PRESUPPOSITIONS
Discourse Analysis 2011
Introduction
“to some degree Justice Stewart’s comment
about pornography holds here: we all recognize it
[the presupposition relation] when we see it [but]
we can’t say exactly what it is”
S. Kripke 1990: ‘Presupposition and Anaphora: Remarks on
the Formulation of the Projection Problem’, Manuscript,
Princeton University.
The phenomenon
The king of France is bald.
>>There is a king of France
John knows that Baird invented television.
>> Baird invented television
John regrets that he said the unsayable.
>> John has said the unsayable
Mary stopped beating her boyfriend.
>> Mary has been beating her boyfriend.
The boy cried again.
>> The boy cried before.
The phenomenon
John managed to give up smoking.
>> John tried to give up smoking
After she shot to stardom in a romance film, Jane married a
millionaire entrepreneur.
>> Jane shot to stardom in a romance film
It was Baird who invented television.
>> someone invented television
Julius is a bachelor.
>> Julius is an adult male.
I have written to every headmaster in Rochdale.
>> There are headmasters in Rochdale
The phenomenon
The author is Julius Seidensticker.
>> Julius Seidensticker exists
HE set me free
>> somebody set me free
presupposition
trigger
presupposition
Some trigger terminology
example
terminology
the king of France
definite descriptions
to know
(epistemic) factives
to regret
(emotive) factives
to stop
aspectual predicates
again
iteratives
to manage
implicative predicates
after...
temporal clauses
It was ... who
cleft sentences
bachelor
special restricted predicates
every
quantifiers
Julius Seidensticker
names
HE
intonation
Exercises
What presuppositions do the following constructions give rise to?
-> List them, indicate what the presupposition trigger is and try to
categorize the trigger in one of the categories we have established.
-> You can leave aside the presuppositions triggered by proper names.
exercise 1, p.91: (i)-(x)
Exercises
The burglar realized that he had been filmed on closed circuit television.
>> there was a burglar
the burglar
>> the burglar had been filmed on CCTVrealized
definite description
epistemic factive
John forgot to do the washing up.
>> there were things to be washed up
the washing up definite description
>> John intended to / had to do the
washing up
forgot
implicative predicate
Exercises
John hasn’t driven a car since he had the accident.
>> there was an accident
the accident
definite description
since...
temporal clause
>> J had the accident
>> J drove a car before the accident
is this a presupposition or an implicature?
“stop”
“maxim of quantity”
Exercises
Professor Huang was glad that he had solved one of evolution’s great
mysteries.
>> Professor Huang solved one of evolution’s great mysteries.
was glad
emotive factive
one of
quantifier
>> evolution has mysteries
John isn’t off cigarettes again. (=He’s smoking again.)
>> John quit non-smoking before.
again
iterative
Exercises
It wasn’t John who moved to Spain.
>> someone moved to Spain
it was... who
cleft sentence
Susan discovered that her husband was having an affair.
>> Susan has a husband
her husband
definite description
>> her husband was having an
affair
discovered
epistemic factive
Mary started emptying the shopping bags.
>> there were shopping bags
the sh. bags
definite description
>> Mary wasn’t emptying them
before
start
aspectual predicates
Exercises
It’s odd that John doesn’t know how to telnet.
“Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks
to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility
using a virtual terminal connection.”
>> John doesn’t know how to telnet
it’s odd that
emotive factive
remarried
implicative predicate
Jane never remarried.
>> Jane was married before
From facts to theory
> We have identified a phenomenon
> We have tentatively called it presupposition
> We have located (some of the) linguistic triggers for it.
Next step:
Define what we have found...
A semantic definition
A semantic definition
One sentence presupposes another iff whenever
the first sentence is true, the second is true, and
whenever the negation of the first sentence is true,
the second sentence is true.
(based on Strawson 1950)
The king of France is bald.
 There is a king of France
The king of France isn’t bald.
 There is a king of France
The king of France is bald / The king of France isn’t
bald presuppose that there is a king of France.
Probing the definition: a thought experiment
Preliminary: There is a king of France
Can There is a king of France be false?
YES!
Propositions can be true or false, even if they are
presupposed.
Probing the definition: a thought experiment
Preliminary: the truth table of logical entailment
If the weather is nice tomorrow, we’ll cancel class.
p
q
p
pq
q
false
true
false
false
true
true
true
true
false
true
false
true
For pq to hold and for q to be false, p has to be false
as well.
Probing the definition: a thought experiment
Reformulation in symbols
p >> q iff p  q AND ~p  q
Can q be false?
