This study evaluates the effect of presuppositional
information associated with contrastive stress on on-line
language processing. An eye-tracking methodology was
used, in which eye movement latencies to real objects in
a visual display are taken as a measure of on-line
reference resolution. Results indicate that presupposed
contrast sets are being computed on-line, and can be used
to speed reference resolution by narrowing the referential
domain of an utterance. In addition, presupposed contrast
sets appear to play a role in managing attention in the
processing of a discourse.
