Rob van der Sandt is a Dutch philosopher and formal semanticist known for his influential work on presupposition within Discourse Representation Theory (DRT). He developed the binding theory of presupposition, which analyzes presupposition resolution as a species of anaphora resolution within the DRT framework. His 1992 paper 'Presupposition Projection as Anaphora Resolution' is a landmark contribution to formal pragmatics and the semantics of natural language.
Developed the binding theory of presupposition, treating presupposition projection as anaphora resolution within DRT
Showed that the accessibility relation between DRSs is semantically entailed rather than stipulated
Provided a unified account of presupposition accommodation and binding in a single formal framework
Contributed to the integration of pragmatic phenomena into formal discourse semantics