Presupposition

In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, a presupposition (or ps) 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.

 Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
 Have you stopped eating meat?
 Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.
 Have you talked to Hans?
 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.
Crucially, negation of an expression does not change its presuppositions: I want to do it
again and I don't want 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 assassinated entails
that The president is dead, but if the expression is negated, the entailment is not necessarily
true.
Presupposition triggers
A presupposition trigger is a construction or item that signals the existence of
a presupposition in an utterance.
A presupposition trigger is a lexical item or linguistic construction which is
responsible for the presupposition.[2] 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 LauriKarttunen. As is
customary, the presuppositional triggers themselves are italicized, and the symbol »
stands for 'presupposes'.

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.
(1) a.John saw the doctor.
b.No one has spoken to the doctor.
c.No one who was seen by a nurse and a doctor has spoken to thedoctor.
Sentence (1a)presupposes the existence of a unique relevant doctor, a presuppositionwhich
is triggered by the definite article 'the'. Sentence (1b)sharesthis presuppositions with(la). This
shows that the presupposition associatedwith the "passes through" the determiner no.
However, sentence (lc) doesnot seem to carry any presupposition. Unlike (la-b),it can be
uttered in acontext where nothing is known about doctors. The material in the relativeclause
attached to no one seems to "cancel" the presupposition associatedwith the. This pattern is
completely general and can be reproduced, as wewill see, with every determiner. It
constitutes an illustration of the so-calledprojection problem for presuppositions, which we
will review shortly. Whilethere are promising theories of presupposition projection, to my
knowledgecases such as those in(1)and, in general, the projection properties of
determinershave not been dealt with in full generality.

