Faradina PN Sari

1923042001

Summary of the article entitled “Presupposition and Entailment” By Jack Sidnell.

Presupposition and entailment are terms used to describe relations between propositions.

Look at the following examples

1. The chief constable arrested three men.

2. There is a chief constable.

3. The chief constable arrested two men.

According to those examples, (3) is a semantic entailment of (1) in the sense that if the chief
constable arrested three men he must also have arrested two men (2), on the other hand, is a
presupposition of (1).Hence, entailments and presuppositions can be distinguished according to
whether they survive under negation (1 is negated in 4).

4. The chief constable didn’t arrest three men.

The semantic entailment in (3) dissolves whereas the presupposition in (2) survives. In
examples (1) and (4) the presupposition, “There is a chief constable,” is tied to a particular
linguistic expression – here the definite description, “the chief constable”. There is a class of
“presupposition triggers” since presuppositions are closely tied to particular linguistic structures
of sentences. These are linguistic expressions or constructions which seem to carry with them
presuppositions either about the existence or truth of something.

Some of constructions are as follows:

1. Definite description
2. Implicative verbs (e.g. managed implies tried).
3. Change of state verbs (stop, start, continue imply that whatever action they modify has
happened).
4. Cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences (e.g. It wasn’t John that saw Rosie implies “someone saw
Rosie,” What John didn’t miss was the noise implies “John missed something”).

On top of that, Kiparsky (1971) described “factive” presupposition which something is true due
to the presence of some verbs such be aware, realize, know, and regret.

For example:

John realizes that Mary is seriously ill presupposes the truth of the proposition “Mary is
seriously ill”.

On the contrary, constancy under negation (Not) is generally cited as a defining property of
presuppositions, much has also been written about the scope ambiguity of negation in relation to
presupposition. From example (4) on another interpretation (the presupposition-denying one), it
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is denied both that there is a chief constable and that he arrested three men. This second
interpretation of (4) is equivalent to (5).

5. The chief constable didn’t arrest three men because there is no chief constable.

One way of accounting for the difference between the presupposition-preserving

interpretation of (4) and the presupposition-denying interpretation of (4) (where it is
semantically equivalent to (5) is to posit as cope ambiguity: negation either occurs with wide
scope as in the presupposition-denying interpretation of (4) or with narrow scope as in the
presupposition-preserving interpretation of (4). In fact, the presupposition-denying interpretation
is less the usual interpretation. Grice comments on the preference for the presupposition-
preserving interpretation of negative sentences containing definite descriptions: “without
waiting for disambiguation, people understand an utterance of the ‘The king of France is not
bald’ as implying (in some fashion) the unique existence of a king of France.”

It is also important to consider presupposition and entailment within a quite different frame,
not in terms of relations between propositions but rather in terms of the indexical relations
between a speech signal (or any other form of communicative conduct) and its context of
occurrence (see Classes of Signs; Deixis and Indexicals). First of all, a speech signal
presupposes certain contextual parameters. This is true in the relatively trivial sense that any
speech signals presupposes some locatable (in the most general sense) source, and, in the non-
trivial sense that specific aspects of the context must exist cognitively, and or physically if
speech signals are going to be interpretable. On the other hand, language use indexically entails
(creates) certain aspects of the context (an addressee, an audience, a key, etc.). This dual
relationship of contiguity between speech signal and context of occurrence results in what might
be called “the dialectics of sociolinguistic life.”

Consider, for instance, the use of English deictic, this. Any token use of such a form is
uninterpretable without knowledge of the situation in which it is used. Specifically, in order for
the recipient of this to know what is being referred to, the referent must be “in focus” or “in
common ground” or “exist cognitively.” Nevertheless, it is important to note that such a framing
in terms of indexical presupposition offers an alternate analysis of the classic problems
surrounding so-called “definite descriptions” such as “the king of France” and soon. Whereas
such expressions have typically been understood as presupposing the existence of the entity
referred to, the analysis in terms of indexicality encourages us to see that such a form is tied to
its context of use.

On the other hand, there are indexically creative or entailing forms which serve to, Indexical
pronouns such as English I, you, we, etc. (better termed participant deictics) have a creative
function in establishing the roles of speaker and addressee. These are relatively creative (or
entailing) referential indexes insofar as they do not so much presuppose an address (or speaker)
but rather establish who among the participants is positioned as such. In many languages, this
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creative referential function is combined with a creative non-referential function. Thus, it is

suggested that the use of creative indexes makes the social parameters of speaker and hearer
explicit. Additionally, indexical conception of presupposition and entailment encourages us to
think about context as a dynamic, emergent, and continuously reshaped ground against which
the figure of conduct takes shape. Any utterance exhibits multiple, various indexical linkages to
its context of occurrence, which give that context determinate shape and form. Indeed, any
aspect of linguistic form can provide a basis for inference about some aspect of the context in
which it is produced.

In short, index (indicator) is required in order to connect signs to the world (to make them
“informative” in the sense). Indexicality is an existential relation and thus encompasses
precisely the kinds of presupposition that are at the heart of the standard analysis. This same line
of thinking can be extended to so-called factive verbs which, by presupposing the truth of their
complements, pragmatically index the epistemic stance of the speaker.

New Things from This Article Can Be Attained (Opinion)

This article mentioned list of some “presupposition triggers” such as definite description,
implicative verbs, change of state verbs, and clef and pseudo-clef sentences that were new for
me. Furthermore, the class of presupposition triggers was done since presupposition are closely
tied to particular linguistic structures of sentences. Additionally, it described factive (predicate)
that triggers presupposition such as be aware, realize, know, and regret. These predicates
presupposed the truth of their complement.

New thing I learnt from this article also was relations of presupposition and entailment in
terms of the indexical relation between speech signal and its context of occurrence. In order to
connect signs to the world (and thus to make them “informative” in this sense) an index is
required (here Peirce uses the term “Indicator”). Indexicality is an existential relation and thus
encompasses precisely the kinds of presupposition that are at the heart of the standard analysis.
Those things should be considered in order to understand presupposition and entailment better.
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Computation Of A Subclass Of Inferences: Presupposition And Entailment By Aravind K. Joshi

And Ralph Weischedel In 1977.

After reading this article, there are several points I learnt particularly that presupposition and
entailment exhibit several computational and linguistic aspects; furthermore presupposition and
entailment are subclass of inferences. Several computational and linguistic aspects are 1)
presupposition and entailment seems to be tied to the definitional (semantic) structure and
syntactic structure of language, 2) presupposition and entailment exhibit complex interaction of
semantic and syntactic; they exhibit necessary, but not sufficient, semantic of individual words
and syntactic constructs, and 3) for the case of presupposition and entailment, there is a natural
solution to the problem knowing when to stop drawing inferences, which is important in
inferencing, in general.

Additionally, distinguishing presupposition and entailment from the general class of

inferences enables this subclass to be computed while parsing. The system that is used to
compute presupposition and entailment is Augmented Transition Network (ATN). While
parsing a sentence, the ATN graph retrieves the tree transformations from the lexicon for any
words in the sentence, and applies the tree transformation to the appropriate portion of the
semaritic representation to the appropriate portion of the semantic representation of the
sentence, to obtain entailments and presupposition. Further, when a specific syntactic construct
having a presupposition is parsed, the ATN generates the corresponding presupposition using
tree transformation.