Semantic-Pragmatic Account of Syntactic Structures

In this paper, I propose a unified account of backgrounded constituents within the framework of Discourse Representation Theory. Building upon van der Sandt (1992) and Geurts (2010), I expand the scope of presupposition resolution in DRT to encompass other forms of backgrounded expressions, such as specific indefinites and conventional implicatures (in terms of Potts 2005). Each backgrounded expression constitutes a certain instruction to find, create, or update a discourse referent in the common ground. Dependent on one another, these instructions form a tree-like structure, which is subsequently realized as a syntactic tree during the process of utterance production. Among other aspects, this approach suggests a potential answer to why backgrounded constructions are islands, as articulated by Goldberg (2006).