Factive verbs
Presuppositions are facts assumed to be true at the time ofan utterance,
and factivity is a kind of presupposition thata part of an utterance is
presupposed to be true. There aremany ways in which factivity can be
realized; here, we focus specifically on factive verbs, which are verbs
that take aclause as a complement and introduce a presupposition
thatthe complement clause is true.
(1) He reached the third door on the left.
Presupposition: There is a first door and a seconddoor on the left.
(2) Cain does not work at a bank anymore.
Presupposition: Cain once worked at a bank.
Presuppositions differ from other kinds of entailments insome interesting
ways; for instance, presuppositions are believed to be blocked by certain
linguistic phenomena, suchas negation, though there are known
complications.This work is focused onfactive verbs and their
complements, a specific type of presupposition. When verbs function
factively, they presuppose the truth of the complementof the verb.
(3)- a. I regret [that] I came to school late.
b.I came to school late, I regret.
→I came to school late.
(4) I propose [that] I came to school late.
In example (3) a., the complement I came to school lateis assumed to
be true. Regardless of whether the personspeaking is truthful, the
presupposition is projected lexically by regret. This is also true of the
syntactic variant, (3)b. The same cannot be said of (4), however, since
something proposed is not necessarily something done.In the
computational linguistics literature, there has not, toour knowledge,
been much concentrated research into thenotion of factive verbs and
factivity annotation or classification. Factivity is largely determined
lexically. For example,some verbs, such as emotive verbs (e.g., love,
hate, regret)are nearly always factive . However, acomplication in this
task is that factivity is sometimes notonly lexically determined but also
dependent on its syntactic realization, context, etc. Indeed, we have
observed that,while there appears to be a factivity continuum – that
is,some verbs are almost always used factively, while othersnever are –
verbs may be coerced in certain situations tobehave in counterintuitive
ways, as is noted in the literature. Complicating annotation efforts
somewhat are ambiguities.
(5) I’m afraid I don’t know.
(6) I’m afraid that I might be wrong.
A moment’s reflection will reveal that (5) is at least semanticallytwo-
ways ambiguous: either (a) I am afraid of thefact that I don’t know, or
(b) I am afraid of the possibilitythat I don’t know. In the former case, I
don’t know is factive;in the latter case, it is not. One might postulate
thesame ambiguity for (6), though pragmatic considerationsmake the
former interpretation more strained without context.In one case, afraid
functions as sort of surrogate forregret, making the following clause
factive; in the other,afraid functions also as a verb of uncertainty, and
thus isnon-factive. One can also imagine explanations both lexicaland
syntactic for such ambiguity, but we shall deem theverb factive if the
clause following it is factive in a given situation.In some instances, this
cannot be determined withoutcontext. We allot a tag to mark this.
Now, consider the examples of coercion.
(7) I remember [that] John came home at 12:00.
(8) I remember John coming home at 12:00, but heactually came home
at 1:00.
In (8),remember is coerced into being non-factive by thecontrastive
conjunction which follows. In most circumstances,as in (7),remember is
factive, but we cannot assumethat every instance of remember is
indicative of factivity.We allocate an optional tag for coercion, for
those(probably rare) cases in which it is glaringly obvious thata verb
which would typically not be factive is behavingin such a way (or vice
versa), due to some unusual phenomenon.There is, in addition, a special
class of such verbs, the factualityof which depend upon the assumptions
of the onemaking the determination. This class of verbs, which weshall
simply call claim verbs, make explicit claims. Thefactivity of them is not
obvious. Consider the following.
(9) The government announced that it would support thetreaty.
(10) The government announced that it would achieveworld peace.
(11) I’m afraid [that] I didn’t go.
(12) John admitted that he cheated.
(13) The teacher informed me of John’s misbehavior.
Some of these, especially admit and the specialized use ofafraid, are
difficult to categorize. Working with our originaldefinition of factivity,
independent of the factuality of thestatement, admit seems to be
factive, though there are situationsin which it may not be. In such a
case, it should beannotated both as factive and as a claim. Others, such
as announce,are similarly difficult, since announce has the senseof
revalingand the sense of simply stating something whichmay or may not
be true. They should be judged based ontheir context and marked as
ambiguous if they remain ambiguouseven with the context. We expect
that enough suchannotations can provide the data for determining the
factivitybased on contextual information.
There are some verbs which change the state of the worldby virtue of
their very utterance. Theseare called performatives or speech acts, and,
according to(Austin, 1975), they are neither true or false, but rather
felicitousor infelicitous. Before the utterance, the complement
clause is untrue; after the utterance, it is true.
(14) John [hereby] requires that all people must pay taxes.
(15) We, the United States, [hereby] declare the treatynull.
(16) The United States declared the treaty null.
(17) # Bob declared the treaty null.
(18) I emphasize that John has been here for three months.
(19) I [hereby] pronounce you man and wife.
(20) I [hereby] apologize for that break of contract.
There is a relevant difference between the performatives in18 and 20,
versus those in 15 and 19. The former two arenearly always factive,
because they presuppose the truth ofthe complement clause at the time
of utterance; the latterare, strictly speaking, non-factive, since the
complementclause is only true after the utterance by an entity with
therequisite authority. Note that while (16) is not performative,it differs
from a performative sentence only in the tense ofthe verb and the
authority of the agent. We shall deem pasttense descriptions of prior
performatives, such as 16, to befactive. The complement clauses in
these cases are true (orwere true at the point of reference, as with all
past tensefactives). Utterance 17 is not a performative because Bobdoes
not have the authority to declare a treaty null. It isnon-factive. In the
case of non-factiveperformatives, suchas 15, before the utterance, the
complement clause is false;after the utterance, the complement clause
is true. Whilethey contain interesting information in and of
themselves,they are, strictly speaking, not factive, though they are
factualstatements. When annotating, focusing on the verb itself,or on
the entire sentence, can lead to inconsistent andmisleading
determinations. We therefore emphasize that anannotator, especially in
the case of performatives, shouldfocus on the complement clause and,
in particular, whetherthis clause is true at the time of the utterance, to
avoid confusion.This strategy should be effective in avoiding mostof the
philosophical complexities of utterances which makethemselves true by
virtue of being uttered.
In 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 such
phrases: does a person who states "John knows X" implicitly claim
the truth of X? Steven Pinker explored this question in a science
format in a 2007 book on language and cognition, using a widely
publicized example from a speech by a U.S. president. [4] A 2003
speech by George W. Bush included the line, "British Intelligence
has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
 quantities of uranium from Africa."  Over the next few years, it
became apparent that this intelligence lead was incorrect. But the
way the speech was phrased, using a factive verb, implicitly
framed the lead as truth rather than hypothesis. The  factivity
thesis, the proposition that relational predicates having to do with
knowledge, such as knows, learn, remembers, and realized.
Some further factive predicates: know; be sorry that; be proud that; be
indifferent that; be glad that; be sad that.In John realized/didn't realize that he
was in debt, both realize and didn't realize that trigger the presupposition "John was
in debt."

Other factives are

o (it) be odd that

o be sorry/proud/indifferent/glad/sad that
o know that, and
o regret that.

Regret, know, realize, comprehend, takes into acount, be aware that, be angry that,
be interesting that, conclude, suppose, hope, believe, assume

Implicative verbs
In addition to the so-called 'factiv verbs', which presuppose the truth of their
complement sentence, a number of their interestin classes of verbs take sentential
complements. Implicative verbs, such as manage, also involve presuppositions,
although in a different way. An asserted main sentence with one of these verbs as
predicate commits the speaker to an implied proposition which consists of the the
complement sentence as a augmented by the tense and other modifiers of the main
sentence. Questioning a sentence with an implication predicate amounts to
questioning that implied proposition. According to the proposed analysis, an
implicative main verbs carries a presupposition of some necessary and sufficient
condition which alone determines whether the event described in the complement
took place.
Implicative: manage, remebmber, bother, get, dare, care, venture, condescend, happen, see
fit, be careful, have the misfortune, take the time, whereas non-implcative : agree, decide,
want, hope, promise, plan, intend, try, be likely, be eager, have in mind.

