Presupposition in Semantics Essay

IntroductionPresupposition is originated in the field of philosophy and it was proposed by German philosopher Ferge in 1892. In the 1960s, presupposition entered the atomic number 18a of linguistics and became a signifi domiciliatet excogitation in semantics. Later in the 1970s, Keenan introduced presupposition to the virtual(a)s to describe a relation among a verbalizer and the appropriateness of a quadth dimension in a context (Levinson 177). Hence, presupposition spate be distinguished into dickens categories semantic presupposition and hardheaded presupposition. This thesis is mainly centered on the exploration of presupposition in semantics from the perspectives of features and problems of presupposition. For the saki of searching for the solutions to the problems, the writer also brings two practical(a) theories of presupposition into discussion.Part I. deuce Approaches to PresuppositionIn the linguistics, two approaches to presupposition argon semantic and practi cal. semantic presupposition views the clock time relations in terms of right relations while pragmatic presupposition describes execrations as an fundamental interaction in the midst of individuals.A.Semantic PresuppositionIn ordinary language, of course, to presuppose something nub to discover it, and the narrower technical hold in semantics is re tardyd to this (Saeed 93). In semantics, the gist of a doom is establish on the condemnation itself instead of something constructed by the participants. The semantic presupposition is solo come to almost the law value of the maintainments. For instance,a) tail end lie withd to power point in time.b) hindquarters tried to give up in time. (Suo 130)In the example, sentence a) presupposes sentence b), that is to say, if it is accepted that rear managed to s exculpate in time, it must be rightful(a) that John tried to stop in time. Meanwhile, if this suggestion is false, the presupposition that John tried to stop in ti me take over exists. However, tho the fair play of sentence b) doesnt tell anything concerning the result whether he stopped in time or non. Based on the analysis, we squeeze out retch a impartiality table for this presuppositiona bT TF TT or F TThis table is an overt rendering of the trueness relations between sentence a) and b). If sentence a) is true, past its presupposition b) is also true. If sentence a) is false, then(prenominal) the truth of b) let off survives.While if sentence b) is true, sentence a) can be each true or false. The interpretation of presupposition in semantics is on the basis of truth relations.B.Pragmatic PresuppositionCompared with semantic presupposition- a truth-relation approach, pragmatic presupposition is an interactional approach in translation the sentence relations.Stalnaker argues that presupposition is essenti completelyy a pragmatic phenomenon part of the set of assumptions is make by participants in a conversation, which he term s the common reason signal (Saeed 101). This common ground is the mutual sleep togetherledge shared by two speaker and attendant. For example, I am afraid my car broke down. The presupposition of this note is that the speaker has a car, which is known to the attendee. However, if the tender origin bothy doesnt know the circumstance, on hearing the utterance, s/he can take it as a common ground for a further conversation. By virtue of context, appropriate presupposition depart help the hearer understand the utterance of the speaker. During the conversation, some(prenominal) speaker and hearer are doing the turn-ta power and they can depend on the agent utterances to conduct a smooth communicating.By comparison of semantic presupposition and pragmatic presupposition, we can gain a better understanding of this notion employ in the linguistics. However, the focus of this thesis is on the presupposition in the semantics. Thus, the following move will be concentrated on the se mantic presupposition.Part II. Features of Semantic PresuppositionIn semantics, presupposition possesses unique features being different from implication, presupposition is persistent under negation. It is produced not still by the definite description, notwithstanding also by presupposition triggers.A.StabilitySemantic presupposition relies on the meaning of linguistic process and grammatical structures to describe the truth relations between sentences and these aspects wear outt vary too much from context to context. Hence,presupposition is relatively stable and it clay constant under negation of the main sentence. This feature of semantic presupposition makes a distinction between significance and presupposition. For example,a)I borrowed my friends bike today.b)I borrowed something today.If sentence a) is true, it guarantees the truth of sentence b), to be more specific, a) entails b). However, if we negate a) to form a) then it no longer entails b), repeated as followsa) I didnt borrow my friends bike today.b) I borrowed something today.If it is false that I borrowed my friends bike today, it can not tell whether I borrowed something today or not. It index be true that