check, against the appropriate norms, the oegree ano grouno-
ing of the quoters assertive commitment about the quotees like-minoeo
commitment, together vith the presuppositional self-commitment about
the vorlo itself ` In general, therefore, that oegree ano grounoing neeo not
no an, articulation, encooeo or othervise, for us to seek it, if possible to
suppl, it, against the factivizers vishes, if necessar,.
This checking vorks b, appeal to the same tvo universal axes of point
of viev as have just been aoumbrateo apropos Holoen: the meoiators
knovleoge from interior to possibl, exterior in factive oroer, ano reli-
abilit,. Local clues apart, the preoicative assertion as vell as the inset pre-
supposition oepeno for their truth value on vhere if an,vhere, our infer-
ence locates the factive truth-claimant betveen the extremes of insight ano
blinoness, absolute trustvorthiness ano none.
Insight versus blinoness, I emphasize, not omniscience versus restricteo-
ness, as traoitional narrative theor, voulo expect. I inoeeo reject its vhole
preconception of oiscoursive, or even epistemic authorit,, along vith its
lov naturalistic counterparts in epistemolog, proper, histor, stuo,, ano
relateo elos.
42
M, Froteus Frinciple, generall, substituting a man,-to-
man, for their one-to-one corresponoence betveen form ano function,
once again preoicts the true state of aairs: the insightfulblino or autho-
rizeounauthorizeo axis i.e., the oierential epistemic value, has multiple
operative surface correlates in oiscourse, of vhich omniscientrestricteo is
onl, one ano not necessaril, a ctional one at that.
So, vhen the Biblical narrator, entrencheo as oivinel, inspireo histor,-
teller in context, grants us the insioeviev, Saul then knev that Goo
vas vith Davio : Samuel :8:.8,, all normal oivioes vanish togetherat
least in regaro to the given propositional meaning or its truth valuation.
Here, nothing separates objectivit, fromsubjectivit,, ontolog, fromepiste-
molog,, rst-oroer vorlo representationfrommino re-presentation, quoteo
from original thought, preoication from presupposition, self- from other-
binoing. Iurther, though this omniscient vill tell us less than he knovsthe
vhole truthhe guaros against misleaoing us the va, ironists like Iielo-
ing or Austen oo, in vhat he tells. Narrative practice therefore goes here
vith absolute epistemic privilege to maximize reliabilit,. Ior oetails, see
Sternberg :q8.a: :8., :q8: .:8 ano, vith specic reference to fac-
tivit,, :q86.,
Valioateo on the highest authorit,, therefore, this knev establishes as
a rocklike fact, ano vhatever the appearances to the contrar,, not onl, the
truth of the inset proposition vithin the representeo historical vorlo but
also its truth to King Sauls vievpoint on that vorlo. Were he to oen, it, he
voulo incur self-contraoiction, if to our e,es onl,, privilegeo for the nonce
b, courtes,, ano Goos. It is be,ono the jointl, helo propositional content
that the ubiquitous question arises here: vhat is vhose in the inset montage`
Ano the ansver implieo vill most often reactivate the ver, iron,-fraught
oistinctions neutralizeo at the basic, common level. It vill, that is, oppose
the quotees truth partial, because humanl, limiteo anoor selective, to the
vhole truth e.g., about the GooDavio alliance, reserveo for the quoters
superhuman frame.
On the other hano, omniscient intervention can turn out not onl, mis-
leaoing as vith the ironists just nameo or the equivocators to be oiscusseo,
but also virtuall, superuous. Ior all the contrast of these practices to each
otheras vell as to the Biblical normthe eect is much the same in the
.. Here m, anal,sis complements the attack on the traoition of epistemolog, in Rort, :q8o,
except that it both reaches further ano oers a viable theoretical alternative across communi-
cation: a turn fromthe hopeless meta,oiscourse of epistemolog,, vith its prescriptive unitar,
ioeal, to the functional epistemolog, of oiscourse, enolessl, Frotean ano at most contingentl,
regulateo in practice. Ior hov this o,namism aects the theor, of narrative un,reliabilit,,
see again the Yacobi references as vell as the argument belov.
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premium put on our inference. So, in :8,, Ireooie knev no such thing
rather clinches than uncovers to us the falsit, of the preoicative You
knov, ano the presupposeo ,ou love, statement alike. Ior on the most
earthl, inspection, Ireooies vife tops o the oroinar, human liabilit, to
error vith a peculiar genericall, comic, mix of blinoness, bus,booiness,
insensitivit,, self-oelusion that allovs of no self-questioning. What vith the
husbanos commissive recoro thus faron love incluoeoher negative
polarit, oiscreoits the entire quotation: factive ano fact, quoteo ano origi-
nal Ireooie, re-presenteo ano representeo state of aairs, all orav poles
asunoer, foreseeabl, so. Were Ireooie brave enough to protest, he voulo
contraoict her from the insioe vith the same epistemic impunit,because
vith an analogous privilege ano veight vis-a-vis hersas the omniscient
teller himself enjo,s in the actual negation of the knov. The responsibilit,
for the entire false insioeviev ano the inconsistence vith the truth orama-
tizeo, given, utterable, is hers alone: a single perspective masqueraoing as
a partnership.
Conversel,, humans sometimes factivize, as vell as oistance or ironize,
the vorkings of other minos vith an authorit, ano so commissive force,
practicall, equal to an omniscients or to a Ireooies self-knovleoge. This
voulo be aomitteo even b, haro-line epistemologists in philosoph,, vith
their fellovoogmatists in pragmatics, historiosoph,, ano literar, stuo,. Ex-
cept that the, voulo conoition the insight on some pregiven epistemic
varrantanchoreo in a favorite culture-bouno version of naturalism or
rationalism, hence alien to the bounoless o,namics of quoteo, oiscourse
insteao of attaching, oetaching, or refashioning the strings of varrantabilit,
accoroing to the operative contextual norms ano premises. Although :q,,
for example, bears a markeo resemblance to :8,the stronger because the
factives subject ooubles as its aooresseethe, othervise contrast all along
the line. In our e,es, ano the oramatic observers, the reference maoe b,
the prosecutor to the vitnesss knovleoge commits the latter to the vhole
insioeviev, from transformer to inset, from preoication You knev, to
presupposition ,our frieno hao lieo about it,.
43
We register the claim as
a truth, the factive as a fact here, vithin the ctional vorlo,. Whats more,
ano still less realistic, its other-commissive force outranks the vitnesss
oivergent expression of self-knovleoge in an,thing from propositional to
verbal loao; ano the vitness nall, aomits as much. The insioe-vievee re-
voices ano assumes verbatim the uncongenial commitment placeo on him
b, the insioe-viever from vithout. Most notable, the outsioers outknov-
. Though formall, a question, the cross-examiners reference has the force of an elliptical,
assertion: I put it to ,ou that ,ou knev. . . .
ing the insioer contrasts vith the failure of knovleoge in :8, since, real-
isticall,, an olo marrieo couple shoulo have better access to each others
minos than a pair of strangers. Ano if the barristers insight ,et lenos itself
to motivation b, appeal to empiricsnative vit, professional experience,
the tenor of the evioenceit has equivalents in life ano literature that issue
from pure intuition: oiametric varrant, analogous veight. Fure conven-
tion ma, be stronger ,et, qualitativel, so: vhat ,our authorizeo spokesmen
e.g., lav,ers, assert on recoro about ,our mino binos ,ou along vith them-
selves, the va, an omniscient voulo. In factivit,, as elsevhere, oiscoursive
authorit, varies athvart ano against as vell as vith realism, a fortiori the
shifting stanoaros thereof.
An armative inoirect quotation once associateo vith either extreme
of authorit,, then, our aovance from the basics to the variables of fac-
tivit, is essentiall, straightforvaro. The factivizer then makes tvo self-
commitments, one objective ano presuppositional, one subjective, asser-
tive, ano implicating a like-minoeo other. Objectivel,, as presupposer
valioator, he binos himself to the truth of the inset re-presentation that Goo
vas vith Davio, that the accuseo lieo, that Ireooie loves peoicare, etc.,.
Subjectivel,, as quoter of the original representation, mental ano intense,
he binos himself to the truthof the insioevievof the quotee Sauls inner cer-
tituoe about Goo being vith Davio, the vitnesss about the accuseo having
lieo, Ireooies about his love for peoicare,. Hence the subjective bonovoulo
commit the quotee vith equal force to the objective state of aairs allegeol,
representeo b, him ano nov presupposeo in quotation.
What reverses betveen the extremes is not the truth claims maoe but
their truthvalue. At the authoritative pole, all the factivizers commitments,
object- or subject-orienteo, unoertaken or imputeo, accoro vith factualit,
i.e., vhat counts as such, even in ction,; at the opposite pole, none oo,
least of all the imputeo, secono-hano one that presumes to viev ano fetter
another mino.The clear-cut results betveen truth ano falsit,, hovever, ma,
leave a host of seconoar, questions open to nicer inference. Do the paireo
images of truththe quoters ano the quoteesmatch in oepth, extent,
consciousness, semiotic form, attituoe be,ono the propositional` Does the
arra, of untruths ,et contain elements oefensible vithin a vioer frame or
less fact-bouno epistemolog,` Variet, in basic unit,, local or higher accoro
in oiscoro.
Man, most`, of our inferential processes, hovever, range ano shuttle be-
tveen these extremes, often forever, vithout a oeterminate eno-proouct to
shov for our trouble. The factivizer being neither here nor there, the haro
questions no longer start at the level of relative oetail or even stop vith the
Sternberg

ois,ambiguation of objective factualit,. Insteao, like the rest of the equi-
focuseo montage, the others equal buroen ano the oistance separating the
given inset fromthe original statement, also turn ambiguous as a vhole. In
.,, oio Isobel subscribe to the viev, let alone to the knovleoge, of Oelos
pero, that the unempathetic oetective imputes to her` Confronteo vith
I knev something hao happeneo in .o,, shoulo ve along vith the im-
meoiate aooressee, trust the self-re-presenters profession of ignorance at
the time` In attening ever,thing into the bare narrative minimum, from
topic to verb, from agent or patient to action, ooesnt he tell less than he
knev` In .:,, epistemic not onl, crosses ontic ambiguit,, as usual, but raises
it to the level of genre. Is the presupposition of existence carrieo b, Charlie
Heller, then that of truth factivizeo b, people are avare of vhat he oio,
geareo to the real or to a novelistic vorlo` With vhich kino of operative
claims, hence ultimatel, values, are ve to associate the subjects avareness
ofano the existents ooings in the three-point shuttle among the factual,
the false, ano the ctional` The authors Iorevoro inoeeo proceeos to en-
tangle the issue., Ano so forth.
But the extremes themselves, of course, are no more given ano their con-
stituents are therefore no more projectible b, rule, than the intermeoiate
equivocalities. Our inferential activit, en route to the latent presupposi-
tional inference accoroingl, stretches from transformer to inset, from the
montage of vievpoints in general to its truth-pleoging aspect ano balance,
from truth claim to truth value, from statement, to the stating oiscourse,
from vhole to particular, toing ano froing among them all in search of
the best integration. Where oo the forces in pla, converge, vhere oiverge,
vhere hover betveen convergence ano oivergence` Ever,vhere, novhere,
here ano there` Yet, vhatever our ansver, it vill rest on one uniquel, stable
grouno: the arming factivizer cannot vithout inconsistenc, oisclaim re-
sponsibilit, for some propositional minimum. What happens unoer threat
of such inconsistenc, is preoictabl, b, nov, I hope, further inference oe-
signeo to motivate, if possible to eliminate itano the ultimate test of m,
argument.
5. Shifting Perspectives, Downgrading Presupposers: From (Indirect)
Quotation to (Indirect) Quotation within (Free Indirect) Quotation
To return to m, beginning, since the earl, :qos presupposition theorists
have agonizeo over inventeo, conunorums of factivit, like:
., Ior all I knov, Oeoipus regrets killing his father, although, in fact,
he oiont kill him. Cf. :,,, ,8,, :, above.,
In vhat is still among the best available pragmatic approaches, Geralo Gaz-
oar :qq, observes:
The unacceptabilit, of this example can be reaoil, explaineo if ve allov the
factive |i.e., regrets| to entail its complement. The argument goes as follovs.
The sentence as a vholeassumeo to be a conjunctionepistemically implies . . .
that the speaker knovs that Oeoipus oio not kill his father, because of the secono
clause, but the rst clause, ano hence the sentence as a vhole, entails that it is
compatible vith all the speaker knovs that Oeoipus oio kill his father. These tvo
implications are contraoictor,, hence the anomal,. This is aninformal renoition
of vhat is a simple proof in epistemic logic., :qq: :.:,
44
I voulo challenge ever, step in this anal,sis, from negative premise un-
acceptabilit,, to argument even proof , to Q.E.D. It is, alas, a charac-
teristic tissue of fallacies, oversights, misjuogments, ano plain bao anal,tic
habits, some alreao, encountereo, some never to us. Brie,:
a, Left uncontextualizeo, against the nature pragmatics, of oiscourse,
the example ,et invokes a situation the Oeoipus tale, vhose apparent
familiarit, ma, preoispose our unoerstanoing ano juogmentor, as here,
oisorient them through unfamiliar tvists. Exactl, because the speakers
knovleoge pla,s such a roleas against the subjects ano oursvhat
is actuall, knovn, vhat foreknovn, vhat unknovn` Wh,, vherefrom, to
vhom, vithin vhat referential frame` Thus, of the tvo contraoictor,
implications allegeo, vhich holos true in the examples oiscourse vorlo:
Oeoipus as traoitional |fore|knovn, parricioe or as an untraoitional inno-
cent` If the former, then the factive survives after all, ano it is the counter-
statement that becomes the problem ano oemanos resolution e.g., . . . he
oiont kill him but merel, causeo his oeath,: the imagineo unaccept-
abilit, nos its target, one other as vell as more localizeo than the anal,st
singles out. Such unstable vorlo-cooroinates make a principleo oierence,
if onl, because of the neeo to keep apart internal, context-specic from
extratextual truth. Seeing hovoften the tvo get conateo, in ano out of pre-
supposition theor,, ve must remember that factivit, can bear an, relation
to external natural, historical, scientic, fact:
. More recent parallels voulo be the claims that tvinning ohn regrets that he lost his
job vith ohn oio not lose his job Chierchia ano McConnel-Ginet :qqo: o:, or Elspeth
knovs that Ireo is happ, vith Ireo is, or ma, be, unhapp, Beaver :qq: q:., must
oeepl, oeno against felicit,, compatibilit,, truth-conoitionalit,, ano the like. Conversel,,
some voulo oeem a reounoant follov-up, like . . . ano he killeo his father, no less anoma-
lous ill formeo in Bickerton :qq:. .; incoherent ano incomprehensible for Van oer
Sanot :q88: :6o6, :88q,: m, counterargument belov reaoil, extenos throughout to this
polar terminus.
Sternberg

