Presupposition.docx

1、Presupposition Presupposition Zhou Jiangxin周江鑫Class 4, Grade 2008No. 200805140437The School of Foreign LanguagesChina West Normal UniversityA Paper for Presupposition on PragmaticsMay 2011PresuppositionIn pragmatics, there is an appeal to the idea that speakers assume certain information is already

2、known by their listeners. Because it is treated as known, such information will generally not be stated and consequently will count as part of what is communicated but not said. The technical terms presupposition is used to describe this kind of information. In order to discuss this topic, we need t

3、o some introduction to the type of analytic discussion associated with the logical analysis of these of these phenomena. Introduction In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, and presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose tru

4、th is taken for granted in discourse, and a presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance. Speakers, not sentences, have presupposition. Examples of presuppositions include: Do you want to do it again? o Presupposition: that you have done it already, at

5、least once. Jane no longer writes fiction. o Presupposition: that Jane once wrote fiction.Main ReferenceA presupposition must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context. It will generally remain a necessary assumption whether t

6、he utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and can be associated with a specific lexical item or grammatical feature (presupposition trigger) in the utterance.Crucially, negation of an expression does not change its presuppositions: I want to do it again and I dont want

7、 to do it again both presuppose that the subject has done it already one or more times; My wife is pregnant and My wife is not pregnant both presuppose that the subject has a wife. In this respect, presupposition is distinguished from entailment and implicature. For example, The president was assass

8、inated entails that The president is dead, but if the expression is negated, the entailment is not necessarily true.Negation of a sentence containing a presuppositionIf presuppositions of a sentence are not consistent with the actual state of affairs, then one of two approaches can be taken. Given t

9、he sentences My wife is pregnant and My wife is not pregnant when one has no wife, then either:1. Both the sentence and its negation are false; or2. Strawsons approach: Both my wife is pregnant and my wife is not pregnant use a wrong presupposition (i.e. that there exists a referent which can be des

10、cribed with the noun phrase my wife) and therefore can not be assigned truth values.Bertrand Russell tries to solve this dilemma with two interpretations of the negated sentence:1. “There exists exactly one person, who is my wife and who is not pregnant”2. “There does not exist exactly one person, w

11、ho is my wife and who is pregnant.”For the first phrase, Russell would claim that it is false, whereas the second would be true according to him.Projection of presuppositionsA presupposition of a part of an utterance is sometimes also a presupposition of the whole utterance, and sometimes not. Weve

12、seen that the phrase my wife triggers the presupposition that I have a wife. The first sentence below carries that presupposition, even though the phrase occurs inside an embedded clause. In the second sentence, however, it does not. John might be mistaken about his belief that I have a wife, or he

13、might be deliberately trying to misinform his audience, and this has an effect on the meaning of the second sentence, but, perhaps surprisingly, not on the first one.1. John thinks that my wife is beautiful.2. John said that my wife is beautiful.Thus, this seems to be a property of the main verbs of

14、 the sentences, think and say, respectively. After work by Lauri Karttunen, verbs that allow presuppositions to “pass up” to the whole sentence (“project”) are called holes, and verbs that block such passing up, or projection of presuppositions are called plugs. Some linguistic environments are inte

15、rmediate between plugs and holes: They block some presuppositions and allow others to project. These are called filters. An example of such an environment is indicative conditionals (“If-then” clauses). A conditional sentence contains an antecedent and a consequent. The antecedent is the part preced

16、ed by the word “if” and the consequent is the part that is (or could be) preceded by “then.” If the consequent contains a presupposition trigger, and the triggered presupposition is explicitly stated in the antecedent of the conditional, then the presupposition is blocked. Otherwise, it is allowed t

17、o project up to the entire conditional. Here is an example:If I have a wife, then my wife is blonde.Here, the presupposition triggered by the expression my wife (that I have a wife) is blocked, because it is stated in the antecedent of the conditional: That sentence doesnt imply that I have a wife.