I borrowed something instead of my friends bike, still we dear take ont know.In contrast, the presupposing sentence is constant even under negation, for instance,c)My sis got married last year.d)I halt a sister.The pre-condition of sentence c) is d), if c) is true then d) must be taken as a circumstance. In new(prenominal)wise words, sentence c) has the presupposition in d) and the truth of c) makes sure the truth of d) as well. If negating c) as My sister didnt get married last year. The presupposition that I have a sister also survives.This is the difference between entailment and presupposition, tracely, the negation of an entailing sentence leads to the mischance of the entailment while negating a presupposing sentence allows the presupposition to survive.B.Presuppositi on TriggersOn the genius hand, the earthly concern of presupposition can derive from the use of a name or definite description. On the other hand, itcan be produced by particular words or sentence constructions, which are called presupposition triggers. Karttunen has collected thirty- maven kinds of triggers but in the following section the writer will mainly focus on four-spot types of these triggers featureive verbs, throw of state verbs, temporal clauses and cleft sentences.To aim with, verbs manage regret, deplore, know and agree are under the category of factive verbs, for they presuppose the truth of the complement clause. For instance,a)Martha regrets/ doesnt regret drinking Johns home brew.b)Martha drank Johns home brew. (Suo 131)Whether Martha regrets drinking Johns home brew or not, it is a known fact that Martha drank Johns home brew. The sentence a) has the presupposition in b). By contrast, no much(prenominal) presupposition exists with the non-factive verb li ke think. For example,c) gobbler thought that John was late.d)John was late. curse c) indicates that it is only tom personal opinion of Johns being late. Actually, John might not be late and the truth doesnt reveal from the sentence itself. indeed, sentence c) doesnt have the presupposition in d) cod to the non-factive verb think.Secondly, the employments of verbs like stop, start, begin and finish imply the change of state. Hence, these lexical triggers are regarded as change of state verbs, which describe the new state and presuppose the precedent state as well. For instance,a)John stopped/ didnt stop complicate out his wife.b)John had been whipstitch his wife. (Suo 131)The verb stop means making something end and here if John stopped beating his wife, which means that he makes the action of beating his wife end. But if he didnt stop, the occasion of beating will move on to happen in the future. No matter what the situation is, sentence a) presupposes the fact b) that John had been beating his wife as the former state.Whats more, not only the lexical words trigger the presupposition, but also clauses like temporal clauses whitethorn produce presupposition. For example,a)Linda went to the supermarket before she met her friends.b)Linda met her friends.The temporal clause marked by the joint before shows that Linda went to the supermarket low and then went to meet her friends. In effect, sentence a) states the fact that Linda really met her friends. It is this temporal clause that ensures the truth of sentence b) and also triggers the presupposition in b).Last but not least, syntactic structure such as cleft sentence can also act as a trigger for the production of legitimate types of presupposition. For example,a)It was the noise that nettle me.b)What annoyed me was the noise.c)Something annoyed me.In the example, the cleft construction in a) and the pseudo-cleft in b) share the presupposition in c). No matter how the sentence structure changes, the essence of the sentence remains unchanged. What sentence a) and b) intend to stress is that in that location is something annoyed me.By means of the features like stability and presupposition triggers, the real intention of the utterances can be investigated. If the speaker changes the predicate has to hasnt, or does to doesnt, the presupposition for the utterance is the same, for presupposition is of stability. Presupposition triggers can be used as a tool to present the essence of the sentence, no matter what lexical words and constructions are employ.Part III. Problems of Semantic PresuppositionIn semantics, this truth-based approach gives rise to problems for the presupposition, such as, presupposition failure, the defeasibility of presupposition and the labor problem.A.Presupposition FailureOn the basis of truth condition, it has been taken for granted that a name or definite description being used refers to the existent entity in the field of semantics. However, if the nam ed or described entity doesnt exist, it causes problem for this truth-relation approach, which is known as presupposition failure. The following example is by now the most discussed one in this literaturea)The power of France is bald.b)There is a poove of France. (Saeed 96)According to the criterion of truth relation, no doubt sentence a) presupposes sentence b), if it is true that there is a King of