.8, Mr. Camilla came to the rescue at this point, ano saio in a consola-
tor, ano complimentar, voice, Camilla, m, oear, it is vell knovn
that ,our famil, feelings are graouall, unoermining ,ou to the ex-
tent of making one of ,our legs shorter than the other. Dickens
n.o. |:86|: 8.,
Hovever fantastic Mr. Camillas complimentar, complement, he stanos
bouno to it as factivizer: the incompatibilit, of the vell knovn vith the
foreknovnlavs of nature vill be integrateob, mechanisms e.g., existential,
generic, ps,chic, other than the epistemic. Again, presupposeo ano com-
mon or mutual knovleoge, strict ano loose presupposition, are vorlos
asunoer, as the, alva,s are in reason.
b, Even more t,picall,, Gazoar overlooks factivit,s quotational status,
bi-perspectivit,, oistinctiveness, let alone variations, hence maneuvera-
bilit,. He ociall, treats the entire tvo-part example as a matter of the
speakers knovleoge ano epistemic consistenc,. Ociall,, since his ovn
anal,sis at times betokens othervise. Not onl, must he be avare that Oeoi-
pus regrets . . . introouces a subject anoa mental state; he elsevhere aoverts
to them himself in claiming that the sentence likevise entails that Oeoi-
pus knovs that he killeo his father Gazoar :qq: :.,. But the fragments
remain uncorrelateo ano untheorizeonot even into a putative coupling
of the tvo entaileo knovers, vhich voulo amount to a glimpse of quoteo
oiscourse, or at least of nonunitar, vievpoint. So aggravateo b, incoher-
ence from vithin, this oblivion breeos further trouble.
c, The appeal to entailment, on vhich the argument rests, is ooo, ao hoc,
ano untenable. In line vith all semantic approaches to presupposition,
Gazoar insists that simple armative factive sentences both entail ano
presuppose their complements. Nor inoeeo, mores the pit,, is this move
especiall, controversial ibio.: 8q, ::q.o, in the rest of the elo not even
among those vho voulo oispense vith the aooeo epistemic logic,. But
vh, conate tvo oistinct inference t,pes, ano in an anal,sis mounteo to ois-
tinguish the latt,er at that` Wh, oo so in the vake of the semantic accounts
that Gazoar the pragmaticist othervise so shrevol, oemolishes` Ano vh,
the selective forcing of the marriage on armative factive sentences onl,`
The last vonoer is the easiest to resolve: because presupposition opposes
all other inference t,pes, entailment among them, in its remarkable sur-
vival unoer negation, ano ,et Gazoar et al. vant to keep it cancelable at
neeo as vell. Either va,, the survivalist or the cancelationist, its behavior
unoer negation pla,s havoc vith entailment rules, ano the oesire to have
it nov this va,, nov that as usual, enforces their connement to the ar-
mative mooe. Sheer or presuppositional entailment here, unentaileo pre-
supposition there. But if so, the halfva, house, stopping short of the ver,
oistinctive negational feature, onl, vorsens matters: vh, compouno oooit,
vith selectivit,, inoeeo ao hocness`
At the oeepest, methooological level, the splicing of inference t,pes be-
tra,s the continueo strangleholo of philosoph,, especiall, logic, on the
ver, notion of vhat a theor, of oiscourse shoulo be ano oo. There the ex-
citing ioea of presupposition, as vell as implicature ano speech act, origi-
nateo to constitute pragmatics, together vith a false because unattainable
ano unsuitable, ioeal of s,stematizing language use that still misguioes the
heirs. In this regaro, there is little to choose betveen traoitional semantic
ano pragmatic approaches to, sa,, factivit,,. Whatever their oierences,
either line voulo square the circle b, reoucing all inference to virtual au-
tomatism: to logical, if necessar, quasi-logical computation, to projective
formulas, to irrefutable proof or oisproof, to the eitheror simplicities ano
certainties ano in this sense trivialities of entailment. The formalist algo-
rithmic spirit of the enterprise goes against the elusive realities ano goal-
oirecteo regularities of communication.
This hankering after strange goos generates, inter alia, the argument
unoer scrutin,. Ooo ano selective, the appeal to entailment vithin, pre-
supposition, ve hear, reaoil, explains the unacceptabilit, of cases like
.8,. Accoroing to Gazoar, if ,ou take the opening clause as merel, pre-
suppositional, then the ensuing counterstatement voulo renoer it merel,
infelicitous or inappropriate: too veak a juogment on the falsication, or
mutual exclusiveness, incurreo. Although or because presupposition is lift-
able oefeasible, cancelable, at a pinch, criticizing the speech act ap-
parentl, ooes not oo full justice to the outrage senseo here. But if ve allov
the factive to entail its complement as vell, then the rst clause, ano
hence the sentence as a vholeentails that it is compatible vith all the speaker
knovs that Oeoipus oio kill his father, vhile the secono clause, hence
the sentence as a vhole . . . epistemicall, implies . . . that the speaker
knovs that Oeoipus oio not kill his father: a heao-on, eitheror contra-
oiction emerges. Ano since entailment, unlike presupposition b, itself,
is too haro to be canceleo or oefeateo or juogeo merel, infelicitous
unoer vhatever pressure, the tvo implications alike survive to contra-
oict each other, breeoing ano explaining the anomal,. Ior the anal,st, it
goes vithout sa,ing that such explanation announces the terminus, like the
merel, infelicitous juogment, onl, more oenitel, so: illogic outooes ill-
performance.The sharper the anomalousness, the less acceptable its carrier
ano the oeaoer the oeao eno.
But then, the chain of reasoning snaps at the rst link. This factive, or
Sternberg

an, other, never entails its complement, ano ve have alreao, oiscovereo
vh,: because it entails quotation, precluoing all further entailments. Thus,
.8, ooes not entail that Oeoipus knovs that he killeo his father. In the
given quotation, as alva,s, the insets perspectival montage hovers betveen
quoter Gazoars speaker, ano quotee, ambiguating ever,thing, oovn to
the origin of the referential terms. Ano if the term useo here, as before in
.,.6,, is the quoters, then Oeoipus e.g., at the outset of Sophocles
pla,, ma, vell regretfull, aomit to having killeo the olo man at the cross-
roaos vhile oen,ing, ano not in the least knoving, that he hao killeo his
father. This supposeo entailment fails the oenitional test of being true
in all possible vorlos. Inversel,, as hinteo above, vith the quoter himself.
Whether he alone or also his subject knovs that Oeoipus killeo his father,
he neeo not contraoict his ovn or eithers, knovleoge in the secono clause:
he ma, insteao be oraving the ner, ancient, relevant line betveen killing
ano causing oeath. Not to mention as ,et possible reaoings other than in-
oirect thought-report., Ior better or vorse, the logic of entailment vanishes,
along vith its binarisms ano contraoictor, impasses, to leave the o,nam-
ics of presupposition on its ovn: never strictl, contraoictable, the inference
alva,s remains maneuverable even, or above all, in face of apparent incon-
sistenc,. The oeao eno opens up into life.
o, B, the same token, the ver, premise of .8,s unacceptabilit,, as
entailment anoor presupposition, collapses. Small vonoer the empirical
evioence negates the premise afresh: the concocteo putative anomal, has
countless equivalents on recoro, throughout language use. What insteao
neeos to be oisentangleo ano explaineo is its multiple acceptabilit,even
along lines that go be,ono, or against, the sense-making via inoirect ois-
course on vhich ve have just oravn afresh.
e, With this in viev, ano in fairness to Gazoar, it shoulo be pointeo out
that his halfva, house of factivit, suers further oivision at the hanos of
other theorists. Splicing the tvo inference t,pes, the, ,et split their joint ap-
plicabilit, not onl, betveen armative ano other sentence t,pes but also
betveenimagineo factive subt,pes. Gazoar himself names some vho voulo
mark o cognitive factives like knov, taken to entail as vell as presuppose
their complements, from their emotive mates, like regret :.o, :..,. M,
counterargument above evioentl, holos for both. Hovever, knov being
m, paraoigm an,va,, the challenge of oeveloping the positive argument
through the allegeol, stronger, cognitive branch is velcome.
Take rst these oiverse ano contextualizeo equivalents of .8, on public
recoro:
.q, At his machine gun in the stern of Hiyo, Chief Fett, Ocer Mitsu-
kuni Oshita hearo the cr, Torpeoo coming' He began to count.
At :. he knev the torpeoo hao misseo, ano relaxeo. An explosion
jarreo Hiyo. Oshita hao counteo too fast. Tolano :q:: :,
o, She |Mrs. Ramsa,| sav his |Mr. Ramsa,s| anger , like a pack
of hounos into his e,es, his brov, ano she knev that in a moment
something violent voulo explooe, ano thenbut thank goooness'
she sav him clutch himself ano clap a brake on the vheel, ano the
vhole of his boo, seemeo to emit sparks but not voros. Woolf
:q6 |:q.|: ::o,
:, I vent oovn to m, beoroom, orev the curtains, lockeo the ooor,
turneo o the light, vent to beo knoving I shoulo not sleep. I oio
not vake till morning. S,mons :qqo: ::,
., The E.M.F. |Exalteo Militar, Fersonage| shook hanos rather
granol, ano referreo to me as the hero of the hour. He thankeo me
ano Ross ano Alice, but I knevthere vas more to it than that. When
he began the sales talk, vith Mr. Ross is most anxious that ,ou
shoulo hear this from me . . . I knev vhat it vas. Ross hao nall,
taken over Charlotte Street. What timing' . . . But nov the conver-
sation vas taking a oierent turn. Ross, it seemeo, vasnt taking
over Charlotte Street. The purpose of the visit vas an explanation
to me' Deighton :q6: .o,
The other- ano the self-quotations alike presuppose, literall, knov vhat
the sequel unoercuts be,ono remeo,. Each factive gets immeoiatel, falsi-
eo b, the facts: the knovn miss of the torpeoo b, the explosion, the
fore-knovn verbal explosion b, the nonexplosion, the certituoe of insom-
nia b, nightlong sleep, Ross hao nall, taken over b, Ross, it seemeo,
vasnt taking over.
That none of these factive statements, an, more than .8,s Oeoipus
regrets . . . , entails its complement is inoisputable. But then, scholarl,
bias ano at apart, vh, shoulo it in the rst place` Hov vill ambiguous
oiscourse, maoe so b, its inherent montage, entail an,thing` Bracketing
or replacing presupposition vith entailment onl, confuses the issue. What
shoulo rather trouble us here is the unoercutting of presupposition proper.
Wh, ooes the factivizer let himself or herself , in for such blatant incon-
sistenc, betveen truth commitment ano negative truth value, betveen im-
plicit pre-valioation ano explicit posterior invalioation of vhat the inset
re-presents`
But this violence ooes not ,et bring the matter to the oeao eno so vioel,
announceo b, anal,sts. It never oooms the presuppositions involveo to
Sternberg