NO! If p  q holds, q can only be false if p is false
... but we know that ~p  q
If ~p  q holds, q can only be false if ~p is false
... but we know that if ~p is false p holds and
that p  q
Probing the definition: a thought experiment
Conclusion
on the definition of presuppositions we have now only
propositions that are necessarily true can be
presupposed
Problem
a proposition like There is a king of France can be
true or false
Probing the definition: a thought experiment
Summary
We have shown that the definition of presuppositions
we started out with predicts that only propositions that
are necessarily true can be presupposed. This runs
counter to our intuitions for standard cases like the
presupposition There is a king of France for The king
of France is bald.
How to solve this problem?
Up till now we have assumed that propositions can
only be true or false. We can bypass the problem by
assuming that propositions cannot only be true and
false but also undefined.
Crucially, p and ~p should become undefined if q
turns out to be false.
Probing the definition: the role of negation
One sentence presupposes another iff whenever
the first sentence is true, the second is true, and
whenever the negation of the first sentence is true,
the second sentence is true.
Problem 1
Some sentences are hard to negate...
Long live the king of France!
*Don’t long live the king of France!
Bring the digital camera here.
Don’t bring the digital camera here.
Fred kissed Betty too.
??Fred didn’t kiss Betty too.
Probing the definition: the role of negation
Problem 2
Sometimes presuppositions don’t behave in the
way we would expect them too.
The king of France is bald...
# ...there ISN’T any king of France.
The king of France isn’t bald...
...there ISN’T any king of France.
Examples like these are highly problematic for a
semantic analysis of presupposition: they can only
be accounted for under the assumption that there
are two kinds of negation – one that cancels
presuppositions and one that doesn’t. This
assumption is highly unattractive.
A semantic definition: conclusion
> We have seen that – in order to be tenable – the
definition has to allow for propositions to be not only
true and false but also undefined.
> We have seen that using negation as a defining
criterion might be too restrictive: we would miss out
on fairly straightforward cases of presuppositions.
> We have seen that negation is ambiguous between
a presupposition preserving and a presupposition
cancelling interpretation. This is highly unattractive,
especially given that negation is at the heart of the
definition.
A pragmatic definition
A pragmatic definition
A presupposition associated with a sentence is a
condition that a speaker would normally expect to
hold in the common ground between discourse
participants when that sentence is uttered.
A pragmatic definition
A presupposition associated with a sentence is a
condition that a speaker would normally expect to
hold in the common ground between discourse
participants when that sentence is uttered.
> If there is any reason to assume that the condition
doesn’t hold, the presupposition is cancelled.
> Position most famously defended by Gazdar
(1979).
Cancelling presuppositions: the procedure
> The cancellation procedure:
All presuppositions
presuppositions.
start
life
as
potential
Implicatures and entailments as well as
background assumptions and contextual factors
defeat potential presuppositions, so a hearer adds
to his or her commitments only those
presuppositions that are compatible with all
background assumptions, contextual factors and
all implicatures and entailments. All remaining
potential presuppositions are cancelled.
Cancelling presuppositions: examples
John hasn’t discovered that Angola is in Asia.
>> Angola is in Asia discovered epistemic factive
The potential presupposition that Angola is an
Asian country runs agains our real-world
knowledge that Angola is an African country. This is
why this potential presupposition gets cancelled.
Cancelling presuppositions: examples
John: I don’t have a car
Mary: So at least you don’t need to worry about
where to park your car.
>> John has a car.
your
definite description
The potential presupposition that John has a car is
in contradiction to the assertion that has already
been put in the context. This is why this potential
presupposition doesn’t become a real one.
Cancelling presuppositions: examples
John doesn’t know that Mary is a hay fever sufferer:
she isn’t.
>> M is a hay fever sufferer know epistemic factive
The potential presupposition that Mary is a hay
fever sufferer runs against the entailment that Mary
is not a hay fever sufferer and gets cancelled for this
reason.
Cancelling presuppositions: examples
If I realize later that I haven’t told the truth, I will
confess it to everyone.
>> I haven’t told the truth realize epistemic factive
This sentence has a conversational implicature
according to which the speaker doesn’t know
whether he has told the truth or not. This implicature
is incompatible with the potential presupposition that
he hasn’t told the truth. The latter therefore gets
cancelled.
Cancelling presuppositions: exercises
What potential presuppositions do the following constructions give rise to?
-> List them, indicate what the presupposition trigger is and try to
categorize the trigger in one of the categories we have established.
-> Why are these presuppositions cancelled? Explain in your own
words.
exercise 4, p.92
The End