France. But if there is no King of France, that is to say, the sentence b) is false, the problem is aroused, for it is enigmatical whether this presupposition survives or not. Are the sentences like a) true or false, or full in a gray area, neither true nor false? This un real situation for truth-based approach results in the truth value gap.For such a problem, Russell offers a famous solution to make an analysis of this definite description as three expressions as followsThe King of France is bald is true if and only ifa)at least one thing is the kingb)at most one thing is the kin gc)whatever is the king is bald. (Saeed 97)From the Russells analysis, we know that if there is no King of France, it leads to the falsity of this proposition that the King of France is bald. Thus, there is no gray area between true or false, no truth value gap. However, it seems to be too multiform to employ these preconditions for the explanation of one name and it may cost broad efforts to analyze the preconditions whenever meet with such kind of statements.In comparison with truth relation approach, it may be less problematic for an interactional approach. During the communication between the individuals, whenever an unfamiliar name or definite description occurs, the hearer can interrupt the speaker so as to signal the failure of the conversation. For instance, the speaker says to someone, Mr. Hong will invite us to dinner next Friday. If the hearer doesnt know Mr. Hong, it may cause confusion. As the conversation continues, the hearer can ask the speaker who Mr. Hongis. As f or the speaker, s/he can take an immediate response to clear up the misunderstanding.The presupposition failure in semantics results from the narrow question of the truth value of statements nigh non-existent entities, while in pragmatics, the attention is paid to the more general question of what conventions license a speakers referring use of name or definite description.B.DefeasibilityOne of the extraordinary things about presupposition is that it is sensitive to context, either immediate linguistic context or the less immediate discourse context, or in circumstances where setback assumptions are made. In particular context, the presupposition is cancelled and this phenomenon is known as defeasibility. both factors result in presupposition cancellation one is the linguistic context and the other one is background assumption about the world.One kind of presupposition defeasibility arises in certain types of linguistic context. For example,You say that someone in this room love s bloody shame. Well perhaps so. But it sure isnt Fred who loves Mary. And it certainly isnt John . . . (We continue in this way until we have enumerated all the raft in the room). Therefore no one in this room loves Mary. (Suo 135)In the example, each of the cleft sentences (it certainly isnt Fred, etc.) are supposed to presuppose that there is someone in this room who loves Mary, for presupposition is constant under negation. However, the speaker intends to persuade the hearer that there is no one in this room who loves Mary by command out the possibilities. Therefore, the presupposition that someone in this room loves Mary is defeated in this counterfactual assumption.Here is another example of the same kinda)John didnt manage to swirl his exams.b)John tried to pass his exams.c)John didnt manage to pass his exams. In fact he didnt even try.Sentence a) has the presupposition in b), but if put a) into such a statement as c), the precedent presupposition is abandoned. Without knowing the real fact, if someone makes the utterance that John didnt manage to pass his exams, it may leave the hearer an impression that at least once he tried to pass his exams. On hearing the fact the hearer will know Johns failure for the exams is due to his lack of efforts in his study. Thus, the presupposition can be cancelled within certain contexts.The other kind of presupposition defeasibility is caused by our general knowledge of the world. For instance,a)She cried before she blameless her thesis.b)She finished her thesis. (Saeed 187)As mentioned above, the temporal clause functions as a trigger for the presupposition. Sentence a) with before-clause presupposes that indeed she finished her thesis. However, if the verb in the main clause is changed to die, the situation will be totally different. For instance,c)She died before she finished her thesis.d)She finished her thesis. (Saeed 187)Since her death preceded the topic of finishing her thesis, it is certain that she n ever finished the thesis. It is common sense that people do not conduct things after they die. Even if sentence c) is verbalized with before-clause, it doesnt have the presupposition in d). As a result of background belief in the real world, the previous presupposition that she finished her thesis is out of use(p) in this context.C.Projection ProblemLangendoen and Savin suggest that the set of presuppositions of the knotty whole is the truthful sum of the presuppositions of the move, i.e. if S0 is a hard sentence containing sentences S1, S2, . . . Sn as constituents, then the