unutterable or unreaoable failure, much less presupposition in general
to cancelabilit,. Various loopholes ano counterforces keep the quest for
better inference going.
Ior one thing, the oiscoro stops short of the extreme of self-contraoiction.
Fresupposeo rather than asserteo or entaileo, the factive complement in-
curs the lesser oense of inconsistenc, vith the sequel. As ve have seen,
unoer the Lav of Reciprocit,, even outright impossible vorlo contra-
oiction e.g., |8|, lenos itself to integration; but an,thing belov it enables
vioer, tighter, ano factive-saving possibilities. Ior another thing, rather
than concocting an example ano pronouncing it unacceptable at vill, ve
encounter here actual oiscourse that must be accepteo, breaches ano all,
as having been maoe in ano for communication, presumabl, b, a rational
aooressor. The armchair theorists oeao eno is therefore the aooresseo in-
ferrers beginning, their veroict of inconsistenc, an aooeo spur put to our
reaoing, or rereaoing, for coherence: the bigger the threat, the higher the
stakes ano the more urgent the quest. Iaceo vith the broken factive, ve
neeo to makesome sense of it, the best inferable fromthe con,text: oismissal
on sight vith a negative tag is a nonstarter, just as it voulo be if aooresseo
to ourselves in ever,oa, talk or vriting.
More so, come to that, since the ver, breaches look oeliberate. The oppo-
sition in immeoiate juxtapositionin small compass, in the same breath
not onl, ensures our avareness but sharpens our sense of incongruit, to
maximize vonoer. So ooes the retrospectiveness of the narrative: thanks to
it, the quoting narrator coulo meanvhile, if he or she voulo, revise the fac-
tive to suit vith the fact. Substituting the unvalioateo, hence oeniable be-
lieveo voulo oo., The tvo extras, pinpointing ano after-the-factive,ness,
even jointl, argue against genetic mischance.
Ever,thing suggests, then, that the quoter here courts inconsistenc,, forc-
ing it on our notice. But to vhat eno, ano hov to infer it from the given
illogical oiscourseor, the other va, rouno, hov to make sense of the ois-
course givens in its light` Alva,s leaving asioe the nonperspectival inte-
grating mechanisms, vhich voulo explain ano organize the tension but not
necessaril, eliminate it, or not in terms specic to factivit,.,
The ke, to the accoro of the inset truth claim e.g., the torpeoo hao
misseo, vith the operative truth e.g., the frames An explosion jarreo
Hiyo, lies in changing the origin, ano so the claimant, of the transformer
He knev,: in the reoistribution of its three semantic components be-
tveen quoter ano quotee, vhereb, the, vill all nov fall to the latter,
complete vith the valioator, ano the inset statement vith them. This nev
strategic unpacking of the perspectival montage entails in turn a shift in
our reconstruction of the quoting schema: from plain inoirect to free in-
oirect thought, or more exactl,, fromplain inoirectness to plain inoirectness
vithin free inoirectness.
Onthe simple inoirect reaoing presumeoanopracticeothus far, the men-
talizer ano the intensier in knev belong to the quoteo, the valioator
to the quoting vievpoint. This bifocal partition has vorkeo vell for all
our earlier cases: vhatever the oissonances encountereo ano the inequali-
ties reasoneo out there, the, never approacheo the limit of basic proposi-
tional factivefact, inconsistenc,. Nov, vith the quoter apparentl, invali-
oating vhat he has just valioateo, the limit case for the rst time becomes
the source of trouble, multiple trouble, incurring a breach of presupposi-
tion anoor assertion, of re-,presentational, perspectival, ano commissive
unit, at once. Fossibl, velcome to the nonsense maker alone, it ill-ts the
above genres of histor, vriting, of high mooernist novel, of realistic crime
stor, alike: even the fallback on poetic license or supernessethe evaoers
refuge, the literatis hubrisis as usual blockeo.
A universal license insteao comes to the rescue, namel,, the re,pla, of
perspectives. Encourageo b, the quoters shov of oeliberateness, ve ex-
tricate him ano ourselves from this preoicament b, attributing the vali-
oator along vith the mentalizer ano intensier in knev to the quotee:
Oshita, Mrs. Ramsa,, the narrating-Is former, experiencing self. Their
minos so the aojusteo inference goes, not just originall, helo the respective
thoughts vith certituoe but articulateo that certituoeinto an image like
I knov the torpeoo misseo or I knov that in a moment something vill
explooe. What the oirectl, quoteo vife in :8, or Mr. Camilla in .8, voiceo
alouo, Oshita et al. mentall, expresseo. Become the transformers origina-
tor ano factivizer, the quotee nov ooubles perforce as inoirect committeo
self-,quoter vithin a larger ano noncommittal ano unaovertiseo frame of
quotation, vhere the narrator re-re-presents to us the characters valioateo
re-presentation of the state of aairs e.g., the torpeoo missing, that the sub-
ject conoentl,, if erroneousl,, representeo in private to himself.
Noncommittal, this larger frame, because oisembarrasseo of the vali-
oator. The secono-oroer quoting voice the stor,teller at mino report,
can nov pit factive against fact vithout inconsistenc,. The factive being
anothers, its factual invalioation rather serves to oppose ano expose lover-
oroer epistemic unreliabilit,: to ironize the limitations of fore,knovleoge
betra,eo b, the overconoent oramatic quoter ano quotee. Of this frame-
occupants tvo commitments as inoirect quoter, onl, the subjective one
remains in free inoirectness, except that it nov embraces a chain of subjec-
tivit,. All the free inoirect quoter pleoges himself to is that the lover sub-
jects have betveen them originateo, intensieo, ano factivizeo the vorlo-
image re-re-presenteo in their name: that they have committeo themselves
Sternberg

to the truth or objectivit, of their imagineo knovleoge statement,. As to
the authorit,, the interpla,, the nesse, ano other variations among the re-
spective engagementsor vievpoints in generalthe, have alreao, been
outlineo above ano easil, exteno to the more complex, three-part, set-up.
With the aooeo frame, the unoerl,ing narrative that makes sense of it all
grovs longer, tenser, richer than in plain inoirectness.
Noncommittal, again, this larger frame of quotation is here also tacit, un-
signaleo, being implieo b, the epistemic oiscoro rather than manifesteo on
the oiscourse surfacetransformer-less, inbrief. He knevthe torpeoo hao
misseo: a chain or Chinese box of report, variform at that, makes oo vith
a single reporting clause. Yet this lack is no necessar, conoition of the form
ano is elsevhere repaireo to ensure its visibilit, as an aio to unoerstano-
ing.
45
The more overt, unambiguous the free inoirect pattern, the lesser the
oanger of our missing it, vhich in factivit, voulo amount to mistaking the
oiscourse for simple inoirect report, complete vith objective enoorsement.
Iormall,, the signaling oevices meet this neeo b, countervorking the
root of the problemthroughout .q,.,, namel,, the quoting clauses given
ano elioeo. One oevice relocates the initial, factive, oouble-eogeo trans-
former; the other provioeslikevise in mio-oiscoursethe absent, higher-
level transformer. Here is relocation:
, Mr. Iaranges remeo, for ever, inconvenience vas that the chilo
shoulo be put at schoolthere vere lots of splenoio schools, as
ever,boo, knev, at Brighton ano all over the place. ames :q
|:8q|: ; also examples |:||.|, || belov,
Withthe transformer mioposeoor elsevhere enoposeo,, the oiscourse rules
out the simple inoirect form, vhereb, ever,one knev must preceoe ano
suboroinate there vere lots of splenoio schools . . . At the same time,
the past tense of knev points ava, from a generalizeo knovleoge claim
in the narrators ovn voice: it ties ano relativizes the parenthetical insteao
to the Iarange milieu, mino, oilemma concerning the chilo. If onl, b,
grammatical elimination, then, the free inoirect reaoing suggests itself. Ior
gooo measure, the parenthetical clause appears vith an extra as, vhich
strengthens its attachment, valioator ano all, to vhat Iarange himself ex-
presseo: his original mioposeo appeal to common visoom as ever,one
knovs, just got backshifteo into . . . knev, in requoting. Hence the free
inoirect requoterthe amesian voiceshares no responsibilit, for either
questionable claim, the transformers proposition about universal knovl-
. The coexistence of these variants, the signaleo ano the unsignaleo, has long been estab-
lisheo in the research of the free inoirect st,le. Ior the most comprehensive surve, to oate,
see Iluoernik :qq., Their intersection vith factivit, is another thing.
eoge or the inset presupposition about schooling, not even equivocall,.
What enoures in the movement ava, from ambiguit, betveen nonoirect
patterns is his subject-orienteo commitment alone: to Iaranges having
citeo vith approval ever,ones knovleoge statement,, a transparent ex-
cuse for getting rio of his inconvenient oaughter. An, leftover vhats-vhose
inoeterminac, concerns pockets vithin a oeterminate pattern.
In other voros, given the transformers mioplacement, ve no longer
neeo an, factfactive oiscoro to establish nonoirect quotation at a oouble
remove from the vorlo, vith appropriate nonvalioation of its objective
truth. Such clues to oiscoro here onl, sharpen the formal noncommitment
into eective other-minoeoness betveen quoter ano requoter, as the jarring
colloquialisms lots of . . . all over the place, impl, other-expressiveness
to boot.
The alternative signaling oevice interpolates for the purpose a secono,
usuall, nonfactive transformer:
, This time, she vas convinceo, she knev vhat vas coming. He vas
going to sa, she must give him up. ames :q |:8q|: .q,
, When she got the letter she realizeo at once that a mistake, as she
thought, hao been maoe. She knev quite vell that |contrar, to
vhat the letter stateo| she hao not backeo the vinner of the Oaks.
Cecil :q6. |:q8|: :.,
At last, the enclosing free inoirect ano the encloseo inoirect report have
each its proper reporting clause: one nonfactive she vas convinceoshe
thought,, parenthetical, ano juxtaposeo or inoepenoent, the other factive
she knevshe realizeo,, initial, ano suboroinating. Amio the nev ar-
rivals common miolocation, the oierences betveen the examples aect
our reaoing to a limiteo extent. In ,, the nonfactive-before-factive oroer
precluoes vhat the reverse oroer in , temporaril, allovs on the va, to
the belateo nonfactive: the simple inoirect, all-commissive formation of the
vhole sentence comparable to that of the ensuing She knev quite vell
that . . .,. Sooner or later, hovever, the aooeo higher parenthetical oisam-
biguates the form to the same noncommittal, other-committal eect as oio
its merel, relocateo counterpart in ,. With the inoirect factivizing left
visibl, unvalioateo vithin the free inoirectness, its preoication ano its pre-
supposition ma, again both turn out false vithout inconsistenc,. So the,
oo here: she neither realizeo nor knev the truth, for no mistake hao
been maoe nor voulo a oemano to give him up be maoeexcept in the
subjects overconoent thought, from vhich the larger omniscient frame
vocall, oistances itself to unoerscore the iron,.
As either oevice signals free inoirectness, hovever, neither quite equals
Sternberg

the manifest self-oistancing from anothers epistemic bono that attaches to
a thiro possibilit,, namel,, factive, inoirect vithin nonfactive, inoirect re-
port. Examples, naturall, inventeo, from presupposition theor, voulo be:
6, Ireo thinks Mar, ooesnt knov that she von. Beaver :qq: qq6,
, Maria just tolo Sebastian that she knovs that Nixon is oeao. Wil-
son :q: .; note the parallel to the initial cognitive verb above or
in Wilsons foregoing example.,
Of course, presupposition anal,sis is harol, avare of the alternative, free
inoirect patterns. Nor, of course, though the one pattern exemplieo b,
6,, has receiveo ample notice, oo anal,sts stuo, it in terms of quota-
tion, let alone quotation vithin quotation. Even in face of such lacunae, it
still passes unoerstanoing hov often this safest ano shortest route to non-
commitment has been misreaoon formal grounos tooas preserving the
speakers commitment. If ,our speech about anothers mere thought
belief, oesire, hope, leaves ,ou unbouno to the thinkers ensuing comple-
ment, as in :b,, vh, shoulo his thought about the object of a specic
tvo-clause, thinker-factivizeo, complement bino ,ou` What have I to oo
vith the presupposition of an,one vhom I refuseo my factive preoicate ano
then consigneo to his ovn`
Against logic ano language, ,ou ano I must allegeol,, somehov, carr,
the buroen nonetheless. Thus, among semantic approaches, Leech :q:
:o::,: a factive having once assigneo the status of a presupposition to a
that-clause, it remains unaecteo b, a neutral factualit, in a higher preoi-
cation. Or, recast into pragmatic terms: given a factive, the presupposi-
tion shoulo be expecteo to holo not onl, at the highest accommooation site,
but also locall,. So 6,, vhich has the trigger knev embeooeo unoer a
negation operator, itself embeooeo unoer thinks, voulo presuppose that
Mar, von as vell as that Ireo thinks she von Beaver :qq: qq6, vith
earlier references,. Another false projection rule, in short, ano sometimes
not even lavlike on its ovn rationale at that, because context ma, turn
it either va,, or neither.
46
Insteao, along vith the alternative forms of quoting vithin quoting, onl,
more so, this one ooes for a change enforce an iron ruleof noncommitment
on the higher quoters part. Unlike the looser, juxtapositional grammar of
,,, sa,, here the nonfactive oirectl, controls, infects, hence subjecti-
6. Other oivioes vithin this formincluoe Wilsons :q: :., preferreo i.e., implication-
preserving, versus nonpreferreo interpretation, ano Grices :q8q: .q, knov factivit,
lost, versus regret factivit, possibl, kept,. Ior accounts that voulo perhaps get 6,,
right, more or less, thoughoenitel, not .8,,, see Kartunnen:q; KartunnenanoFeters
:qq; Van oer Sanot :q88: esp. ..6. Hov the problematics carries over from thought to
utterance verbs in the higher sentence, or frame, vill emerge belov.
es the factivejust as it voulo an, ensuing proposition ano regaroless of
context other than the all-oeterminative manifest cotext e.g., thinks,.
The vioer context at best merel, implies vhether or not the uncommitteo
inoirect requoter nevertheless enoorses oe facto, contingentl,, vhat the in-
oirect quoter thinker, presupposes in factivizing the statement, of the
innermost quotee knover,.
8, There vas a question that must be askeo. He knevit ano he fancieo
Feter knev it too. Gilbert :q8o: ..,
q, I persuaoeo m,self that I knevhe vas taken. Dickens n.o. |:86|:
.o,
o, She knev or hopeo she knev that it vas not being a miser, or oe-
featist of her to imagine |the sexist remarks| that coulo follov her
exit. Amis :qq:: ,
In upper-level, requoting context, nonvalioation again gravitates at vill
tovaro oe facto valioation of the factivizeo statement 8, or tovaro invali-
oation q, or tovaro neither o,: the question proves to be a must, the
taking a false alarm, the nonoefeatist imagining a gap. What is built into the
pattern lexis, s,ntax, is built-in, vhat contingent irreoucibl, contingent,
ano so the most unprojectible of unprojectibles.
As the arra, of signaleo variants of quotation-vithin-quotation are all b,
nature inference-facilitating, let us concentrate onthe unsignaleo pattern
especiall, the range ano regulators of oicult, open to its ovn silent vork-
ings.
What I call the opposition in juxtaposition throughout .q,., oers the
most pinpoint, hence arresting inoicator of the shift in epistemic center ano
commitment tovaro the fallible quotee. Its high salience there oerives from
the meeting of at least three forces: the immeoiac,, the explicitness, ano the
factual basis of the oiscoro resolvable b, the svitch to other-minoeo, other-
vise inoirectl,-quoteo presupposition. But these oiscourse axes remain in-
oepenoent, hence freel, graoeo or crosseo. Each factor thereon ma, itself
var, all the va, to virtual oisappearance, ano vith it the attacheo salience,
pressure, guioance in the lab,rinth of ambiguit,.
Is less axes, oegrees, better or vorse` Opinions voulo oivioe betveen
uncertaint,-favoring literati ano aoherents of the Cooperative Frinciple.
Either voulo reif, the protean life of factive, oiscourse that the above
breakoovn quickens anev. This liveliness makes no value juogment on the
quoters repertoire or choice of aios to inference but onl, complicates our
arrival at rm, if an,, juogments as to vhich of the oata belong to vhose
perspective ano commissive recoro, in vhat transmissional shape, hov re-
Sternberg

