Abstract

The paper proposes an epistemic taxonomy of assertives based on a concept of epistemic presuppositions. Epistemic presuppositions are a special kind of pragmatic presuppositions, which describe the structure of hearer’s and speaker’s meta-reasoning. The epistemic taxonomy of assertives is based on the operator of strong common belief (sCB). It is argued that the properties of a strong common belief operator (positive and negative introspection, non-factivity) are relevant for the analysis of pragmatics presuppositions. Also strong common belief operator is used for the explication of gricean epistemic construction: “the Speaker thinks (and would expect the hearer to think that the speaker thinks…”. The assertives’ taxonomy for an utterance φ consists of the following basic types: “1. Non-Literal Utterances” (sCBS,H¬φ) and “2. Literal Utterances” (¬sCBS,H¬φ). Non-Literal Utterances is divided into two groups: “1.1. Conventional Literal Utterances“ (there is a convention such that means ψ in a context c.) and “1.2. Non- Conventional Literal Utterances“ (there no such convention). There are two types of Literal Utterances “2.1. Semantically Trivial Utterances (sCBS,Hφ)” and “2.2. Semantically Non-Trivial Utterances (¬sCBS,Hφ)”. Semantically Trivial Utterances is divided into two parts: “2.1.1. Conventional Semantically Trivial Utterances” (there is a convention such that means ψ in a context c) and “2.1.2. Non-conventional Semantically Trivial Utterances” (there no such convention). Semantically Non-Trivial Utterances is divided into two parts: “2.2.1. Insincere Utterances” BS¬φ and “2.2.2. Sincere Utterances ¬BS¬φ. There are two types of Sincere Utterances “2.2.2.1. Credible Utterances” (BSφ) and “2.2.2.2. Non-credible Utterances”).