My thumb is sore, as my mouse isn’t working.
Consider the following sentences:
- My thumb is sore.
- My brother is a rabbi.
- My cat is orange.
- My computer is frickin’ sweet.
They all apear to function quite well in discourse-initial position, and yet (1) doesn’t seem to presuppose that I have only one thumb (viz.: “My thumb is sore, but my other thumb is fine,”) but it appears that (with increasing intensity) the others do require this presupposition.
What is going on here? Why is this sentence
- My cat is orange, but my other cat is black.
so bad? If it is, as I believe, that my contains an iota-operator along with some lambda having to do with ownership, then why is (1) fine and (2) not terrible? This is my squib topic for Pragmatics.