liabl,, ano vh,. Insteao of better or vorse unoer variation, the eect is just
oierent in the process ano often the proouct of sense-making.
On the rst immeoiac,, axis, this happens vhen the inconsistent
membersthe presupposeo ano the asserteo vorlo-imagesoravapart in
location:
:, |In m, oealings vith Estella,| I vas alva,s restraineoano this vas
not the least of m, miseriesb, a feeling that it vas ungenerous to
press m,self upon her, vhen she knev that she coulo not choose but
obe, Miss Havisham. Dickens n.o. |:86|: .q:,
Compareo vith .q,.,, the factives oivorce from the quoter, Fip the
oloer narrating-I, marks here a change in time, ano so in accessibilit,, to
our oisfavor.The knovleoge mis,attributeo to Estella that their common
patroness intenos her for Fip, vill,-nill,, no longer bumps against an im-
mediate counterstatement. Nor oo ve enjo, an, vantage point of hi,storieo
foreknovleoge to the contrar, of the kino that |.| equivocall, assumes,.
Even the shrevo reaoer vill therefore at most suspect the presuppositions
objective grounolessness, ano its origin in the free-inoirect vishful thinking
of ,oung Fip, but vill have to vait for overt retrospective ois,conrmation,
long after the factive.
When it comes, though, this ois,conrmation takes as specic a form as
the presupposition to match at last, behino time, the explicit force of incon-
sistenc, in .q,.,. Yet the explicitness, or givenness, ma, also lessen. At
the opposite limit, ve neeo to oig for the contextual ontic premises against
vhich to juoge, re,organize, re,assign the factive givens:
., amm, |a nevsman out of favor vith the police| consigneo themall
to peroition. What oio the Yaro vant to take it like that for` Ever,-
one knevthat vhat ,ou vrote in the paper vas just e,e-vash. When
it vasnt bilgevater. Te, :q6: :6,
, Wallenstein hao the recklessness of one vho knovs that all things
are preoestineo, that fate is vritten in the stars ano cannot be
changeo. Huxle, :q8.: :qo,
, enn, Fargiter vas the information ocer . . . ano she reao |out
her upoate| vithout hope, secretl, knoving that it vas the lot of
an, voman, vhen imparting nevs, not to be believeo. Le Carr
:q6q: .,
, While in the recesses of the Escurial Fhilip II ponoereo the con-
sequences of Mar,s oeath, chang on the fringes of the Court at
Greenvich vas a sailorman |Irancis Drake| vho hao knovn long
before Fhilip oio that Goos plan vas for var betveen the tvo of
them. Mattingl, :q6. |:qq|: qq,
6, She |Emil,| liveo alone since her fathers oeath, vithout even a
pet, holoing that oogs bring in oirt on their pavs, vhile cats scratch
the furniture. As for biros, ever,one knovs the, encourage mice.
Gilbert :q8: q,
Whether an,thing here jars at all must oepeno onthe vorlovievthat frames
the knovleoge claim. Do ,ou reconstruct the ocial quoter novelist, his-
torian, as sharing vith the quotee amm,, Wallenstein, etc., the factiv-
izeo generalization: about nevspapers, things preoestineo, the creoibilit,
of vomen, the accessibilit, of Goos plan to the chosen, the linkage of
biros ano mice` If ,es, then ,ou have in eect regaroless of ,our termi-
nolog,, even self-avareness, opteo for harmonious inoirect oiscourse that
enjo,s contextual valioit,.
47
If not, as most reaoers voulo presumabl, in-
fer in context, then ,ou svitch h,potheses to unreliable, quotee-focuseo-
ano-factivizeo inoirect oiscourse vithin a higher, free inoirect quotation
that silentl, mocks it. The mocker, overtakes vhoever enoorses the pseuoo-
knovleoge, fromsubject to presupposer to gullible unoerstanoer. So, true or
untrue` Re-presenteo or re-re-presenteo nonoirectness` Gnomic or ironic
montage` I am less concerneo to aojuoicate betveen the oiametric reao-
ings than to establish the implicitness of the ver, incongruit, as vell as of
the resolution that the, attest. The factive, the form, the functionalit,: all
polarize in accoroance vith the ontic normtaken to govern the representeo
vorlo, vith the operative logic of fact, in short.
This brings us to the thiro axis. Whether immeoiate or removeo, overt or
implicit, specic or generalizeo, the counterforce to the factive hitherto la,
in factualit, proper: vhat the re,quoter holos true about the vorlo. Else-
vhere an assortment of alternative, extrafactual inference bases, or combi-
nations, preoominate to the same tvo-eogeo eect: integrating the vhole,
,et oivisive of its vievpoints,, simplif,ing the matter, the proouct, the
follovabilit,, ,et complicating the transmissional manner, the process, the
route,, oisambiguating ,et short of certaint, ano possibl, reversible. Again,
none of the inferential bases is unique to factivit,, in an, of its quoting
molos, but all uniquel, oovetail the shift of the factivizers ioentit, ano pre-
suppositional loao vith that from inoirect to inoirect-vithin-free-inoirect
quotation. Ano the entire cooroinateo shift again requires no more, ano
no less, than our puzzling out an extra, higher, unspoken, self-oistancing
if onl, noncommittal, e.g., x thought, transformer in the name of the
overall quoter:
. Or even, as vith .,, harmonious free inoirectness that is equi-focuseo ano equi-
valioateo in propositional content but expressivel, focuseo on the subject e.g., e,e-vash
sounos like amm, rather than the narrator,. Ior the veak bearing of expressivit, on truth
value that enables here either nonoirect accoro, see belov.
Sternberg

, |Amaioservant| hao been in a bit of trouble some time back. Light-
ngereo, that vas her oicult,. . . . Mrs. Frenoergast vas reao,
enough to keep her. Its all right, Annie she saio. You can be sure
ve shall never throv this up against ,ou. But, of course, the girl
oiont stop. It ooesnt give me a chance, she saio. If an,things
ever missing, the,ll knov it vas me. Gilbert :q8: ::,
8, It vas their relation |Mrs. Ramsa,s vith her husbano the philoso-
pher|, ano his coming to her like that, openl,, that oiscomposeo her;
for then people saio he oepenoeo on her, vhen the, must knovthat
of the tvo he vas innitel, more important, ano vhat she gave the
vorlo, in comparison vith vhat he gave, negligible. Woolf :q6
|:q.|: 6,
q, The paintings that maoe Iranklins life palatable to him, that
openeo up a channel to a resonant past, Annie knevinstinctivel, to
be treacherous impostors. . . . She vas true to the culture she vas
born into, truer than |Iranklin| Tooo vho has abanooneo it. She
coulo cr, at pop tunes ano laugh at Yellov Fages aos. Her slogan-
eering, her mangleo proverbs, her utter incomprehension of iron,,
her abilit, to recite Buckle up for safet, as if it vere a Fater Noster,
markeo in her genuine humanism. Fovers :qq.: 8,
In example ,, the clue to other-minoeo factivit, migrates altogether from
the oomain of fact to that of reason, the speakers ano ours. Ior Annie
to valioate the,ll knov it vas me in the h,pothetical scenario If an,-
things ever missing, voulo be to oefeat her ovn argument against sta,-
ingthe reformeo thief ooggeo b, her pastas vell as to incriminate her-
self. In 8, the basis for inference gravitates to socioethics: fevoo or voulo
take Virginia Woolf as an inoirectl, oiscoursing part, to the heroines lov
ranking actuall, self-ranking in the name of the, |vho| must knov, vis-
a-vis her husbano. Ano q, appeals in turn to aesthetic mis,juogment.
True as the subject is to herself ano her inheriteo culture, truer than
her lover Iranklin, pop tunes ano Yellov Fages aos oo not equal, still less
oiscreoit in context his beloveo olo paintings that she knev instinctivel,
to be treacherous impostors. Exactl, because the value scheme ano iron,
are ne, be,ono her comprehension, the polarizing of cultures invalioates
subjecties, the fancieo knovleoge of right ano vrong in art.
This goes to establish the range of bases for our inference of or betveen
factive nonoirectnesses: factualit, proper, rationalit,, sociomoralit,, aes-
thetics. Example || fromGoooman aoos metaph,sics, traineo on the phi-
losoph, of fact, it so happens., Such bases all constitute norms against
vhich ve re,reao the operative form along vith the function: their obser-
vance in the oata here points one va,the simple ano valioatingvhile
their breach pulls another, more intricate va,. Yet I aoviseol,, ano I hope
noticeabl,, omitteo at least one further inferential basis, or signal t,pe, vith
a viev to another ke, oistinction regaroing factivit,.
The absentee from m, t,polog, that vill look most conspicuous to ex-
perts in reporteo oiscourse is the expressive, language-bouno inoicator
of subjectivit,, the ver, t,pe that the elo has intensivel, pursueo to m,
mino, overprivilegeo, since the late nineteenth centur,. True, even in the
examples oominateo b, extralinguistic norms, the inference of the unoer-
l,ing quotational setup is less than, sa,, purel, fact-baseo. Note hov o,
ano ., oistribute, vithin ano arouno the factive construction, expressive
markers that voulo appear to suit best the quoteo mino at vork. These in-
cluoe gurationanger , like a pack of hounos . . . explooe . . . clapa brake
on the vheel . . . emit sparks,, loose conjunction his e,es, his brov,,
inoeterminate reference something violent,, exclamation thank gooo-
ness' or What timing',, subject-orienteo oeixis nov . . . vas taking,.
Inversel,, our examples oispla, objectif,ing markers that point the vrong
va,, for the, bespeak the quoters reooubleo valioation of a nonoirect inset
that he in all likelihooo ironizes. Wh, ooes , break the sequence of tenses
in one vho knows that all things are preoestineo, that fate is vritten in the
stars anocannot be changeo after Wallesteinhad . . . , or 6, in Ever,one
knows the, |biros| encourage mice after Emil, lived` The explanation that
the unbackshifteo present inoicates the knovleoges ongoing applicabilit,
presentness, springs to mino. It even oravs extra pover from the state-
ments general nature, associateo vith the gnomic present, ano from the
tenses coverage of transformer ano inset alike: the knoving ano its object
reinforce, as it vere, each others enourance. If so, the quoter superobjec-
ties the quote, vith supercommitment to match. But these extras, in all
likelihooo, onl, thicken the iron,, perhaps baiting the trap for the unvar,
i.e., inoirect, reaoer, as the subjectivities elsevhere unoerline the oistance
from the misfactivizing quotee.
Still, I have not oeferreo mention of the expressive inoicator-t,pe just to
reoress the traoitional imbalance in its favor. Still less is its oovnpla,ing
here grounoeo in its being liable to misleao as oo the objectif,ing misoirec-
tions above,. Ior, b, the nature of inference, all bases ano signals partake
of this liabilit,. Epistemics, ethics, aesthetics, or their reconstructions from
the oiscourse, are notoriousl, elusive, inoeeo tvo-faceo in principle, to go
b, our examples; ano vh, shoulo Annie in , orive a rational argument
vhen Hackett in :, travesties logic`
M, oeferral has its grouno not in the elusive results of this signal t,pes
application, but in vhat eluoes its pover altogether, namel,, to mark o
Sternberg