18、In the following example, it is not stated in the antecedent, so it is allowed to project, i.e. the sentence does imply that I have a wife.If its already 4am, then my wife is probably angry.Hence, conditional sentences act as filters for presuppositions that are triggered by expressions in their con

19、sequent.A significant amount of current work in semantics and pragmatics is devoted to a proper understanding of when and how presuppositions project.Presupposition triggersA presupposition trigger is a lexical item or linguistic construction which is responsible for the presupposition . The followi

20、ng is a selection of presuppositional triggers following Stephen C. Levinsons classic textbook on Pragmatics, which in turn draws on a list produced by Lauri Karttunen. As is customary, the presuppositional triggers themselves are italicized, and the symbol stands for presupposes Definite descriptio

21、nsMain article: Definite descriptionDefinite descriptions are phrases of the form the X where X is a noun phrase. The description is said to be proper when the phrase applies to exactly one object, and conversely, it is said to be improper when either there exists more than one potential references,

22、 as in the senator from Ohio, or none at all, as in the king of France. In conventional speech, definite descriptions are implicitly assumed to be proper, hence such phrases trigger the presupposition that the referent is unique and existent. John saw the man with two heads.There exists a man with t

23、wo heads. Factual VerbsSee also: Epistemology&TruthIn Western epistemology, there is a tradition originating with Plato of defining knowledge as justified true belief. On this definition, for someone to know X, it is required that X be true. A linguistic question thus arises regarding the usage of s

24、uch phrases: does a person who states “John knows X”implicitly claim the truth of X? Steven Pinker discusses the usage of the phrase having learned as an example of a factual verb in George W. Bushs statement that “British Intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quan

25、tities of uranium from Africa. The factuality thesis, the proposition that relational predicates having to do with knowledge, such as knows, learn, remembers, and realized, presuppose the factual truth of their object, however, was subject to notable criticism by Allan Hazlett. Martha regrets drinki

26、ng Johns home brew.Martha drank Johns home brew. Frankenstein was aware that Dracula was there.Dracula was there. John realized that he was in debt.John was in debt. It was odd how proud he was.He was proud.Some further factual predicates: know; be sorry that; be proud that; be indifferent that; be

27、glad that; be sad that. Implicative verbs John managed to open the door.John tried to open the door. John forgot to lock the door.John ought to have locked, or intended to lock, the door.Some further implicative predicates: X happened to VX didnt plan or intend to V; X avoided V-ing X was expected t

28、o, or usually did, or ought to V, etc. Change of state verbs John stopped beating his wife.John had been beating his wife. Joan began beating her husband.Joan hadnt been beating her husband. Kissinger continued to rule the world.Kissinger had been ruling the world.Some further change of sate verbs:

29、start; finish; carry on; cease; take (as in X took Y from Z Y was at/in/with Z); leave; enter; come; go; arrive; etc. Interatives The flying saucer came again.The flying saucer came before. You cant get gobstoppers anymore.You once could get gobstoppers. Carter returned to power.Carter held power be

30、fore.Further iteratives: another time; to come back; restore; repeat; for the nth time. Temporal clauses Before Strawson was even born, Frege noticed presuppositions.Strawson was born. While Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics, the rest of social science was asleep.Chomsky was revolutionizing li

31、nguistics. Since Churchill died, weve lacked a leader.Churchill died.Further temporal clause constructors: after; during; whenever; as (as in As John was getting up, he slipped).Cleft sentences Cleft construction: It was Henry that kissed Rosie.Someone kissed Rosie. Pseudo-cleft construction: What J

32、ohn lost was his wallet.John lost something. Comparisons and contrastsComparisons and contrasts may be marked by stress (or by other prosodic means), by particles like “too”, or by comparatives constructions. Marianne called Adolph a male chauvinist, and then HE insulted HER.For Marianne to call Adolph a male chauvinist would be to insult him. Carol is a better linguist than Barbara.Barbara is a linguist. Cou