The partial factivity of opinion verbs

Abstract

This paper aims at providing a novel analysis of the subjectivity requirement of opinion verbs based on their presupposition properties. I show that the interpretation of the complement of opinion verbs involves an important amount of presupposed material. Once formalized properly in the form of what I call the Subjective Contingency Presupposition, nothing further needs to be said to exclude sentences where opinion verbs take as complement a non-subjective clause, since such sentences would be associated with a contradictory presupposition. I further show that this new analysis also correctly predicts that analytical propositions under find are also ruled out even if they contain subjective predicates, a fact that is otherwise not accounted for.