objective from subjective factivit,, valioateo from invalio presupposition.
All other bases of inference enable juogments of truth or falsit, on the pre-
supposeo complement, relative to vhat the frame oeems valio: actual, logi-
cal, just, or valuable. Hence the factives quotational form ano, above all,
force hinge on its consistenc, vith the appropriate norm or vhat ve take
as such, rightl,, vrongl, or oisputabl,, alva,s probabilisticall,,. In con-
trast, the norm of expressivit, cannot b, itself ,ielo juogments on this mat-
ter: expressive st,le ano epistemic vorth var, regaroless of each other. A
vivio lov, emotive, broken, ioiomma, go vith a valio, as a neutral or vell-
formeo one ma, vith an ironizeo, presupposition; ano vice versa. Nor is
either ioiom the propert, ano hallmark of some nonoirect an, more than
of the oirect, reportive form. Strong expressivit, can therefore encourage a
subjective reaoing, for better or vorse, for plain or complex nonoirectness,
vithout ,et oetermining factive subjectivit,. Even in helping to unpack the
free inoirect montage betveen quoter ano quotee, it must leave the propo-
sitional oisambiguation to the vorkings of other norms.
More generall,, this oenes the relations betveen truth value ano quota-
tional pattern in factivit,. Where ve h,pothesize oroinar, inoirect ois-
courseas silentl, oone throughout the foregoing sectionsthe presup-
poseo complement must be true to the frame or in the frames vorlo. But
not vice versa, for such truth is b, itself equall, compatible vith free in-
oirectness, ano the oecision betveen quoting patterns vill then hinge on
the best overall t, expressiveness incluoeo. The principle shovs as earl,
as Biblical factivit,.
48
The oierence there betveen inoirect ano free in-
oirect thought correlates onl, vith that betveen grammatical suboroina-
tion ano the vivio subjectif,ing marker ano beholo at the heao of an au-
tonomous inset. No other strings are attacheo, no other oierential bases
or aios regularl, provioeo. On the contrar,, either form of nonoirectness
selectivel, matches the factive vith factualit,, since this narrative poetics
of insioe-vieving voulo rather oppose the narrators quoters, vhole truth
to the characters quotees, truth than polarize truth vith untruth. Moo-
ern equivalents at times follov suit, even in the reputeol, ironic form as
harmonizeo at vill b,, sa,, Virginia Woolf:
o, But this vas our va, of knoving people, she thought: to knov the
outline, not the oetail. . . . She knev him in that va,. She knev he
hao changeo somehov. :q6 |:q.|: ..:,
:, Ano all the time, he knev perfectl, vell, Dallova, vas falling in
love vith her. :q6o |:q.|: o,
., Her father vas o,ing there, Mrs. Ramsa, knev. :q6 |:q.|: ,
8. See Sternberg :qq, :q8b, :q8: esp. ., :8, :q86, :qq8: e.g., .q, ., q.
All as true for Woolf as for her reectors. In short, vhere the presupposeo
complement is juogeo false to the frame, ve h,pothesize free inoirect ois-
coursethereb, saving the higher quoter frominconsistenc,but the con-
verse ooes not necessaril, holo.
To unif, the tvo subrationales. Ior consistenc,, vhere the inoirect quoter
must, the free inoirect ma, or ma, not, authorize the factive statement e.g.,
the knovleoge presupposeo as vell as preoicateo of the subject,. Or, the
other va, rouno, from the unoerstanoers ovn vievpoint on the factive
statement encountereo: vhere taken as oisauthorizeo, ve must reao free
inoirectness, ano vhere authorizeo, ve ma, reao either nonoirect pattern,
unless extrapropositional variables st,le, transformer location, tip the bal-
ance. Throughout, vherever the factive transformer e.g., knev, leaos the
va,, the free inoirect oiscourse entails an inoirect quote vithin it, vhose
lover-oroer quoter unoertakes the same epistemic bono to his inset nov
become his ovn presupposition, as ooes his rst-oroer inoirect counterpart
elsevhere ano b, the same logic. But then, the nonsense artist unoermines
at vill the premise of consistenc, itself, vith the entire chains of reasoning
that branch out fromit, to suit the il,logic of an othervorlol, oiscourse ano
existence.
So the quest for the best presuppositional t again t,pies our vhole
aair vith oiscourse in having its rules, routes, routines ,et nothing like
formulas, algorithms, package oeals, not even at its most oroerl,. With pre-
supposition uniquel, encooeo in the language s,stem e.g., factivit,s vali-
oating component,, it is unerasable in language use but also unassignable
there b, appeal to that oecontextualizeo s,stematics or an, equivalent out-
sioe language: the inference tovaro vhoever valioates the encooeo infer-
ence must operate vith vhatever resources ano regularities are aoroeo b,
the protean oiscourse s,stem, to vhich quotation belongs. A bus, ano risk,
life, the inferrers.
Nor inoeeo oo the bus,ness ano the risk eno here, since the possibilities of
factive ambiguit, ano multiformit, oontor the inferential va, rouno,
the measures for shifting a troubleo factive commitment to a perspective
subject, context, other ano lover than because frameo vithin, that of
the apparent nonoirect quoter. To return to the oisputeo Oeoipus exemplar
.,, ve have alreao, seen tvo lines of unpacking the perspectival tangle
via inoirect or free inoirect thoughtso as to make Oeoipus regrets |that
he killeo| his father compatible vith although, in fact, he oiont kill him.
Along neither line voulo Oeoipus regret, or knov about, his parricioe.
On the near-harmonious inoirect reaoing, insteao, Oeoipus as regrettor
stanos committeo onl, to his having killeo the obnoxious olo man; vhile
Sternberg

the quoter of his thought, vho knovs better ano therefore substituteo a co-
referring term in transmission, enoorses the more accurate propositional
variant that Oeoipus killeo his father, ,et quickl, aoos a corrective, oier-
entiating, mitigating argument from ignorance. Nuanceo valioation from
a superior vievpoint, factivizing vhile ooubl, perspectivizing the shareo
bare fact: the inferential maneuver takes longer to anal,ze than to execute.
Compare |.| above.,
On the unharmonious free inoirect alternative, the quoters ovn ois-
course never presupposes let alone entails, even that Oeoipus killeo an,-
one e.g., some olo man, let alone his father,, nor that either he or Oeoi-
pus knovs about an, such killing. This Oeoipus voulo merel, think he
oio ano ooes, to the extent of factivizing the crime in his ovn conscience-
stricken mino, I regret that . . .: an emotion that the free inoirect quoter
transmits vith a oue backshifting of person Oeoipus . . . his . . . he,
but no propositional blessing. Quite the contrar,, as the bel,ing rather
than nuancing, follov-up makes explicit. The frames oouble-eogeo atti-
tuoe, on the inoirect-thought reconstruction, nov sharpens into polar epi-
stemic iron,.
The examples unfortunate quasi-historical reference ma, preoispose
,ou for or against either reaoing, or both. To make sure, therefore, recheck
those lines of counteranal,sis against m, ovn varieo illustration above, or
against more neutral examples inventeo b, the same opposition: ohn re-
grets killing his father, ohn regrets that he faileo Gazoar :qq: :o66,
::q.o, qo,, ohn regrets that he ate all the puooing Levinson :q8: ..,,
ohn regrets that he lost his job Chierchia ano McConnel-Ginet :qqo:
o:,. Ano vhile ,oure about it, check ., itself for ,et another, thiro om-
nipresent possibilit, of integration, vith a tvist in the factives reference
betveen outer ano inner quoting.
Like all its analogues, the example at issue ma, in principle equall,
reaovhat vith its t,pical oivorce from contextas the re-re-presenters
free inoirect speech-quotation of anothers here, the confessional Oeoipuss,
inoirect thought-quotation that enacts ano valioates himself as regrettor
here, Oeoipus the emotive subject,. We then ll out the givens into Oeoi-
pus, so he oeclares, regrets that he killeo his father, ano accoroingl, neu-
tralize or extricate themafresh out of inconsistenc, vith although, in fact,
he oiont kill him. Oeoipuss silent regret is again tvice meoiateo but nov
also tvice voiceo ano aooresseo. Iirst, Oeoipus the self-penetrator con-
fesses ano presupposes his regret, in the overt nonoirectness attacheo to
factivit,; then, hiooenl, ano noncommittall,, the higher frame transmits
that confession to ourselves.
The chain of quoteo oiscourse nov runs from the original subject as
experiencer to the inoirect vocalizer cum factivizer of the experience to
the free inoirect re-presenter of the vocalizeo re-presentation ano re-re-
presenter of the experienceo original. The rst in line ma, think, I vish I
left the olo man alone or A terrible oeeo, killing ones father or some-
thing unverbalizeo to this eect. The secono is allegeo to voice I regret
that I killeo m, father or its near equivalent in self-oisclosure ano -binoing.
The thiro never commits himself to the factualit, of the oeeo, or even of the
thought, but just to the seconos voicing, vhich he backshifteo into the ois-
tal free inoirectness Oeoipus regrets that he killeo his fatherano vhose
presupposition he can therefore again, belie at vill in his ovn name.
49
In the process of inference, of course, ve vork out the chain in re-
verse: from the artful primar, quoter in our ovn frame oeemeo free in-
oirect re-quoter, hence objectivel, commitment-free, on pain of absuroit,,
to his vocal quotee, vho in turn pla,s inoirect self-quoter ano misfactivizer
but no self-controverter, vis-a-vis the ultimate, regretful quotee. Allegeol,
pla,s, again, since ve onl, have the higher-level quoters bouno voro for
it. Ano although the voro about anothers voroas against the thought
oiscusseo thus far, incluoing that others ovn putative sorrovessentiall,
lenos itself to empirical checking, it remains subject to the norms of au-
thorit, in force.What ve encounter here is alva,s a chain of representations
that successivel, claim factual status, one that onl, changes transmissional
pattern ano length in oistanceo, secono-oroer factivit,.
The shift of inferential grouno hence of setup, perspective, commit-
ment, eect, neeo not, then, eno vith the form of quotation, betveen in-
oirect ano free inoirect thought-report, but ma, aovance to its object,
betveen thought ano speech: private versus public mis,factivizing on the
reportees part. The same joint metamorphosis is open to the cognitive
branch of factivit,often pronounceo stronger than the emotives, because
it runs to entailment, or othervise oierentvith know at its heao. Ior
another change, let us explore ano test the juncture against genuine usage.
What ve neeo to test is m, claim that the shift of the requoters object
from quoteo thinking to uttering mainl, aects the proouct rather than the
process of factive inference as theorizeo so far ano the shift from emoting
q. He coulo also, or insteao, freel, go on to oen, as he coulo enoorse, the utterers self-
preoicateo regret: Actuall,, Oeoipus neither feels regret nor killeo or . . . feels regret but
oiont kill or . . . ooesnt feel regret that he killeo, alva,s vith the exception of the in-
consistent . . . ooesnt sa, he regrets, vhich voulo make epistemic sense onl, if the earlier
regrets preoicateo thought. On the latter free inoirect unoerstanoing, of course, the analo-
gous shieloeoexceptionbecomes . . . ooesnt feel regret: muchthe same range of oeniabilit,,
hence iron,, vith the variation appropriate to the given transformers movement betveen
exterior ano interior Oeoipean subjectivit,.
Sternberg

to cognizing, not even the proouct,. To keep those objects oistinct, hence
unoer maximum control, ve vill also open vith signaleo utterance, com-
parable to ,o,s signaleo thought in its status as a given.
, Mar,, vho hao been a silent vitness to the confrontation, saio to
the bo, |vho hao just joineo the police| that he knev his father like
man, miners regaroeo the police as enemies. S,mons :qq: .,
, |Askeo for the ro,al oovr, b, the council of Henr, VIII, the Span-
ish ambassaoor| Iuensalioa took alarm, ano vhen alarmeo, he
blustereo. The council knev ver, vell, he shouteo, that the Frin-
cess |Catherine of Aragon| hao brought the plate ano jevels vith
her in :o:. No, saio Iox, softl,, the, hao not knovn that. The, hao
assumeo that Catherines personal ornaments . . . voulo belong to
her husbano. Mattingl, :q6o: qq,
The attribution of knovleoge to the quotee the bo,, the council, ano
in , also the proposition oeclareo knovn are false: even immeoiatel, if
softl, falsieo No . . . the, hao not knovn that. The, hao assumeo the
contrar,, insteao. Ior gooo measure, these factive and nonfactive oenials
keep up the same pattern of free inoirect speech-report as the oenieo fac-
tive,. Yet, factivit, notvithstanoing, vho vill in context mistake the falsit,
for truth` Who vill saoole the immeoiate subject the allegeo knover, or the
highest-level quoter novelist, historian, vith either untruth, inconsistenc,,
breach of pleoge never mino reason ano resolvabilit,,`
Harol, an,boo,, I trust, be,ono the presupposition anal,sts vho main-
tain apropos 6,, that a that-clause, once factivizeo, keeps projects,
its factualit, intact uncanceleo on their viev, unshifteo on mine, re-
garoless of an, higher nonfactive embeooing. The oisproof of such immu-
nit, nov extenos to our vocal reframing. The context here makes a vioer
speech-frame explicit, via an aooeo, higher, oialogic transformer, preposeo
or interposeo vithin the knovleoge report itself. The factivizeo thought
vas be,ono ooubt uttereo betveen parties to a oialogue, vhich enacts the
thought-quoting factivizer as aooressor ano the quoteo factive subject as
aooressee. With Mar, . . . saio to the bo, that he knev his father . . . in
||,, the inoirect thought-quotation comes unoer a superoroinate, higher-
level but nonfactive inoirect speech-quotation, ano vith he shouteo in
||,, unoer a free inoirect one. Given those nonfactive higher-level trans-
formers, both the utterance ano the origin, hence the onus, of the knovl-
eoge preoication cum statement trace back to vhere the, properl, belong:
to the sa,ershouter as rst-level unvalioateo quotee. It is those speaking
quotees vho inturnmis,quote, anomis,factivize via their ovnlover-oroer
transformer knev, vhat their conversational partners allegeol, oeem a
fact in their state of epistemic certituoe. Wherever the oiscourse spells out
thought- vithin speech-report, factive vithin nonfactive meoiac,, inoirect-
ness vithin plain or free inoirectness, all at once, the responsibilit, for the
truth of the entire lover-level inset-vithin-inset knev that . . ., is uni-
vocal: it rests neither vith the highest frame nor vith the lovest, thinking
subject but vith the intermeoiate speaking quotee Mar,, Iuensalioa,, vho
ooubles as mino-reaoing quoter. On her or himalone falls the commitment
to both the subjective mis,preoication ano the objective mis,valioation of
knovleoge, to both the others state ano the joint statement.
Iactivel, noncommittal, again, the re-quoter ma, assent or, as here, ob-
ject oe facto, contingentl, alone, ano the real truth ma, itself likevise
shuttle, oepenoing on the overall setup, his ovn authorit, incluoeo. That
the preoicateo state anoor the valioateo statement in , or , turn out
false has to oo not vith an, immutable lav of oiscourse form but vith the
contingencies of fact in ano information about the oiscourse vorlo.
, Aunt S,bil . . . vrote poetr,. She vas poeticall, superstitious. She
saio she knev she voulo oie soon after m, sixteenth birthoa,, ano
oio. Nabokov :qo |:q|: :.,
6, I . . . hao to enoure for several minutes the inquisitive commisera-
tion of the camp mistress, a sluttish vorn out female vith rust, hair.
Doll, she saio vas all packeo ano reao, to go. She knevher mother
vas sick but not criticall,. ibio.: ::.,
In the rst example, the speech-reporter oistances himself more perceptibl,
from the reporteo knovleoge statement,: the noncommittal saio both
immeoiatel, preceoes ano grammaticall, controls the reportees oouble
epistemic commitment subjective ano assertoric, then objective ano pre-
suppositional,. In fact, both vomen oieo, Aunt S,bil exactl, vhen she saio
she knevshe voulo, Doll,s mother before the camp mistress saio Lolita
knevher to be sick. Of the tvo factivizeo quotations-vithin-quotation,
then, the one more oistanceo from the higher quoter proves true to the
frame ano the facts alike, the one less oistanceo untrue. Yet either outcome
just happens to be the case, since the narrator happens both to knov ano
to foretell either vomans eno on reasonable authorit,. Were his narration
otherviseuninformeo, uncommunicative, unreliableve voulo have to
feeo his self-oistancing into our ovn reanal,sis of the perspectival montage,
possibl, vith a oierent or suspenoeo or vrong juogment on the factives
truth value as a result.
B, nov, hovever, all this shoulo be expecteo from m, earlier s,stematiz-
ing of nonoirect thought-report in factivit,. The master rationale, complete
vith its bases ano branchings of inference, persists across reporteo objects.
Sternberg

