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(according to S's generic position) that there is somebody who has carried out a certain action but challenges the right of S to apply an improper name to this somebody. In (11a) A says that (since by virtue of the presuppositional power of the p-term, to be aware, one cannot be aware of what one doesn't know) he was not aware of the foreground information, but once he has accepted the background information imposed by S, then he can easily say that he is aware of it. In all these cases the speakers try to reach an agreement de dicto about the possibility of using certain expressions, in order to avoid the breakdown of their communicational act. Negations (8a), (10a), and (11a) impose a new frame or point of view upon the following discourse (if S and A want to keep going, they must agree to change their background knowledge). The de dicto nature of challenges (8), (10a), and (11a) is shown by the different de re negation considered in (9). This negation seems quite normal because it does not try to delete the presupposition of regret; on the contrary, it assumes it as a matter of indispensable background knowledge and, so doing, accepts the previously established frame. A sentence such as (9) can be used both additively and subtractively. It can "add to" the foreground the fact of Edward's coldness, even if the question of regret has not yet arisen, or it can deny a previous assertion that Edward regretted Margaret's failure. On the contrary, (8)and (8a), (10a), and (11a)can only be subtractive. Presuppositions, as part of the background frame, can be negated only by challenging the frame itself. In this sense challenging the background, that is, negating a presupposition, is a metalinguistic negation, because to deny the background frame is to deny the appropriateness of the way in which the information was presented, that is, the appropriateness of the very words used by the other speaker in the given context. When the background frame of the speaker is challenged, a new frame can be imposed, and it is possible to have a change in frames. Challenging the speaker's frame always produces textual effects, because changing frame changes the direction of a discourse. So the challenge of a frame becomes a textual change of topic. After a sentence such as (8), it will not be possible to continue to speak of Margaret's failure, which is quite possible after (9). To change the topic of the discourse requires a complex metalinguistic strategy that can be implemented only in the course of a complex textual maneuver. All the cases of counterexamples used to criticize the negation test for presuppositions require this kind of complex textual strategy, which has the function of transforming an apparent internal negation into an external one, and to transform the external negation into a negation de dicto, in order to preserve the felicity conditions of the communica- |
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