presuppositions of S0 = the presuppositions of S1 + the presuppositions of S2 . . . + the presuppositions of Sn (Levinson 191). For example,S0 John stopped accusing Mary of beating her economize.S1 John accused Mary of beating her husband.S1 John judged that it was bad for Mary to beat her husband.S2 John stopped doing it.S2 Before time T, John did it. (Suo 136)In the example, sentence S0 is the complex sentence including two parts S1 and S2, to be more specific, from the statement that John stopped accusing Mary of beating her husband, two meanings can be interpreted one is that John accused Mary of beating her husband and the other one is that John stopped doing it. The presupposition of S1 is S1, namely, S1 presupposes that John judged that it was bad for Mary to beat her husband. While S2 has the presupposition in S2, that is to say, S2 presupposes that before time T, John did it. Thus, the presuppositions of S0 are the presupposition of S1 plus the presupposition of S2.As a matter of fact, this simple solution to the presuppositions of complex sentences is far from correct and it turns out to be impossible to take it as a formula. By using this solution, it is difficult to predict exactly which presuppositions of the parts survive in the whole presupposition of the complex sentences. This compositional problem is called the acoustic task problem for the presuppositions.The p rojection problem in the presuppositions has two aspects on the one hand, presuppositions remain in the linguistic context while entailments disappear. On the other hand, presuppositions are cancelled in certain contexts where entailments survive.The first aspect of the projection problem is the survival of presuppositions and cancellation of entailments in the same context. As mentioned above, negation is a representative example for the distinction between presupposition and entailment, for presupposition is stable under negation while entailment isnt. However, there are other situations in which presupposition remainsand entailment disappears. For instance,a)Mr. brownness bought four books.b)There is a Mr. Brown.c)Mr. Brown bought three books.d)It is possible that Mr. Brown bought four books.e)Mr. Brown could have bought four books.In this example, sentence a) presupposes sentence b) and entails sentence c). If it is true that Mr. Brown bought four books, the precondition for t his proposition that there is a Mr. Brown must also be true. And if he already bought four books, he is supposed to have bought three books. However, when the modal auxiliary verb operators or modal verbs are implant in the original statement, the entailment of a) disappears while the presupposition b) still exists. Because modal operators like possible, probable and modal verbs like could, should are considered to be a kind of conjecture. The employments of them reveal speakers uncertainty about his utterances.Another situation of the same kind is the compound sentences formed by the connectives and, or, if . . . then and what not. For instance,a)The two students hand in the formulation late over again this Monday.b)A student handed in the homework late this Monday.c)The two students handed in the homework late before.d)If the two students handed in the homework late again this Monday, their teacher will get angry.The adverb again applied in the sentence a) presupposes that the two students handed in the homework late before. If two students handed in the homework late, it must entail that one of them handed in the homework late. Thus, sentence a) presupposes c) and also entails b). However, if sentencea) is embedded in a complex sentence like d), the utterance a) can only be regarded as an assumption in the complex whole. Hence, the former entailment is abandoned in the new compound sentence but the presupposition that they did before still survives.The other aspect of the projection problem is that presupposition is plugged while entailment still exists in certain contexts. If the predicates of the utterances are the verbs of propositional placement such as want, believe, imagine, dream and the like, the blocking of presupposition appears to take place. For instance,a)Tom believes hes the professorship of America.b)There is a present president of America.In this example, sentence a) entails that Tom believes something, but it doesnt have the presuppos ition that there is a present president of America. The verb like believe is only a non-factive verb, which doesnt ensure the truth of its complement. Moreover, the employment of it will leave the hearer an impression that what the speaker says is just a personal opinion. Thus, the presupposition is blocked because of the verb believe.Another example is given as followsa)I dreamed that I was a German and that I regretted being a German.b)I was a German.In the sentence a), the speaker doesnt shoulder the certificate of indebtedness of uttering it by employing the verb dream. The application of dream indicates that this utterance can not be taken seriously as a fact. However, sentence a) still entails that I dreamed something, but doesnt presuppose that I was a