In the resolution of the lover- as of the higher-oroer ambiguities of factivit,,
the aios to inference also cut across quotational matter ano manner. Let me
just quickl, exemplif, hovone ke, variable recurs, namel,, the co-presence
or absence or oeniteness of a nonfactive extra transformer: compare ,
o,, ,6, vith
, Henr,, his armthrovn securel, arouno the fretful |Spanish| ambas-
saoors neck, oraggeo Chapu,s through a long political oiscussion.
This business of Milan voulo surel, mean var.
Chapu,s oio not think so. Coulo he have permission to go to |Cath-
erines house at| Kimbolton`
Oh ,es, it voulo' Ano the Irench voulo give an,thing in the vorlo
to secure his alliance. Irancis knev he coulo not vin vithout En-
glanos help. Mattingl, :q6. |:qq|: o,
To bring home the point, this example complicates matters not b, omitting
all signals of mooulation from the frame to a speech inset, but b, veak-
ening them relative to the norm above. All other things being equal, this
is enough to make a oierence in ioentif,ing the object ano vhat it in-
volves. Discussion, as vell as the ensuing expressive markers, alert us to
the free inoirectl, reporteo exchange betveen the eager Henr, ano the im-
patient ambassaoor. This oialogic unoerstanoing organizes ever,thing
assertions, exclamations, questions, ansversuntil ve come to the factive
presupposition. Does Irancis knev . . . fall unoer the same free inoirect
vocal pattern, vith the oierence that the speech inoirectl, quotes Iranciss
thought in turn` If so, as factivizing speaker cum insioeviever on his ovn,
Henr, possibl, misreaos Iranciss mino, vhether vishfull, or vith the in-
tent of misleaoing the Spanish aooressee to his ovn aovantage. Hovever,
the same insioevievalso makes sense as a break inthe free inoirect oialogue:
an asioe, aooresseo b, the histor, teller to ourselves, vhereb, he inoirectl,
re-presents ano valioates from vithin Iranciss mino the claim just voiceo
b, Henr, to his ovn auoitor.
At this juncture, a mooest extra aio to reaoing the knovleoge state-
ment, like the parenthetical he shouteo in ,s oiscourseor as Henr, af-
rmeo, voulo spare us all the trouble. Insteao, even the expressive markers
novoisappear. Onl, vhen ve learn for certain that Irancis never reckoneo
on Henr,ergo, the entire statement is false, public, free inoirectooes
the fork to have been taken establish itself. Compareo vith the plain in-
oirect reaoing, this ,ielos not onl, a longer, tenser, richer hi,stor, of event
ano oiscourse event but also one more exterior, interactional, because it
assigns the knovleoge to a vocal as vell as subjective meoiating agent.
Iirst alternative hi,stories, then the victor, of the tangleo contenoer. The
historian oisoains the line of least eort preacheo b, Grices Cooperative
Frinciple, Sperber ano Wilsons Relevance theor,, or Lessings aesthetics
of transparence. He rather opts to the last possible moment for the pleasures
ano prots of compouno factive ambiguit,.
6. Presupposition Retested and Redened
Before oraving together the threaos to reoene presupposition as both a
t,pe ano an exemplar of inference, I must keep tvo promises of extenoing
the anal,sis to ke, variables. One concerns negation, the other nonfactive
presuppositionalit,. Iortunatel,, such is their alignment vith the regulating
o,namics that an outline vill suce to exhibit ano motivate it.
Within our nev paraoigm, then, hov ooes this inference t,pe fare unoer
negation` Introouceo at the outset as the originar, but moot oenitional
feature of presupposition, ano occasionall, glanceo at since, the negation
test nov falls into pattern vith the corresponoing armative statement.
Inversel,, that unit, in variet, completes the break vith earlier approaches
to the topic, vhether uniform that of Stravson or the logical semanticists,
or oivioeo as usual among pragmaticists,.
To cut short a long anal,sis ano a longer stor, of oispute, correlating tvo
facts about negation so o,namizes its vorkings as to resolve all traoitional
issues of inference non,survival b, appeal to the same principle that has
brought us thus far: constanc, vithin vell-oeneo perspectival limits. One
fact has to oo vith negations built-in oenial of some representation coming
from a vievpoint other than the oeniers, or here, the oen,ing quoters; the
secono fact lies in negations scope-ambiguit,, the multiplicit, of proposi-
tional as vell as perspectival targets that it can operate on vithin an, given
stretchof text anothat ve inferrers neeoto oisambiguate incontext.
50
Either
factor accoroingl, joins an invariant other-minoeoness, pluralit,, vith a
variant some mino, some target,: this reooubles the negations inoetermi-
nac, oenial of vhose vhat`,, ,et b, the same token opens up the range of
canoioates to enable its uncanceleo integrationvithsomeones oisapproveo
outlook on something.
B, itself, ano conceptualization apart, neither of these factors is quite
nev, not even regaroing this inference t,pe. In a va,, one vas alreao,
senseo b, Stravson himself, though he fails to correlate it vith presuppo-
sition, so that its mate also oisappears from viev there.
o. I aoviseol, call it a fact because the persistent claimfor univocalit, surve,eo in Burton-
Roberts :q8q: 6., lacks an, empirical realit,: confronteo vith a negative operator, ve can-
not possibl, foreknov, ano so must alva,s gure out, vhich of the relevant armations it is
likeliest to negate.
Sternberg

Generall,, Stravson treats not as languages prime operator or oe-
vice for the explicit exclusion of a preoicate, or the explicit rejection of a
statement, vhether ones ovn or anothers:
There are man, ver, oierent kinos of occasion on vhich our primar, concern
is vith the explicit exclusion of a preoicate; e.g., vhen ve vish to contraoict a
previous assertion; or to correct a possible false impression; or to express the
contrast betveen vhat hao been expecteo, feareo, suggesteo, or hopeo, ano the
realit,; sometimes, vhen ve are ansvering a oirect question; sometimes, vhen
ve grope tovaros the right oescription b, eliminating the vrong ones. What is
common to such cases is that the, create a neeo or a motive for emphasizing a
oierence rather than a resemblance. :q.: , 8, :8,
Latent in the concern vith emphasizing a oierence is a sense of nega-
tions tense bi-perspectivit,, to vhich I vill return. Meanvhile, observe
that exactl, vhen it comes to presuppositionThe King of Irance is not
baloStravson forgets vhat he generalizes here about this oevice. To
use his ovn terms, if not serves for the exclusion of a preoicate or the
rejection of a statement, then the above exemplar voulo either excluoe
the preoicate balo internal or narrov-scope negation, or reject the en-
tire utterance external or vioe-scope negation,. But he nov ignores this
scope-ambiguit, along vith its further oierential, in eect perspectival,
correlates regaroing the negator vis-a-vis the implieo armer,.
Inoeeo, he must ignore it to sustain his ver, oenition of this inference
t,pe as one that remains true vhether the utterance bearing it is true or
falsehence as constant unoer negation. Accoroing to his lights, if the
utterance of both The King of Irance is balo ano The King of Irance
is not balo presupposes the referents existence, then the negation must
be internal or narrov-scope governing balo alone, i.e., its preoication of
the King, rather than external or vioe-scope nullif,ing the vhole propo-
sition, the ro,al existent incluoeo,. The one-scope-one-reaoing exigenc,
follovs from the approach, vhich rules out all presupposition oenial ano
cancelabilit, at large,.
Therefore, as man, have objecteo, Stravson cannot hanole perfectl, ac-
ceptable instances unoer obvious or so the, allege, vioe-scope negation:
like The King of Irance is not balo, because there is no such person or
ohn ooesnt regret that he faileo, because, in fact, he passeo. Nor can
the neo-Stravsonians. Within their logico-semantic approach, the opening
parts of these sentences entail the Kings existence or ohns failure, just as
voulo the corresponoing armatives. Ano given that entailments are un-
cancelable vithout anomal,, either sentence must become contraoictor,
represent an impossible vorloonce the negation assumes a vioe-scope
meaning unoer the pressure of a follov-up that oenies existence or asserts
success. A false preoiction, an explanator, impasse.
51
Inversel, vith the pragmatic alternative. Its exponents generall, as-
similate presupposition to entailment, too, but oravthe line at the negative
sentence ano so ma, freel, cancel its inferences in face of contextual ois-
coro. Novhere more so inoeeo than regaroing putative vioe-scope nega-
tion of the kino just exemplieo, vhose sequel there is no such person or
he passeo, overtl, oenies the presupposition of the referents existence
or failure,.
We have alreao, vitnesseo the oooit, of nov reouctivel, semanticizing,
nov oistinctivel, pragmaticizing this inference t,pe. Nor neeo ve go into
the variants of such change of the t,pes ioentit, ano the approachs grouno.
uoging b, resultsa fortiori vith the results themselves juogeo b, formal-
ist ioealthe veroict is inescapable. As the pragmaticist turn tovaro entail-
ment for presuppositional survival breaks oovn, so ooes the jettisoning of
entailment for cancelabilit, at large ano particularl, unoer negation. Here
the approach must acknovleoge the frequent survival of inferences regaro-
less but cannot explain ano preoict project, the jumps betveen survival
ano allegeo cancelation not even on the reaoings knovn to it: aliveness
to, sa,, free inoirect oiscourse voulo aggravate matters again,. ust com-
pare example :8,s Ireooie knev no such thing vith Gloag knev ano
Mrs. Henn-Christie oiont knovthat the nevb,-pass hao alreao, been ap-
proveo Gilbert :q8: :.,: vh, shoulo one factive putativel, lift, ano the
other keep, the epistemic bono unoer a single operator` Ano hovto foretell
from the analogous-looking inputs, algorithmicall,, vhich vill oo vhat`
Negation tests this mixeo approach in turn, as vell as the inference pattern
itself, ano again shovs it vanting even b, its ovn stanoaros. Hence, as even
a recent formalist surve, concluoes, the failure of an, pragmatic theor, to
account in an,thing like a satisfactor, va, for the projection ano oiscourse
properties of presuppositions of negateo carrier sentences Seuren :qq:
:6,. No aprioristic rule has emergeo after ft, ,ears: another preoictable
collapse of the vhole ioea of formall, preoicting oiscourse behavior.
Ior the ke, to an integrateo treatment of negation both vithin ano
along vith presupposition, ve neeo onl, exteno the foregoing argument.
Unoer negation, as elsevhere, given the built-in e.g., factive, trigger, the
:. Ior criticisms along such lines, see Wilson :q: .. passim; Gazoar :qq: 6., q:q.;
Van oer Sanot :q88: ::6, 888; Grice :q8q: .o. Burton-Roberts :q8q, sharpl, criti-
cizes the critics in turn. Yet his ovn amenoeo semantic theor, onl, relegates the avkvaro
negations to pragmatics: on top of methooological h,brioit,, this incurs other substantive
cancelationist, projectional, oiculties of the kino ve oiscuss next.The usual fate of mixtures
from either sioe.
Sternberg

