Abstract
The exact repetition of linguistic material has a range of pragmatic consequences, many of which can be understood as involving a weakening of the speaker’s commitment towards the meanings that the material would usually be understood to convey. In this chapter I argue that exact repetition can lead to the loss of implicatures and the non-projection of presuppositions, for principled reasons involving consideration of the preceding context and the speaker’s intention. In support of this, I present novel experimental data concerning sentences which appear to trigger but then cancel presuppositions: participants infer that the presupposition triggers are repetitions, even in the absence of explicit evidence of prior use. I also consider the relevance of pragmatic considerations for the conventionalised use of repetition.
