REPORT PRESENTATION GROUP 5 ABOUT

PRESUPPOSITION

1. Presupposition, Negation and Entailment

a. Presupposition
A presupposition (or PSP) is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief
relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions
include:
 Jane no longer writes fiction.
o Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
 Have you stopped eating meat?
o Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.
 Have you talked to Hans?
o Presupposition: Hans exists.

A 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 the 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.

b. Negation
The presupposition of a statement will remain true even when that statement is negated. If the speaker
denies the proposition p (NOT p), the presupposition q doesn’t change.
 Mary’s cat isn’t cute. (NOT p)
 Mary has a cat. (q) Not p >> q = Not p presupposes q

Other examples of negation:

p: Dave is angry because Jim crashed the car.

q: Jim crashed the car
p >> q NOT

c. Entailment
Entailment is a concept that refers to a specific kind of relationship between two sentences. More
specifically, entailment means that if one sentence is true, then another sentence would also have to be true: the
second sentence would be entailed by the first sentence. 
Another way to prove entailment between two sentences is to demonstrate that if the one sentence is
false, then the other sentence must also be false. Entailment is closely related to the concept of logical
consequence. Within logic, the idea that if A is true, then B must be true too is nothing other than a form of
entailment. 

Usage and rules

An example of entailment can be found in the following pair of sentences.

Statement A: "I will turn 28 this year;"

 Statement B: "I am currently living."

Entailment is present here because the truth of A requires the truth of B: if I am not currently living,
then I cannot age, and therefore I will not turn 28 this year. The truth of A requires the truth of B, and this
is the very definition of the concept of entailment. 

By the same token, entailment also means that if B is false, then A is also false. If it is in fact the
case that I am currently dead, then A must be false, because then I cannot reach the age of 28. Again, then,
entailment is present in the relationship between A and B. 

The basic rule for entailment has been effectively captured by the above example. If two sentences
X and Y are related by entailment, then this means that if X is true, then Y must also be true—or
conversely, that if Y is false, then X must also be false.

2. PRESUPPOSITION TRIGGERS
A presupposition trigger is a lexical item or linguistic construction which is responsible for the
presupposition, and thus "triggers" it. The following is a selection of presuppositional triggers
following Stephen C. Levinson's 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'.

a) Definite descriptions
Definite 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 exist more than one potential referents, 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.

a. The sharpest words I heard him use were “not nice,” speaking of counterfeiters who have co-opted
the check that has been the Burberry emblem since 1924. (Collins 2009)

b. Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever
since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. (Tolkien 1954)

These are the types of cases that we have been discussing so far, and which were the focus of the
early discussions of Frege, Russell, and Strawson: Use of a definite description presupposes the existence of
its referent. Thus, in (a), use of the definite NP the check that has been the Burberry emblem since 1924
presupposes that such a check exists and has been the Burberry emblem since 1924, while in (b) the use of
the italicized NPs presupposes both that the Shire exists and that Bilbo had a remarkable disappearance and
unexpected rreturn

b) Factive Verbs
Factive verbs (Kiparsky and Kiparsky 1971) are verbs that take a sentential complement and
presuppose that complement. Thus, in (a), the verb notice serves as a trigger indicating that its sentential
complement (that Frodo also showed signs of good “preservation”) is presupposed, while in (b) the
verb recall likewise serves as a trigger indicating that its sentential complement (that that breather year
 saved his life) is presupposed. To notice something presupposes that it is true (you cannot notice
something that is not the case); similarly, to recall something presupposes that it occurred.
a. As time went on, people began to notice that Frodo also showed signs of good “preservation”:
outwardly he retained the appearance of a robust and energetic hobbit just out of his tweens.
(Tolkien 1954)
b. Little is shown of Hamilton’s relationship with his father, whom he had moved in with for a year
when he was eleven. But Hamilton recalls that that breather year saved his life. (Friend 2009)

c) Change-of-state verbs
A change-of-state verb, as its name suggests, indicates a shift from one state to another, and
therefore presupposes that the moved-from state has held at some point in the past. Thus, in (a) use of
the verb stop presupposes that hands-on work has been devalued in the past (you can’t stop devaluing it
unless you have at some point devalued it), while in (b) stating that the gate opened presupposes that it
was closed to begin with.
a. “We need to stop devaluing hands-on work,” she said before the engines drowned her out.
(Sullivan 2009)
b. Frodo and Sam stopped dead, but Pippin walked on a few paces. The gate opened and three huge
dogs came pelting out into the lane, and dashed towards the travellers, barking fiercely. (Tolkien
1954)

d) Iterative
Much as change-of-state verbs presuppose the moved-from state, iteratives indicate repetition of
some past action or state, and thus presuppose that that past action occurred or that the past state held. In
(a), we see two examples of this: For Mary and the children to return to New York presupposes that they
were in New York in the past, and for someone to be alone again, he must have been alone in the past.
Similarly, in (b), for Zizi to bring the basin again presupposes that she brought the basin at some point in
the past.
a. They stayed on the Pacific Coast until May of the following year, when Mary and the children
returned to New York . Frank, however, still wasn’t done.