Consider the following two sets of sentences:

(3)a. John managed to solve the problem.

b. John remembered to lock his door.

c. John saw fit to remain silent.

(4) a. John solved the problem.

b. John locked his door.

c. John remained silent.

It seems clear that anyone who asserts 3a thereby commits himself to the view that 4a is
true. It would be inconsistent to assert 3a unless one also believed the proposition
expressed by 4a.Note that, according to the standard transformational analysis, 4a is a
manifestation of the sentence that is embedded as complement in the underlying structure
of 3a. thus 4a has the same source as the infinitive clause to solve the problem in 3a.
Using the term 'complement' in a somewhat loose way, we may say that the assertion of 3a
implies belief in the truth of its complement. The same relationship also holds between 3b
– 4b and 3c – 4c.

Consider the following examples with non-implicative verbs:

(5)a. John hoped to solve the problem.

b. John had in mind to lock his door.

c. John decided to remain silent.

Change of state verbs

In the change of state verbs, the presupposition is nondetachable from the content expressed
by the verbs. For example, any close paraphrase of the presupposition inducing (6)a., such
as the sentences given in(6)b., bears the same presupposition, given in (6)c.
(6) a. Jane didn’t leave the house.
b. Jane didn't exit / go out of / depart from / quit the house.
c. Jane was in the house immediately before the reference time.

A speaker who wishes to express the content of (6)a. really cannot do so without triggering
the presupposition, unless she goes to some lengths to cancel or suppress it. So in these
cases, the question of why the speaker has used a presupposition inducing expression does
not arise. But in the case of sentences like (7)-(9), the presupposition inducing expression
clearly could have been omitted without (on standard views) changing the content of what
has been said.
(7) Even Bush has admitted that global warming is real.
(8) Jane has failed her driver’s test again.
(9) Harold failed his driver’s test too.

Other change of state verbs are: arrive, begin, come, enter, go, leave, stop, andtake

Iteratives
Another type of lexical presupposition is ‘iterative’ or ‘categorical’
presupposition.Iteratives Expressions characterized by Repetition or recurrence: again, still,
another
Iterative is a term used to "refer to an event which takes place repeatedly" . Levinson states
that iterative presupposition is associated with certain words, such as, another and again,
e.g.:
(10) a. Bill drank another cup of tea.
b. Bill had drunk at least one.
(11) a. The flying saucer came/didn't come again.
b. The flying saucer came before.
This type also involves the following words: anymore; returned; another time; to come
back, restore, repeal,etc. The occurrence of such words or expressions triggers a
presupposition. Thus, in the case of lexical presupposition, the addresser's use of particular
expressions is taken to presuppose another unstated concept.
Examples:
12. the flying saucer came again. (the flying saucer came before).
13. USA returned to power. (USA held power before)
Further iteratives: another time; to come back; restore; repeat; for the nth time.

 Expressions of repetition

In Carter returned/didn’t return to power, both returned/didn’t return trigger the

presupposition "Carter held power before."

Other such expressions are: again, another time, anymore, come back, repeat, andrestore.

Temporal clauses
Temporal clauses are also frequently mentioned. Below some simple
examples (with temporal clauses in either sentence-initial or sentence-
final position):
(14) When she published a novel, Mary got good reviews / Mary got good reviews
when she published a novel.
(15) After she published a novel, Mary became the centre of attraction / Mary became
the centre of attraction after she published a novel.
(16) Before Mary published a novel, nobody was interested in this story / Nobody was
interested in this story before Mary published a novel.
In a pragmatic view, the realization of the eventuality described in the temporal clause
(whatever its position) must already be known to the interlocutor at the time of speech. The
possibility of locating this eventuality on a temporal scale is necessary for the location of
the main clause event. It must be specified that if the interlocutor/reader doesn’t know
anything about Mary publishing anovel, they are supposed to act as if they knew it, and
simply add it to the context as a piece of indirect information. The phenomenon is known
under thename of ‘pragmatic accommodation’ of the presupposition.
Further temporal clause constructors: after; during; whenever; as (as in As John was getting up, he slipped).

In while Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics, the rest of social science was/wasn’t asleep, the
clause introduced by while triggers the presupposition "Chomsky was revolutionizing linguistics."

Other such conjunctions triggering presuppositions are: after, as, before, during,
since, andwhenever.