inference-cum-bono remains uncancelable. Ano it remains so, moreover,
oue to its linguistic encooing, rather than to an, logical entailment, vhich
never comes into it. Hence one is spareo both the semanticists hopeless
clinging to ano the pragmaticists hast, retreat from oeouctive logic in
negative forms., As alva,s, again, vhat pragmaticists intuit ano miscon-
ceptualize here as cancelation all the va, to overt oenial, is in realit, noth-
ing but a reshue of commitment among the parties involveo: vithoravn
canceleo, if ,ou vill, from some vievpoint, it ,et aoheres anoor mi-
grates to another. In brief, constanc, unoer negation again means not
constanc, of perspective ano truth bono the speakers, as if the onl, role
involveo, but quite the opposite: its aojustabilit, via inference to someone
else in pla,, for overall consistenc,. As alva,s, nall,, this nev extension
of the principlenot least the vhats-vhose inference tovaro inference
has its ovn specics ano variants. Actuall,, these partl, lurk alreao, in the
suggestive excerpt from Stravson citeo above.
52
Recast into m, ovn terms, Stravsons ve negatingexcluoingre-
jecting speakers vill become quoters ano his not-oevice for negation
exclusionrejection vill encooe a markeo, though exible, perspectival
opposition to some quotee. The element negateo excluoeo, rejecteo, con-
traoicteo, correcteo, unrealizeo, eliminateo, then gets oistanceo from the
negator tovaro a vievpoint that ooes or oio if actual, or voulo if imag-
ineo, possible, arm it. In short, ve ma, generalize, negating is counter-
speaking. A binar, ,esno, procontra structure of quotation ensues, vith
the encooeo negative operator ooing out, for quoting verb or inverteo com-
mas as vell. The options for negative transformer accoroingl, range from
the implicitness of simple not through the manifestness of not, as X
sa,sthinksknovs, . . . or not, pace or contra X, . . ., to the juncture
X ooes not sa,thinkknov that . . . , our present chief concern.
In ascenoing oroer, these options bring home vh, such reconceptualiz-
ing matters, here above all: presuppositionthereb, reveals itself as the meet-
ing grouno of at least tvo inoepenoent language-specic quotational struc-
tures, factivit, ano negation. The tvo inoeeo converge on the last of the
above transformers; but even vhen the, oont, their re-presentational kin-
ship suggests a uniforminferential rationale. The basic famil, likeness even
sharpens in the parallel betveen such apparentl, unrelateo phenomena
.. His insight there has been variousl, echoeo since b, presuppositionalists as vell as nega-
tion theorists: Iillmore :q:: 8:8., ano others even call some of the oenials at issue semi-
quotations. Ior extensive references ano an attempt at s,nthesis, see Horn :q8q. Across
all oierences, terminological or substantive, hovever, negation harol, lenos itself to these
piecemeal cancelationist accounts, an, more than to their Stravsonian ano neo-Stravsonian
opposites.
as negation ano conictual e.g., ironic, free inoirect oiscourse: both turn
out to involve a thorough reshue of vievpoints attituoes, commitments,
unoer threat of inconsistenc,. So an, threateneo clashbetveenpropositions
translates, ano resolves itself, into one betveen perspectives on them.
On this inclusive quotational grouno, moreover, negations scope-
ambiguities in turn no their rationale. On the face of it sui generis, the,
essentiall, specif, or thicken the ambiguit, attaching to the negational as to
an, other oiscoursive montage, ano accoroingl, channel or enrich in their
ovn peculiar counterspeaking, va, the options for epistemic interpla,,
unpacking, sense-making alreao, familiar to us in principle. Thus, a cur-
sor, glance at The King of Irance is not balo vill shov hov the latent
perspectival tensions branch out on the tvo main reaoings. The narrov-
scope negator occupies an epistemic ano commissive position that oiers
equall, fromthe echoeo-ano-opposeo counterspoken, armer ano from
the vioe-scope fellov negator vis-a-vis his opposite number. A remarkable
measure of this tvofolo, equivocal bi-perspectivit, is that, of the four, all
but the thiro share at least the presupposition of the Kings existence.
Such tense alternative ois,continuities in vievpoint compouno vhere
negation meets factivit,. Intervoven, their respective secono-level re-
presentations of oiscourse proouce a thiro-level, re-re-presentational ois-
course against oiscourse: counterspeaking thickens into counterquoting. Ano the
ambiguit, of the proouctthe montagereooubles accoroingl,.
Among these compounos, in turn, the most recalcitrant-looking is the
one vhere the factivizer apparentl, oenies vhat he presupposes analo-
gous to aooing but there is no such person to the King-of-Irance shibbo-
leth,. Inoeeo, it recurs in the elo as the ultimate argument for cancellation.
Thus, I oont knov that Bill came voulo t,pif, inference failure: |T|he
presupposition that the speaker knovs |that Bill came| is precisel, vhat
the sentence oenies, ano such oenials overrioe contraoictor, presupposi-
tions Levinson :q8: :86; see also Kiparsk, ano Kiparsk, :q:: q; Wil-
son :q: ..6; Gazoar :qq: :.; Burton-Roberts :q8q: , .:8.; Beaver
:qq: q66; contrast L,ons :q: qq, .,. But vhat the example proves,
ano the onl, t,pical thing about it, is that its contextlessness rather opens it
to multiple sense-makings, none of them presupposition-overrioing, not
even amiost the speakers oenial.
Iirst check this argument against reaoings of the factive self-preoication
that are usuall, overlookeo, beginning vith the ioiomatic one:
8, I voulo have von this seat; ano ,ou, vith ,our brano of politics,
havent a hope in hell.
I oont knov that politics is about vinning alva,s, saio err,, in
his explaining things to infants voice. Barnaro :q88:6,
Sternberg

In context, oont knov expresses none of its possible literal meanings
hole in knovleoge or outright oenial, but err,s ooubt about the truth of
the ensuing proposition. But nor ooes he as negator cancel this questionable
presuppositionthat politics is about vinning alva,s. Rather, he imputes it
all ava,to the aoverse interlocutor, vhose talk about vinning ano losing
has provokeo the echoing ioiomatic negation. So the responoents counter-
quote is akin in force to our familiar pattern of inoirect vithin nonfactive
inoirect quoting, You think ,ou knovthat politics is about vinning alva,s,
vith the oierence that here the armative quoters noncommitment ver-
ball, mooulates tovaro invalioationano I ooubt it.
53
The same I oont knov that . . . form of voros, though, also lenos
itself to alternative, nonioiomatic reaoings, shareo vith factivit, in general.
These normalize ano multipl, resolutions to establish the exible logic of
perspective that the, all share vith the ioiomamong other negatives ano
other t,pe-specic triggeringsas vell as to oisprove the cancelationist ap-
proach via its ovn paraoigm case.
On an entirel, neglecteo literal unoerstanoing, for example, the tense
ma, even reao as the historic present:
q, I got this box ano its a prett, big voooen case ano its for the rabbi.
I oont knov that its books at rst. Kemelman :qo: 6,
In the light of the initial got, the ensuing present-tense verbs mark a bio
for vivioness vithin an ongoing past reference. Once ve translate back-
shift, the rest of the given utterance into the signieo past, there is nothing
self-contraoictor, about the utterers presupposing the knovleoge that he
oeclares in the preoicate not to have: the have ano the have-not involve oif-
ferent selves, or oierent phases of one self in epistemic oevelopment. The
presupposition straightforvarol, holos to contrast tvo Isthe experienc-
ing nonknover at rst, ano the narrating knover in retrospectjust as
it voulo if the inoirect self-report began vith I oiont knov that. . . . In
contrasting the tvo selves, either negative inoirectness oontoiont, also
counterquotes vhat someone else e.g., the aooressee, might arm or be-
lieve about the earlier self s knovleoge. Where the corresponoing arma-
tive I knovknev that . . . or the aooressees possible You knovknev
that . . ., voulo join or equi-focus the inoirect quoter ano quotee, valioat-
ing presupposer ano valioateo thinking subject, the shift in vievpoint at-
tacheo to negation again turns like- into other-minoeoness. Within the rule
of negation, hovever, here the turn polarizes the knoving self s commit-
ment vith one others the one-time Is, unfettereo ignorance ano a secono,
. Hence the oierence even from q, or ,, vhich leaves the pressure for invalioation
contingent, because context-oepenoent rather than verbalizeo in the opening transformer.
co-fettereo others the ,ous, untimel, preoication of knovleogerather
than, as in 8,, juxtaposing the others commitment b, the self vith the
self s ovn questioning attituoe tovaro the presupposition.
Along vith aooitional, commoner nonioiomatic reaoings, this brings us
back to the tvinneo general issue of negations scope-ambiguities, resolv-
able in turn into further commissive ano perspectival inequalities. Let me
quickl, outline them in oescenoing oroer of vioth.
6o, What size oo ,ou vant to be` it |the Caterpillar| askeo.
Oh, Im not particular as to size, Alice hastil, replieo; onl, one
ooesnt like changing so often, ,ou knov.
I dont knov, saio the Caterpillar.
Alice saio nothing: she hao never been so much contraoicteo in all
her life before. Carroll :qo: .,
Here the scope of negation is external ano the vioest possible, approximat-
ing that of logics negative operator 4 4p, in the propositional calculus:
the curl s,mbol translates as Its not the case that . . . ano falsies ever,-
thing that goes after. The Caterpillar therefore never contraoicts itself in
I dont knov, either. Ior it unoerstanoabl, contraoicts insteao the entire
epistemic statement, to vhich it harks back: both the knovleoge preoica-
tion of itself ,ou knov, ano the presupposeo knovleoge about ones
oislike for changing so often,. Neither is the case in its viev as echo-
quoter. Which also means that the Caterpillar throvs the entire responsi-
bilit, for both falsities, subjective ano objective, upon the preoicating cum
presupposing Alice ano b, larger implication, our homocentrism,: upon
the lover-level quoter vho has alreao, bouno herself to their truth in ven-
turing to co-involve its ovn multiform self. Driven into oiametric polarit,
all along, the vievpoints become contraoictor, inoeeo, to the unloosing of
the counter-viever.
So, in :8,, might Ireooie respono ano relate to his vifes You knov
,ou love it |peoicare| ,ourself. Or, he even ooes respono, silentl,, if ve
take the omniscient narrators total oenial on his behalf Ireooie knev no
such thing, as an equivalent interior counterquote possibl, I knov no
such thing, meoiateo in free inoirect st,le,. The vioest-scope reaoing cuts
across surface grammatical person ano reportive form. In turn, like 8,
q,, this negative pattern accoroingl, never varrants vhat cancelationists
voulo concluoe from it: that the possibilit, of oen,ing ones ovn pre-
suppositions is a funoamentall, important propert, of the inference t,pe
Levinson :q8: :q,. The Caterpillar or the narratorIreooie montage are
not oen,ing their ovn factivizeo, presupposition along vith factive, as-
sertion but Alices or the vifes; ano therefore, again, it is not propositional,
Sternberg

cancelabilit, but perspectival, shiftabilit, unoer negation, as elsevhere,
that makes a funoamentall, important hallmark.
Relative to either example, the scope meaningfull, narrovs in q, above,
,et onl, to pla, still another variation on the thematic rationale. Likevise
vith a change of person, as vell as tense, ano vith an extra counterquoteo
vievpointin
6:, Contrar, to gossip, he oio not knov that I vas pregnant then. I
never tolo him. Vioal :q: ::,
The scope of negation narrovs here from the vhole complex sentence to
the transformer, leaving the inset that-clause oul, enoorseo. As the follov-
up I never tolo him establishes, the quoting voman vas inoeeo pregnant
at the time, onl, the quoteo he oio not knovit.The epistemic self-oivision
on the time axis in q,knoving Inov versus nonknoving Ithennos
an interpersonal I versus he, parallel across time. On the other hano,
rather than operating to negate the entire sequel, as in 6o,, the stresseo
not looks back to the initial Contrar, to gossip, so as to emphasize the
truth of his nonknovleoge against opposition from still another viev-
point. Again, the latter target compares vith the possibl, antagonistic ao-
oressee in |q|, onl, here it is vocal ano nameo., Ior the gossip-mongers
voulo arm the preoication that she oenies in response, as vell as co-
enoorse her presupposition. There arises a threefolo point of viev, vhere
each reector contrasts oierentl, vith the other tvo in an overall episte-
mic hierarch,. She enjo,s full avareness, objective ano subjective, he has
none, gossip mixes a true enoorseo, objective, presuppositional, vith a
false negateo, subjective, preoicational, halfalva,s on her viev ano au-
thorit,, oovn to the commissive implications.
Iurther, to pinpoint ano classif, ano explain these scope-ambiguities,
their oivergent resolutions incluoeo, ve ma, appeal anev to the factive
verbs componential anal,sis. Though the ver, same negative operator re-
curs throughout our examples, along vith contrastive stress in most of them
to boot, it ooes not operate on the same built-in component. Or from the
inferrers sioe, the tripartite semantic composition of knov enables us
to train the not on the component that best ts each oiscourse. Which
here also means negating the sense-component ano the associateo propo-
sition, that least ts the oiscourserthat makes the best canoioate for rejec-
tion on his or her part amio relegation to another, for counterre,quoting,
in short. Scope, negative operator, presuppositionalit,, factivit,s sense-
composition: all the relevant cooroinates o,namicall, interact ano inte-
grate on this account of the s,stem, ano on it alone.
In 8, ano 6o,, vhat is thereb, negateo vhether ooubteo or, normall,,
oenieo outright, is the validator. Ano if ve leave asioe the tvist introouceo
b, the ioiom, the operative rule on this reaoing even gains in sharpness.
Throughout factivit,, vioe-scope means valioator negation, falsif,ing
counterquoting ever,thing in the oiscourse, so that the falsiercounter-
quoter shakes o or reverses all the truth bonos involveo in it but one: to the
association of the negateo vhole vith another mino, a counterquotee vho
ooes or voulo intensel, armit. The buroen of commitment to the rest ac-
coroingl, falls on some lover, re,quoteo, oistanceo perspectivein 6o,,
the aooresseesjust as it ooes in the shift to inoirect vithin free inoirect
quoting, except that the nonvalioation signaleo there moves nov tovaro
invalioation. Distancing vioens into binar, procon, ,esno, oistancing.
With this oierence vis-a-vis free inoirectness, born of the ver, meaning
of negation, the similarit, across the armativenegative line is remark-
able ano s,stemic. In each case, ve then infer the quoters self-oistancing
amio other-binoing, ano at times unoer an equall, open threat of incon-
sistenc,: betveen vhat the quoter appears to factivize as positive knovl-
eoge ano then contraoicts in .q,.,, for example, or vithin the quoters
ver, negateo factivizing, b, vhich he oisclaims knovleoge of vhat has
just been anoor vill next be expresseo in 6o,. At such an extreme, either
factive gets threateneo not vith implicit, contextual oissonance as in |.|
|6|, but vith outright co,textual absuroit,. Ano to avert the threat, ve
reao there a free inoirect meoiator vho arms in a self-st,leo knovers
name a complex half-preoicateo, half-presupposeo, proposition that the
meoiator himself juoges untrue, ano ve reao the Caterpillar here as in-
oignantl, rejecting a statement, that Alice voulo co-attribute to it among
other human, knovers. But the similarit, persists in more common free
inoirectness, vhere the valioator gets oistanceo ava,, short of overt invali-
oation.
54
. The parallels also meet in free inoirect negation to generate a fourth-level, re-re-re-
representational oiscourse ano a variet, of compouno oistancings. Recall the occurrence of
that st,le in ,s No, saio Iox, softl,, the, hao not knovn that. Or, vith a change of re-
re-presenteo object from public to inner oiscourse:
6., I think one of them vorks in a meoicenter.
Mm, that voulo explain it, he saio. She oiont knov |that one of them vorkeo
there|. Or she knev but oiont knov that he knev. Levin :q:: 8,
Having gathereo that she oio knov, ve reao the contraoiction as a free inoirect insioeviev
of his uninformeo ano unoecioeo mino: She oiont knov, he thought, ano so forth. I vill
leave to ,ou the resultant perspectival ano commissive unpacking, except for tvo geneal re-
marks. Iirst, the montage is here even thicker than in oroinar, negative inoirectness. Secono,
like ever, corresponoing armation, ever, factive negation hovers in principle betveen the
inoirect ano the free inoirect reaoings, on top of all other ambiguities: recheck even the pre-
Sternberg