German. In such a situation, the complex sentences with certain verbs of propositional attitude block their presuppositions but maintain the entailments.By means of analyzing the problems of presupposition in the field of sema ntics, we can draw a conclusion that this truth relation approach is farfrom decent to describe the relationships between presupposing and presupposed sentences. Admittedly, the issue of presupposition is not only being discussed in semantics but also in the pragmatics.Part IV. Pragmatic Theories of PresuppositionAs for pragmatic presupposition, confused theories have been put forward by linguists such as Stalnaker, Gazdar and what not. Among these theories, two of them are the most developed theories that deal with the defeasibility and the projection problems. Both theories assume that presuppositions are part of the conventional meaning of expressions, instead of semantic inference.The first theory has been developed by Karttunen and Peters, which is expressed in the framework of Montague grammar. In the Montague grammar, clauses are built up from their constituents from the bottom up rather than from the top down as in transformational generative grammar (Levinson 207). The ba sic idea in this theory is that sentences are built up from their components and the meanings conveyed in these sentences are instance to the words, clauses and so on, but in the presuppositions, meanings are associated with these triggers. According to Karttunen and Peters theory, presuppositions are truly non-cancellable.The meaning expressions that capture the presuppositional content of each presupposition-triggering item will be related with each constituent a inheritance expression. If there is a predicate like propositional attitude verb, it will have a heritage expression that blocks the presuppositions ascending to be presupposition of the whole sentence. In such circumstances, presupposition isnt in fact cancelled, but it is blocked during the process of derivation by the heritage expression. For example,a)Bush thinks that Kerrys attitude about terrorism is dangerous.b)Kerry has an attitude about terrorism.The subordinate clause of sentence a) presupposes that Kerry has an attitude about terrorism. However, the verb think has the heritage expression which prevents this presupposition from being the presupposition of the whole.The other theory is proposed by Gazdar, in which presuppositions are actually cancelled. At the early stage of derivation, the presuppositions of any complex sentence will consist of all the authorisation presuppositions of the parts. Then a canceling apparatus will begin to work and it only selects these presuppositions which are consistent with all the propositions already in the context. In this theory, the generations of presuppositions adhere to a special graze first the entailments of what are said are added to the context, then the conversational implicatures, and only finally the presupposition (Levinson 213). In each step, these presuppositions that contradict the former propositions will be eliminated through selection and only the ones being consistent with them will survive. For example,a)If there is a King of France, the King of France doesnt any longer equal in Versaills.b)The speaker knows that there exists a King of France.c)It is consistent with all the speaker knows that there is not a King of France. (Suo 143)In the sentence a), the clause that the King of France doesnt any longer live in Versaills has the potential presupposition in b). However, the conditional sentence a) entails that there is not a King of France. Based on the special order in Gazdars theory, this entailment enters into the context before the potential presupposition. Hence, this potential presupposition is cancelled without entering into the context.Although the two theories are opposing to each other, both of them offer an explanation for the defeasibility of presupposition and projection problem. However, even in the field of pragmatics, capable solution to the presupposition is not obtained, which need further developments.ConclusionIn the field of linguistics, we can probe into the presupposition from tw o perspectives, namely, semantic presupposition and pragmatic presupposition. This thesis mainly focuses on the interpretation of presupposition in semantics. The writer introduces the features of semantic presupposition like stability under negation and presupposition triggers and then makes an analysis of the problems aroused by this truth-based theorysuch as presupposition failure, defeasibility and projection problem. To solve these problems, two theories concerning the pragmatic presupposition are discussed. Although both of them offer the explanations for the problems of presupposition, they are not considered to be adequate solutions. The further developments of presupposition rely on the complex interactions between semantics and pragmatics.ReferencesLevinson, Stephen C. Pragmtics. Beijing abroad Language teaching and Researching Press, 2005.Saeed, John I. Semantics. Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press, 2005.