Cleft sentences
Another kind of contextual defeasibility arises in certain kinds of discourse contexts. For
example, recollect that a cleft sentence like (17) is held to presuppose (18):
17- It isn't Luke who will betray you.
18- Someone will betray you.
Now consider the following argument that proceeds by elimination:
19- You say that someone in this room will betray you. Well may be so. But it won't be Luke
who will betray you, it won't be Paul, it won't be Mathew, and it certainly won't be John.
Therefore no one in this room is actually going to betray you.
Here each of the cleft sentences (it won't be Luke, etc.) should presuppose that there will be
someone who will betray the addressee. But the whole purpose of the utterance of (19) is,
of course, to persuade the addressee that no one will betray him, as stated in the conclusion.
So the presupposition is again defeated; it was adopted as a counterfactual assumption to

argue to the untenbility of such an assumption.

20- It was/wasn't Henry that broke the window. (Someone broke the window).
21- What John lost/didn't lose was his wallet. ( John lost something)
Sentence (20) exhibits what is known as the cleft-construction (cf. uncleftedHenry broke
the window), (21) what is known as the pseudo-cleft construction (cf. uncleftedJohn lost his
wallet). Both constructions seem to share approximately the same presuppositions, and
share, in addition, a further presupposition that the focal element (Henry in (20) and his
wallet in (21)) is the only element to which the predicate applies.
I- Implicit clefts with stressed constituents: the particular presuppositions that seem to arise
from the two cleft constructions seem also to be triggered simply by heavy stress on a
constituent, as illustrated by the following examples (where upper-case characters indicate
contrastive stress) :
22- Linguistics was/wasn't invented by Chomsky.( Someone invented linguistic. (cf. it
was/wasn't Chomsky that invented linguistic).
23- John did/didn't compete in the Olympics. ( John did compete somewhere. (cf. It
was/wasn't in the Olympics that John competed).

Comparisons and contrasts

Comparisons and contrasts may be marked by stress (or by other prosodic means),
by particles like "too", or by comparatives constructions.

 Carol is better linguist than Barbara. (Barbara is a linguist)

 In Carol is/isn’t a better linguist than Barbara, the comparison triggers the

presupposition "Barbara is a linguist."

Counterfactual conditionals
Utterances of counterfactual conditionals typically come along with the
message that
their antecedents are false. For example, B’s utterance in (24) will
typically carry the
information that John did not attend the party. This paper will examine
the source of
that information.
(24) A: I heard the party was no good.
B: If John had come, it would have been fun.
nditionals are uniquely in competition with past indicative conditionals,
where a
past indicative is an indicative conditional whose antecedent and
consequent both
refer to past events. An example is given in (25).
(25) If John came, it was fun.
This is a stipulative definition of ‘counterfactual’, but it is closely
approximatesthe class of sentences that many theorists aim to capture
when they use theterm ‘counterfactual’. Note that the characterization
makes no reference to thetruth value of any conditional’s antecedent or
consequent. As characterized here,there is no contradiction in saying
that a counterfactual has a true antecedent or trueconsequent.
There appear to be just these two methods of making conditional claims
aboutthe past in English. When a speaker chooses the counterfactual
option, her choice isoften attended by the information that the
antecedent is false. But what is the sourceof that information? The
question has proven interesting since it has been shown
thatcounterfactuals neither entail nor presuppose that their antecedents
are false. Thereare two arguments to this effect. First, counterfactuals
can be used as premises inmodus tollens arguments for the falsity of
their antecedents, as in (26):
(26) This was done with a stiletto. But if the butcher had done it, he
would have
used a cleaver. So it wasn’t the butcher.
This seems like good, convincing argument. But if counterfactuals
entailedor presupposed that their antecedents were false, it would beg
the question, sincethe first premise would entail or presuppose that the
conclusion was true. Sincethe argument doesn’t beg the question, we
conclude that the counterfactual neitherentails nor presupposes that its
antecedent is false.
Second, it has been widely noted that counterfactuals can have true
antecedents.
For example, a doctor might use (27) to argue that a patient had taken
arsenic:
(27) If he had taken arsenic, he would have shown exactly the
symptoms that he
was in fact showing.
So counterfactuals neither entail nor presuppose that their antecedents
are false.
The best remaining alternative is that the information of antecedent
falsity that
attends utterances like (24) arises as an implicatureW will not discuss
here existing
accounts of that implicature.

Questions

Questions presenting alternatives tend to trigger a presupposition of the truth

of one of the alternatives. The utterance 

28. Is Newcastle in England or in Australia? triggers the presupposition

"Newcastle is either in England or in Australia."

Possessive case
29. John's children are very noisy. (John has children.)
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reference List

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No.2.
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Presupposition Through The Linguistic Triggers.

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