ELSEVIER Journal of Pragmatics 26 (1996) 475-523 Focus, pragmatic presupposition, and activated propositions Matthew S. Dryer* Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA Received July 1994; revised version September 1995 Abstract Although it is widely recognized that differences in focal accent represent what are in some sense differences in what is given and what is new, there remains considerable confu- sion in the literature as to what the relevant notion of 'given' is. This paper argues that when one distinguishes 'given' in the sense of 'presupposed' from 'given' in the sense of 'acti- vated' (in the mind of the hearer), it becomes clear that it is the latter rather than the former which characterizes the complement of focus. While there is literature that assumes this posi- tion, there is a considerable body of literature that assumes that the relevant notion is in fact presupposition and little explicit argumentation that it is not presupposition. In addition, some of the literature that recognizes the relevance of activation mistakenly assumes that something that is activated is necessarily presupposed. The reason for this is that much of the literature ignores the distinction between propositions which are mentally represented and propositions which are believed. 1. Introduction Different notions have been appealed to in describing the differences in meaning between the sentences in (1), distinguished in form solely by the placement of focal accent. (1) (a) MARY saw John. (b) Mary SAW John. (c) Mary saw JOHN. ~" I wish to thank Knud Lambrecht for extensive email discussion of various issues related to this paper, Larry Horn for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and especially an anonymous Journal of Pragmatics reviewer for unusually helpful and detailed comments and suggestions. * E-mail: lindryer@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu; Fax: +1 716-645-3825. 0378-2166/96/$15.00 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0378-2166(95)00059-3