This book presents a comprehensive overview and discussion of the burgeoning field of presupposition theory, introducing a wealth of new data and critical commentary. Working within the recently developed framework of Dynamic Semantics, the author develops his own account of presupposition and solves some well-known problems of other accounts. According to the view developed, while semantics is concerned with information update, there is one part of the meaning of an utterance which requires no update: the utterance's presupposition.

Although this book assumes general understanding of pragmatics and semantics, the reader needs no prior familiarity with presupposition theory or recent dynamic approaches to the study of meaning.