Presuppositions in Superlatives

Abstract: This paper discusses the distributive reading of plural superlatives. We argue that the compositional interpretation of plural superlative sentences requires that the referent of the superlative description is excluded from the comparison class associated with the degree morphology. We extend the claim to superlatives in general. The proposal implies that we need to rethink the presupposition conditions of superlatives previously defined in Heim (1999). The manner in which the presupposition conditions are stated, in contrast to our claim, relies on the assumption that the referent of the superlative description is a member of the comparison class