Organic Name Reactions for the students and aspirants of Chemistry12th.pptx
Presupposition
1.
2.
3. Presupposition
Conclusion Introduction
with
Q&A
Types of
Antipresupposition Presupposition
Outline
Location &
Projection problems
Theories of
Presupposition
4. Speakers assume certain information is
already known by their listeners.
This is part of what is communicated but
not said.
Presuppositions and entailments
Two aspects of what is communicated
but not said
5. Presupposition: The information that a
speaker assumes to be already known.
(The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language, 1987)
Implicit meanings conveyed by the speaker through
the use of particular words.
Ex: "The Cold War has ended" presupposes that the
existence of the entities it refers to, in this case the
"Cold War".
7. A presupposition is a condition which must be
fulfilled in order for an expression to make sense
A presupposition is introduced by a lexical element
or construction called the presupposition trigger
8. A presupposition:
Is a background belief, mutually assumed by the
speaker and the addressee for the utterance to be
considered appropriate in context
Survives when the utterance is negated, questioned
or embedded in an attitude context
Is triggered by a lexical item or a grammatical
construction in the utterance
9. TYPES OF PRESUPPOSITION
Presuppositions are associated with the use of a
large number of words, phrases and structures.
These linguistic forms are considered as indicators
of potential presupposition, which can only become
actual presupposition in contexts with speakers.
10. Existential Presupposition
Entities named by the speaker and assumed to be
present
- NP.
- Possessive constructions
“Rahat’s car is new” we can presuppose that
Rahat exists and that he has a car.
Some lexical triggers:
Definite NPs:
The student fell asleep.
The student didn’t fall asleep
Atif is a bachelor (Atif is an unmarried male person)
11. Factive Presupposition
Identified by the presence of some verbs such as "know“,
"realize“, “be glad”, “be sorry”, etc.
Some lexical triggers:
Factive verbs:
Lawrence realized Rana ate a sandwich.
Rana regretted eating a sandwich.
Rana liked eating a sandwich.
I was aware of the class cancellation on Saturday
They announced the winner of the contest.
She didn’t realize that she was ill.
12. Lexical Presupposition
In using one word, the speaker can act as if another
meaning will be understood. For instance:
Mary stopped running. (>>He used to run.)
You are late again. (>> You were late before.)
Are you still such a bad driver? (>> You were a bad driver)
"stop“, "again“ “still” are taken to presuppose another
(unstated) concept.
Some lexical triggers:
Change of state verbs:
Rana stopped eating a sandwich (at 2pm).
Rana started eating a sandwich (at 2pm).
Verbs of judgment:
Lawrence blamed Rana for eating the sandwich.
Lawrence faults Rana for eating the sandwich.
13. Structural Presupposition
It is the assumption associated with the use of certain
structures.
- wh-question constructions.
When did she travel to the USA? ( >> she travelled)
Where did you buy the book? (>> you bought the book)
The listener perceives that the information presented is
necessarily true, or intended as true by the speaker..
14. Non-factive presupposition
it is an assumption referred to something that is not
true.
For example, verbs like "dream", "imagine" and
"pretend" are used with the presupposition that what
follows is not true.
I dreamed that I was rich. (>> I was not rich)
We imagined that we were in London. (>> We were
not in London)
15. Counterfactual presupposition
It is the assumption that what is presupposed is not
only untrue, but is the opposite of what is true, or
contrary to facts.
-conditional structures,
If you were my daughter, I would not allow you to do
this. ( >> you are not my daughter)
If I were rich I would buy a Ferrari (>> I’m not rich)
16. Theories of Presupposition
Presupposition as a property of sentences
under this view, presupposition is part of linguistic meaning
therefore, it is a “semantic” phenomenon
Presupposition as speaker belief
under this view, a presupposition is something believed to be true
by the speaker, as part of a communicative act
therefore, it’s a “pragmatic” phenomenon
17. The semantic view
Essentially, tries to account for presupposition as a
truth relation
p presupposes q if:
when p is true, so is q
when p is false, q is still true
when q is true, p could be either true or false
This allows us to view presupposition on a par with
other relations like entailment
18. The semantic view
Accounts for the difference between entailment and
presupposition in a truth-conditional way
Presupposition:
If p is false, q is still true
My wife went to Karachi presupposes I have a wife
My wife didn’t go to Karachi still presupposes I have a
wife
Entailment:
If p is false, then the entailment false
I saw Arif this morning I saw someone this morning
I didn’t see Arif this morning -/-> I saw someone this
morning.
19. Problem 1: presupposition failure
Under the semantic view, we would have to say that
presupposition failure results in falsity of a sentence:
The King of France is bald.
Presupposes that there is one and only one king of France
Fact: there is no King of France
Therefore: sentence is false
We could try to analyse presupposition differently:
e.g. If q is false, then p is not false, but dubious
But do we want to claim that existence and uniqueness are
part of the meaning of the definite description?