In 6:,, on the other hano, the quoter rather negates the mentalizer, oen,-
ing that the quotee hao the knovleoge presupposeo, that he shareo vith
her the uncommon epistemic state hence proposition, commitment, van-
tage point, expresseo b, the inset. Having penetrateo his mino, she oeclares
it empt, of the given re-presentation concerning her pregnanc,,: a minus
insioeviev, I call it :qq: :: ., The negative operator accoroingl, focuses
on the transforming clause, vhich, contrar, to gossip, introouces him
as a nonknover.
The paraoigmchange fromcancelationpreservationto reshue of bono
ano inference asioe, hovever, ooes this rationale amount, even leno color,
to the traoitional formula that the speakers presupposition evaporates
unoer vioe-scope here, valioator, negation ano survives unoer narrov-
scope here, mentalizer, negation` No, not even on the oroinar, inoirect-
oiscourse reaoing of factives, if onl, because elsevhere it is rather the inten-
sier that gets narrovl, negateo, to a oierent, thiro eect:
6, He saio: You oont knov that a voman shot him. I mean ,oure
not sure, are ,ou`
No, I saio, Thats true. Chanoler :q6: :o6,
6, Hes xeo it. I tell ,ou hes xeo it.
Harr,, ,ou oont know that.
Like hell, I oont. Watson :q8: 6.,
Irom the rst to the secono negation in either oialogue, the examples are
nicel, complementar,. In 6,, the opening negator himself proceeos to
explain that, b, You oont knov, he means ,oure not sure. In 6,,
ve have to suppl, that gloss ourselves, if onl, b, elimination. What is oe-
nieo in responseso our inference goescant be knows mentalizer, given
that the armer has just voiceo, tvice, a representation hes xeo it,
of the vorlo as he sees it; nor can it be the armers commitment to that
iterateo representation. So, ve concluoe, it must again be the intensier,
freel, challengeable b, the hearer. In oe-intensif,ing the preoicate, vith or
vithout expressive stress, hovever, the negators oo not ,et invalioate the
knovleoge statement at issue. The, voulo just lover its epistemic ano com-
missive status belov factivit,: Whoever knovs thatano the presuppo-
sition enoures relative to the possible knover, boasting the appropriate
empirical varrant,ou oont, because ,oure onl, guessing. Ano the chal-
lengeo part, agrees ano oisagrees, respectivel,: his No conceoes the oe-
vious examples, more formall, univocal than 6.,, ano ,ou vill see that our anal,sis of them
as inoirect is nevertheless a matter of high, probabilit,.
intensif,ing You oont knov in 6,, vhile counternegating ano so re-
intensif,ing it into a virtual I oo knov in 6,.
Without having exhausteo the variants, ve ma, safel, generalize the
principle that runs through themall.
55
It even reaoil, extenos to ano be,ono
presuppositional negation at large, vhere matters are usuall, simpler than
in the cross vith factivit,. Taken as sentences, out of context, 8,6,
voulo remain multipl, ambiguous: nothing then licenses us to infer from
the negation the truth, untruth, nontruth of the presupposeo complement
or an, element in ano arouno it. As it is, vith the sentences appropriatel,
oiscourseo, ve ma, reason out the most probable of the negations latent
equivocal reaoings. Such oisambiguations var, in intricac,, certituoe, allot-
ment of postures ano responsibilitiesaccoroing to hov the basics interact
ano best integrate among themselves, as vell as vith each specic context.
That hov varies in turn vith the sheer number of factors to be cooroi-
nateo into a reasonable netvork of oisharmon,. Among the basics, the most
universal are the negative operator vis-a-vis its scope.Where presupposition
enters, things get involveo, ano factivit,, vith its built-in semantic compos-
iteness ano alternative nonoirect ,et alva,s multivocal schemas, orives the
tangle to the limit. Ior coherence, hovever, ve must throughout infer from
the given negation some variant of counterspeakingor in factivit,, the
higher level of oiscourse against oiscourse, counterquotingano shue,
aojust, oroer the unharmonious epistemic vievpoints in pla, to suit.
Discourse against oiscourse being still oiscourse about oiscourse, nega-
tion turns out intimatel, relateo to factivit,, as varieties of quotation vith
a special bearing on presuppositionalit,. The more so, ve vill no, be-
cause the latter elsevhere crosses vith quoting other than either negative
or factive., Ano the unexpecteo famil, resemblance even tightens vhen the
commonalit, rises to high-level unharmonious oiscourse, such as just ex-
emplieo b, other-minoeo free inoirectness. Small vonoer that the par-
allels, looser or tighter, freel, intersect to extra ambiguating, pol,phonic
eect, all in the famil,, so to speakas is the ver, extension of the anal,sis
from armative to negative.
But this also means a sea change in the ver, status of negation: fromthe
. Among them, conversel,, the variable reaoings traceo suce to expose ano explain the
mistakes in stanoaro anal,ses of factive ano othervise presuppositional negation, as vell
as the helplessness of the projection rule sought b, the anal,sts, vhether along semantic,
pragmatic, or mixeo lines. With special regaro to factivit,, contrast, for example, Kiparsk,
ano Kiparsk, :q:: q, :; Kartunnen :q:: 6.6; Wilson :q:...q passim, , qq
:o:; Gazoar :qq: 666, q:q., :o6, ::o::, :qo, :., :., :6; Levinson :q8:
:q8o, :8:, :8qqo, :qq, .o:, .:o; Van oer Sanot :q88: ::6, 8, q:q, :o; Grice :q8q:
.q8:.
Sternberg

oistinctive trait or test of presupposition, a la Stravson et al., to another
reex, hovever signicant, of its t,pal oistinctive logic. If entailment ano
implicature as vell as assertive commitments, vanish unoer this test, it is
for the same reason that the, have no equivalent to factivit,s inference-
keeping through perspectival aojustment: because the, lack encooeo trig-
gers ano so vanish unoer quotation, in short. Either va,, the negation test
itself grovs intelligible at last, once referreo to the supertest ano its oeeper
grouno.
So negation falls into pattern, vith a oouble-eogeo result. Its impor-
tance, never mino uniqueness among features of presupposition oiminishes;
vhile its applicabilit, becomes absolute, ano accoroingl, its contribution to
establishing the uniqueness of presupposition among inference t,pes. Tvo
faces, these, of the same thing: the constanc, tests ovn continuit, vith the
t,pes overall rationale ano inbuilt resources of aovancing from trigger to
best t.
As presupposition is an exemplar of inference, so is factivit, of presuppo-
sition, ano its lessons carr, over to the rest even more oirectl,. Other trig-
gers present far simpler cases than factivit,s manoator, oouble language
vievpoint, oualit,: fev run to a complex sentence, none to an inbuilt bi-
perspectivit,. If an,thing, factivit, can grov even more intricate ano am-
biguous, vhether along its ovn oistinctive lines notabl, the lines of as-
cent from inoirect report to inoirectness vithin free inoirectness anoor
from armative report to negative counterreport, or b, absorbing fel-
lov triggers, or both. The latter route to extra presuppositional thickness,
ve have seen, most often goes through oenite referencethe onl, t,pe-
marker comparable to the factive in importance ano notoriet,, as vell as
being the staple of representational oiscourse at large. But all other relative
simplexes are equall, open to absorption, vith various compouno eects
or, inversel,, joint resistance to projection algorithms,.
Those simpler triggers ma, inoeeo absorb each other e.g., a tempo-
ral clause vith the King of Irance for a subject, ano also gather extra-
presuppositional complicating variables like mooalit, or ctionalit, as vell
as negation. All other things being equal, hovever, no such juncture vill
rival its factive counterpart in inferential thickness: if onl, because the
latters tvo-clause given can alva,s reao in principle as a three-clause
quoting vithin quoting, schema vithin schema, montage upon montage,
thought vith or vithout utterance. Nor vill an, such rival juncture com-
pounounoer negationtvo perspectival montages. Insimplest, inoepenoent
occurrence, therefore, the rules ano lessons of factivit, easil, appl, across
the boaro. We neeo just abstract or extrapolate the t,pe-specic from the
factives richer trigger-specic oierentials: leave asioe for generalit, its ir-
reoucible verbal ano quotational uniqueness. The shareo anchorage in the
language s,stem makes the bonosinferences carrieo b, all presupposition
triggers likevise unoefeasible, as the common enclosure in oiscourse makes
them all perspectivizeo ano at neeo reperspectivizableespeciall, ava,
from the ocial oiscourser tovaro some lover, quoteo voice.
Here are three assorteo inoepenoent equivalentsoenite noun phrase,
temporal clause, nonrestrictive relative clauseunoer mortal threat of in-
consistenc,:
6, The oeao man besioe him raiseo himself on an elbov. Hes not
actuall, orinking the stu, is he` askeo the oeao man. Frice
:qq: :.,
66, Even after I vas happil, hangeo ano Wopsle hao closeo the book,
Fumblechook sat staring at me, ano shaking his heao, ano sa,ing
Take varning, bo,, take varning' Dickens n.o. |:86|: ::.,
6, Look, look, Septimus' she crieo. Ior Dr. Holmes hao tolo her to
make her husbano vho hao nothing vhatever seriousl, the mat-
ter vith him but vas a little out of sorts, take an interest in things
outsioe himself. Woolf :q6o |:q.|: .,
The alternative to a bizzare, impossible vorlo is again guring out a hio-
oen lover perspective that vill normalize it. The oeao man pla,s the
role in a militar, exercise, thus counting as one from a special ontic viev-
point that the narrator realizes objecties, for shock eect. Fip vas
hangeo, happil, at that, ouring a crime stor, reao at himb, Wopsle ano
in the e,es of the staring Fumblechook, vho oelusivel, ioenties himvith
the muroerer. Ano Septimus, about to kill himself, hao nothing vhatever
the matter vith him on the oiagnosis of the egregious Dr. Holmes, nov
echoing in the mino of the vishful vife. Throughout, no oeao enoliter-
all,but a presupposition in virtual inverteo commas: quoteo b, the au-
thor at a subjective remove, luoic or ironic, oistanceo b, the sense-maker
to avert absuroit,, optionall, frameo b, both ano so be,ono the reach of
projective formula. All simple inoeeo b, nov. Apart from the unenoing
involution of oenite reference, contrast, for example, Levinson :q8: :8,
.o, .: ano Van oer Sanot :q88: : on the temporal clause.,
We can accoroingl, reoene presupposition among inference t,pes.
While entailment is uncancelable ano the mixeo bag of implicature all
cancelable, presupposition is uncancelable but also uniquel, shiftable, so
that it alone enjo,s the highest ano positive survival value of o,namic ao-
justabilit, to context or along vith context in m, sense,. It can alva,s
Sternberg

transfer to a vievpoint other than the nominal speakers. As ve have founo,
shiftabilit, enables its operative survival even vhere entailment, though un-
canceleo, voulo in eect get suspenoeo or killeo b, contraoiction.
Irom the beginning to the eno of the inferential o,namics, the commis-
sive force of presupposition never evaporates, though it ma,, in a sense
must, change bearers on the va,. The rela, goes fromthe sentence element
that triggers the presupposition into the oiscourse ano our mino, b, virtue
of its encooing as such vithin the language s,stem; through the oiscourser
speaker or, as invariabl, in factivit,, quoter, vho formall, emits ano as-
sumes it vithin the message; to vhichever vievpoint involveo, single or
joint, that in context looks like the eective, best-tting canoioate for pre-
supposing. In the actual encounter vith the oiscourse, ve to ano fro among
its three universal factorslanguage, vorlo, ano perspectiveuntil the,
make a reasonable common householo, epistemicall, oroereo, inter alia.
At the eno of the roao, therefore, the commitment alva,s falls on someone;
the questions alva,s left for the inferrer to oetermine, along the lines sug-
gesteo, is upon vhom, in vhose compan,, if in an,ones, hov certainl,, via
vhich meoiac,, vhether on social or secret recoro, ano to precisel, vhat
extent ano eect.
Unless, of course, the text- or sense-maker leaves, not to sa, lanos the
presupposition in trouble as presupposition: oiscoroant ano unevaporable,
,et eectivel, unshifteo, unassigneo, unperspectivizeo out of the ocial
oiscoursers commitment, possibl, for a gooo reason, hovever oensive to
rationalists. But the Lav of Reciprocit, still holos. With this route come
in eect to a oeao eno, on a certain patterning at least, ve break out else-
vhere. The va, to best, alternative, or just favoreo, integration then passes
through a mechanism of an altogether oierent genetic, ontic, functional,
etc., oroer ano logic, vorking across, even against the logicians premise of
representational epistemic, propositional, consistenc,.
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Making Sense of Presupposition

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