What Comes First in Dynamic Semantics: A Critical Review of Linguistic Theories of Presupposition and a Dynamic Alternative

Inspired by Frege, who's work in Linguistic Presupposition initiated the modern study, Beaver shares with the reader the most comprehensive overview and critical discussion of this burgeoning field published to date. He then goes on to motivate and develop his own account based on a Dynamic Semantics in which the Tarskian emphasis on truth conditions is questioned. The central plank of the theory of meaning is a formal account of the change in information effected by use of language on hearers or readers. At the same time it provides a new impulse and motivation to Dynamic Semantics itself.