20. Pragmatic solution to Problem 1
Under this approach, existence/uniqueness are not
part of the semantics of definite (cf our earlier
discussion of reference).
they are viewed as conventions on the use of such
expressions:
If a speaker uses a definite, this presupposes that there
is some unique entity that the listener can identify
If the convention is violated, this doesn’t render the
sentence false, but infelicitous. It’s not a lack of truth, but
a failure of the pragmatic conventions
21. Problem 2: Presupposition triggers and
context
She cried before going out.
Presupposes: She went out
She died before going out.
Does not presuppose: She went out
If presupposition is so sensitive to context, can it be
part of the expression meaning?
22. The pragmatic reply
Presuppositions are defensible:
They are conventionally carried by certain
expressions
Speakers are conscious of the presuppositions
their utterances carry
But in some contexts, they are simply defeated
or cancelled
23. Some more on the pragmatic theory
Influential exponents include Stalnaker (1974):
Suggested that when people communicate, they have a
common ground (CG)
This is a background set of assumptions that they both
make, and know to be true
Presupposition works against this common ground
Felicitous use of an utterance requires that its
presuppositions be commonly held by all interlocutors
24. Dealing with new presuppositions
It’s a fact about communication that not everything
we presuppose is known to our interlocutor
A: My dog died.
B: Didn’t know you had one.
Ways out:
we can ask for clarification
sometimes, we don’t because the presupposition is
quite clear and obvious
We just adopt it.
25. 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.
26. 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
27. How to locate
Where, When & Why
Projection
Projection problems
28. Elements that introduce presuppositions are called
presupposition triggers
Factive verb
Shakeel regrets that she cooked the rice.
Phase change verbs
Azam stopped smoking.
It-cleft construction
It was Mohsin who chased the thief.
Pseudo-clefts
What Mphil group brought in the classroom was a bottle of Pepsi.
29. Iterative adverbs
Younas had fed up to do Mphil, again.
Additive particles
Naqvi had observed the phenomenon of language, too.
Definite descriptions
My dog had the flu.
Certain quantifiers
Dr Shehzad welcomed all the delegates from Oxford University.
30. Presuppositions are somehow independent of the
conventional meaning and entailments expressed by a
sentence
Can be distinguished from entailments via various
presupposition tests
All tests involve some modification of the original
sentence that changes the conventional meaning in
some respect – what is left unaffected is a candidate for a
presupposition
31. Negation
Presuppositions are not affected by negation
Sentential negation affects the conventional meaning (truth) of a
sentence, but leaves presuppositions untouched
e.g.
Azam did not stop smoking.
It was not Atif who ate all chocolate cookies.
My dog does not have the flu.
32. Modals
Presuppositions are not affected by modals
Modals affect the modality of a sentence, i.e. its epistemic/
deontic /etc. status, but leave presupposition untouched
E.g.
Khan might regret that she cooked the rice.
Perhaps Dr. Shehzad welcomed all delegates from the
Oxford University
33. Questions
Presuppositions are not affected by question formation
Question formation affects the speech act (an assertion is
changed to a question), but leave presuppositions
untouched
e.g.
Does Shakeel regret that she cooked the rice?
Has Azam stopped smoking?
34. Presupposition projection refers to the fact that larger
constituents containing presupposition triggers inherit
their presuppositions in certain way
Shakeel started to learn Italian.
Atif hopes that Shakeel started to learn Italian.
Azam hopes that Shakeel started to learn Italian and he
thinks of meeting him.
All inherit the presupposition triggered by started. But
Azam claims that Shakeel started to learn Italian.
If Shakeel did not learn Italian before, he started to learn
Italian.
Do not presuppose that Shakeel did not learn Italian
before (the moment of utterance).
35. PROJECTION PROBLEM
In many cases presuppositions don’t survive to
become the meaning of complex sentences.
Why?
They are “destroyed” by entailments
The entailments are more powerful of presuppositions
36. PROJECTION PROBLEM
Examples:
The unicorn is waiting in the garden.
#Yet there are no unicorns.
Entailment problem
Pat knows that the unicorn is waiting in the garden.
#Yet there are no unicorns.
Again entailment problem
37. An antipresupposition, like a presupposition,
survives to negation….
An antipresupposition may be cancelled
An antipresupposition is triggered by a lexical
form, which is compared with a presuppositon
trigger.
A. A son of Shakeel’s is intelligent.
B. The son of Shakeel’s is intelligent.
Scale with presupposed contents: a < the
A is an antipresupposition trigger / the is a
presupposition trigger
38. Some sentences impose the condition that the
interlocutors not take the truth of a certain proposition for
granted (Percus, 2006):
Either it will have to e taken for granted that the proposition in
question is false,
Or it will have to be an open issue whether the proposition is true
or not.
39. In these cases, we might say that the sentence antipresupposes the
proposition in question.
Raheel thinks that Saba has a knowledge of cooking.
Antipresupposes via <think, know>:
Arif is repairing a chair in Azam’s living room.
Antipresupposes via <a, the>:
Azam has exactly one chair in his living room
Azhar assigned the same exercise to all of Adnan’s students.
Antipresupposes via <all, both>:
Adnan has exactly two students.