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Understanding presupposition and entailment is crucial for sophisticated pragmatic analysis. These concepts reveal how speakers and writers convey meaning not just through what they say explicitly, but through what they take for granted and what logically follows from their utterances. At A-Level, the ability to identify presuppositions and entailments in texts demonstrates a nuanced understanding of how meaning is constructed.
A presupposition is something that a speaker or writer takes for granted — an assumption that is treated as already established or uncontroversially true, rather than something being asserted. Presuppositions are backgrounded — they are not the main point of the utterance but form part of the taken-for-granted context.
Consider the sentence: "Have you stopped smoking?"
This question presupposes that the addressee used to smoke. Whether the answer is "yes" or "no," the presupposition that the person was previously a smoker remains in force. This is a key property of presupposition — it survives under negation and questioning.
Key Definition: Presupposition — an implicit assumption that a speaker or writer treats as already established or given, forming part of the background against which an utterance is interpreted. Presuppositions typically survive negation — they remain in force whether the statement is asserted, denied, or questioned.
The classic test for presupposition is negation. If you negate a sentence and the assumption still holds, it is a presupposition rather than an entailment.
In both the positive and negative versions, the assumption that John was previously a smoker remains. This is because the presupposition is triggered by the verb "stop," not by the truth or falsity of the overall proposition.
Linguists have identified several types of presupposition, each triggered by different linguistic elements.
The use of definite noun phrases and possessives presupposes the existence of the entity referred to.
This type was famously discussed by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1905) in his analysis of definite descriptions.
Certain verbs and constructions (called factive verbs or predicates) presuppose the truth of their complement clause.
| Factive Verb/Predicate | Example | Presupposition |
|---|---|---|
| "know" | "She knows that he lied." | He lied. |
| "realise" | "He realised that the door was open." | The door was open. |
| "regret" | "I regret telling her." | I told her. |
| "be aware" | "She was aware that he had left." | He had left. |
| "be glad" | "I'm glad you came." | You came. |
These are contrasted with non-factive verbs like "believe," "think," "assume," and "suppose," which do not presuppose the truth of their complement:
Key Definition: Factive presupposition — a presupposition triggered by factive verbs (such as "know," "realise," "regret") that presuppose the truth of their complement clause.
Certain words carry built-in presuppositions about a prior state of affairs.
| Trigger Word | Example | Presupposition |
|---|---|---|
| "stop" | "He stopped running." | He was previously running. |
| "start" / "begin" | "She started crying." | She was not previously crying. |
| "again" | "He did it again." | He had done it before. |
| "still" | "She is still working." | She was working previously (and continues). |
| "return" | "She returned to Paris." | She had been to Paris before. |
| "another" | "Give me another cup of tea." | I have already had at least one cup. |
Certain grammatical structures carry presuppositions:
Counterfactual conditionals presuppose that the condition is not (or was not) true:
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