Robert Stalnaker: Common Ground, 2002: A presentation of his paper and an investigation how its theories can be applied to questions.

Literature Review from the year 2004 in the subject Speech Science / Linguistics, grade: A, San Diego State University (Linguistics), course: Graduate Seminar on Semantic of Questions, language: English, abstract: Robert Stalnaker''s pragmatic theory "Common Ground" (2002) is investigated in regard to questions. The wh-question "who left?" and the yes-no question "did someone leave?" are investigated as for a change of presupposition, common belief and common ground. For the wh-question, I came to the conclusion that there is a presupposition in the Stalnakerian notion of the term; there might be a belief change and there is a change of common ground. For the yes-no question, there is neither a presupposition included, nor a change of common belief or common ground.