Alone again, he made the trip back, going via Reno and Salt Lake City, then pushing north on
U.S. 91 to Butte, Montana. (Lane 2009)

b. The girl Zizi brought the basin again, and watched him as he washed his face and brushed his
teeth. (Theroux 2009)

e) Clefts
Use of a cleft structure focuses one constituent (in (170a–c), a short-circuit) while presupposing
the rest of the propositional content of the utterance (in (170a–c), that something caused the power
failure). Thus, in (169a), the italicized it-cleft presupposes that someone taught him to dress, and in
(169b), the italicized inverted wh- cleft presupposes that something gave the speaker the courage and
confidence to go to New York.
a. He remarked that it was his mother who taught him how to dress, which reminded him of how
the Fiat magnate Gianni Agnelli had provided him with a bespoke wardrobe – which reminded
him that while he was in Rome filming “The Victors,” in 1963, he’d arranged to meet the
world’s most beautiful woman, the actress Jocelyn Lane, in front of the Trevi Fountain. (Friend
2009)
 b. Rowley had one of her first fashion shows in the eighties on the deck of a boat on the Chicago
River. “It was a disaster,” she said of the pirate-themed event. “The changing room blew
overboard, the models were seasick, and the guests got drunker and drunker. But you could get
away with things like that in Chicago. The community supports you. That’s what gave me the
courage and confidence to go to New York , where I knew I would have my ass whipped.”
(Marx 2009)

2. THE PROJECTION PROBLEMS

Researchers studying presupposition soon found themselves faced with what has come to be known as
the projection problem for presupposition – that is, the question of what accounts for the difference between
cases in which a presupposition carried by an embedded expression “percolates up” to the embedding
expression and cases in which it does not. Consider (175):

a. John realizes he’s the king of France.

b. John realizes the Blueberry emblem is attractive.
c. John thinks he’s the king of France.
d. John thinks the Burberry emblem is attractive.

In (a–b), we see that the use of the factive verb realize presupposes the complement; thus, (a)
presupposes he’s the King of France, while (b) presupposes the Burberry emblem is attractive. But there’s
another presupposition that also survives. In each of the two embedded sentences, there’s an existential
presupposition – in (a), that there is a King of France, and in (b), that there is a Burberry emblem. Each of these
continues to be presupposed by the full sentence in (a) and (b), respectively. Karttunen (1973) introduced the
term holes for linguistic expressions and operators that allow the presuppositions of their component
expressions to pass through to the larger expression. As we’ve seen above, negation is a hole, since a negated
sentence retains the presuppositions of the positive variant; factive verbs are holes as well, as we see in (a–b).
In (c), on the other hand, there is no presupposition that the King of France exists. Here the verb think is
what’s called a propositional-attitude verb, in that it expresses the subject’s attitude toward some proposition
(here, the proposition expressed in the embedded clause).
Notice that in (d), for example, the use of the verb thinks does not eliminate the presupposition; (d)
presupposes that there exists a Burberry emblem. It turns out that it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to find a
class of linguistic expressions which consistently “plug” presuppositions – that is, which consistently prevent
presuppositions from projecting upward to the containing sentence. Karttunen himself acknowledges that all
plugs leak; others (e.g., Levinson 1983) have argued that it’s unlikely that plugs exist at all.

3. DEFEASIBILITY
Defeasibility (linguistics), the ability of an implicature or presupposition to be cancelled.
For example, you will recall that one of the hallmarks of presupposition is constancy under negation.
However, we have also seen that this constancy is not quite as, well, constant as one might like. Thus, we find
paradigms such as that in (177):

(3) a.The King of France is wise.

b.The King of France is not wise.
c.The King of France is not wise; there is no
King of France!
(4) There is a King of France.
 As we have seen, the litmus test for whether (3a) presupposes (4) is whether (3b) shares the
presupposition – that is, whether (3a) and (3b) both convey an assumption of (4). If only (3a) conveys that the
King of France exists and (3b) does not, then (5) is an entailment, not a presupposition, of (3a). If both convey
(4), it’s a presupposition of both.
The fly in the ointment comes in the form of (3c), in which we see that the presupposition is defeasible
– that is, it can be cancelled, just as a conversational implicature can be cancelled.

4. PRESUPPOSITION AS COMMAND GROUND

Presuppositions – often understood in terms of the notion of common ground. So,

The common ground is a set of propositions which the participants in a conversation mutually assume. The
common ground – also a major part of the context of use, and helps us make explicit the role of presupposition
Moreover, there are also differences in the strengths of various presuppositions, which again suggests that
pragmatic principles are involved:
a. The King of France is wise.
b. John thinks he is the King of France.
c. Jane had lunch with the King of France.
As we’ve seen, (a) strongly presupposes the king’s existence, whereas (b) is entirely neutral on the
matter. Example (c) seems to fall somewhere between the two, and unlike (a), it seems straightforwardly false in
a world lacking a King of France. Note that its negation does not seem to assume that there is a King of France,
which argues for the king’s existence being an entailment rather than a presupposition in this case:

5. ACCOMODATION

Accommodation Lewis (1979) suggested that interlocutors carry out Accommodation:

If at time t something is said that presupposes p, but p is not presupposed (not in common ground), then, all
other things being equal, p is introduced in the common ground.

Accommodation example
Speaker A (to B):
The guy who murdered my cat was really insane.
They've now put him in an asylum.

Suppose B didn't know my cat was murdered.

The definite description the guy who murdered my cat presupposes that there is one person who was the
murderer of my cat
B can accommodate this, by assuming that it's true and is now part of common ground