1. Lecture 3 Presupposition
前提 (预设)

2. What is presupposition?
Please see the following story.
In the USA, an accused mugger rather foolishly chose to defend himself at the trial. He put one of the questions to his victim:
Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?
As a result, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

3. The reason why the mugger was confirmed guilty is that whether or not his victim said she got a good look at his face, there was a presupposition that he took the purse.

4. It has proved very difficult for authors in the area to agree on a definition for presupposition. A possible one is: a necessary precondition for the sentence to be true.
Presupposition can be a useful concept when analyzing speaker meaning.

5. Exercise 1
What are presuppositions in each of the following utterances?
(a) Where has Tom looked for the keys?
(b) Did you buy this awful wine?
(c) Don’t sit on Mary’s sofa.
(d) Stop being lazy.
(e) Lucy knows that George is a crook.

6. KEY
(a) Tom has looked for the keys.
(b) This wine is awful.
(c) Mary has sofa.
(d) You are being lazy.
(e) George is a crook.

7. Exercise 2
What are presuppositions in each of the following utterances under negation?
(a) Where hasn’t Tom looked for the keys?
(b) Didn’t you buy this awful wine?
(c) Do(n’t) sit on Mary’s sofa.
(d) Don’t stop being lazy.
(e) Lucy doesn’t know that George is a crook.

8. KEY
(a) Tom has looked for the keys.
(b) This wine is awful.
(c) Mary has sofa.
(d) You are being lazy.
(e) George is a crook.

9. Presuppositions remains constant under negation of the main sentence
Presuppositions remains constant under negation of the main sentence. This is sometimes used as a ‘test’ for a presupposition.

10. Exercise 3
For each of the following utterances, decide which ones contain the presupposition that ‘Mike smashed the television’.
(a) Did Mike smash the television?
(b) When did Mike smash the television?
(c) I was eating popcorn when Mike smashed the television.

11. (d) Why did Mike smash the television?
(e) I don’t understand why Mike smashed the television.
(f) I wonder if Mike smashed the television.
(g) I wonder how Mike smashed the television.

12. KEY
(b), (c), (d), (e), (g)
Here, wh- words like when, why, how, etc. can trigger suppositions both when they are used to ask a question as in (b) and (d) and in a subordinate clause as in (c), (e), and (g).

13. Wh- words as we discussed in the previous examples are also referred to as presupposition trigger (前提语).

14. In any language, there are some expressions or constructions which can act as the sources of presuppositions. This kind of expressions or constructions are called presupposition triggers.

15. Type Example Presupposition
existential the X >>X exists
factive I regret leaving >>I left
non-factive He pretended to be happy
>>He wasn’t happy
Lexical He managed to escape
>> He tried to escape
Structural When did she die? >> She died
Counterfactual If I weren’t ill, >>I am ill

16. Defeasibility in discourse contexts
Presuppositions are defeasible in certain discourse contexts. For example:
E.g. (a) John doesn’t know that Bill came.
(b) I don’t know that Bill came.
(c) Bill came.

17. The factive verb KNOW is a presupposition-trigger
The factive verb KNOW is a presupposition-trigger. In sentences, where KNOW has second or third person subjects, the complement is presupposed to be true.
However, where the subject is first person and the verb is negated, the presupposition clearly fails.

18. E.g. (d) Sue cried before she finished her thesis.
(e) Sue finished her thesis.
(f) Sue died before she finished her thesis.

19. BEFORE-clauses are presupposition-triggers
BEFORE-clauses are presupposition-triggers. (d) presupposes (e), but in (f), the presupposition (e) is cancelled.

20. Projections for presuppositions
There is a general idea that the meaning of the whole sentence is a combination of the meaning of its parts. However, the meaning of some presuppositions (as “parts”) doesn’t survive to become the meaning of some complex sentences (as “wholes”). This is known as the projection problem (映射问题).

21. (a) Nobody realized that Kelly was ill.
(b) Kelly was ill.
( (a) presupposes (b))
(c) I imagined that Kelly was ill.
(d) Kelly was not ill.
((c) presupposes (d))
(g) I imagined that Kelly was ill and nobody realized that she was ill.

22. After combing (a) and (c), the presupposition can no longer be assumed to be true.

23. (a) The King of England visited us.
(b) The King of England doesn’t exist!

24. Distinction between entailments and presuppositions
Suppose (1) and (2) are marked as (S1) and (3), (4) as (S2):
(1) The King of France is bald. (S1)
(2) That person is a bachelor. (S1)
(3) There is a King of France. (S2)
(4) That person is a man. (S2)

25. The difference between entailment and presupposition is summarized in the following table.
ENTAILMENT PRESUPPOSITION
S S S S2
T T T T
F F (T v F) F
F TvF F T
(Tv F=either true or false; -(T v F)=neither true
or false)

26. A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance.
Speakers, not sentences, have presuppositions.
An entailment is something that logically follows from what is asserted in the utterance.
Sentences, not speakers, have entailments.

27. Summary
Presuppositions are inferences about what is assumed in an utterance rather than directly asserted.
Presuppositions are closely linked to the words and grammatical structures that are actually used in the utterance and our knowledge about the way language users conventionally interpret them.
Presuppositions can be drawn even when there is little or no surrounding context.

28. Application of presupposition
Exercise 1
In each case assume that the judge has sustained an objection to the question. What presuppositions might have been objected to?
(a) How did you know that the defendant had bought a knife.
(b) How long have you been selling cocaine?

29. (c) When was your bracelet stolen?
(d) Did you see the murdered woman before she left the office?
(e) How fast was the car going the driver ran the red light?
(f) At what time did you telephone your lover?
(g) Have you stopped being an active gang member?
(h) Why did you leave the scene of the crime?

30. KEY
(a) The defendant had bought a knife.
(b) You have been selling cocaine.
(c) Your bracelet was stolen & the bracelet belonged to you.
(d) The woman was murdered & she left the office.

31. (e) The driver ran the red light.
(f) You telephoned your lover.
(g) You have been an active gang member?
(h) You left the scene of the crime & a crime had been committed.

32. Exercise 2
In each of the following advertisement extracts, what claim or claims are being made by presupposition rather than directly asserted?
(a) Watch all the puffiness and wrinkles disappear!

33. (b) Increased protection against water spots.
(c) It combines three potent skin perfecting discoveries in one gentle formula.
(d) Now you can get a really crisp professional finish.

34. KEY
(a) All the puffiness and wrinkles will disappear.
(b) It is possible to protect against water spots & the protection has been increased.
(c) It has been discovered how to perfect skin in three ways & Each of these discoveries is potent & The formula is gentle.
(d) Before you could not get a really crisp professional finish.