1Topics in Presupposition TheoryVon der Fakultat¤ Philosophie der Universitat¤ Stuttgart zur Erlangungder Wur¤ de eines Doktors der Philosophie (Dr. phil) genehmigteAbhandlungVorgelegt vonPeter Krauseaus Schwabisch¤ HallHauptberichter: Prof. Dr. Hans KampMitberichter: Prof. Dr. Thomas Ede ZimmermannTag der mundlichen¤ Prufung:¤ 20. Juli 2001Institut fur¤ maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung der Universitat¤ Stuttgart20012Hiermit erklar¤ e ich, dass ich die vorliegende Dissertation mitdem TitelTopics in Presupposition Theoryselbstandig¤ verfasst habe und nur die angegebenen Hilfsmittelund Quellen sowie Hinweise namentlich genannter Personenverwendet habe.Stuttgart, den 25. Juni 20013Acknowledgments I would like to thank my thesis advisors, HansKamp and Thomas Ede Zimmermann. Hans made it possible for me todo research in semantics. I have learned a lot from him, not only onpresupposition, but also on topic, focus, propositional attitudes andthe pragmatics of reference, and about other aspects of semantics. Itgradually dawns on me that what The main thing I have learned fromhim cannot be easily summarized but is rather a way of analyzing se-mantic phenomena and of discovering open questions. His questionsand comments on formal, conceptual and empirical aspects of the the-sis were crucial. Finally I am grateful for helping me in my personaldevelopment in ways which were often dif cult to appreciate at rst.