Alexandra Lorson

University of Groningen | RUG

This research explored how intelligence interviewees mentally identify the relevant information at their disposal. We theorized that interviewees estimate the interviewer's objectives based on how they frame any attempt to solicit information. Then interviewees organize the information they possess into item designations that pragmatically correspo...

Investigating additive presupposition triggers with two production experiments.

In communicating about certainty, speakers make choices among available formulations and hearers will aim to recover speaker intentions. In two studies, we assess speakers' production choices and hearers' interpretations to test (a) how maximal certainty is formulated, (b) whether those formulations adjust depending on context, and (c) whether spea...

The change of state verb `stop' is known to trigger a pre-state presupposition of the form `X used to V'.However, confronted with a question such as `Did David stop dancing ballet?', listeners do not necessarily understand that David used to dance ballet. Several factors seem to converge in influencing listeners' understanding of presuppositions in...

Speakers have a number of options when introducing propositions which they take to be uncertain: for instance, they can use verbs such as ‘know’, ‘believe’ or ‘think’. The production of uncertainty expressions is highly context dependent. One promising approach to capturing the semantic meaning of these expressions takes them to be available only w...