Presupposition in pragmatics pdf

It is an accessible and a technically sophisticated introduction to the topic. Nearside pragmatics is concerned with the nature of certain facts that are relevant to determining what is said. Pdf pragmatics and presupposition d terence langendoen. Such domains as inference, implications and face wants are presented with a deeper insight into the how the interlocutors interact in conversation.

Negation, presupposition and the semanticspragmatics. Presupposition and implicature 5 dominant one, though, at present, it probably manifests itself largely as noncommitment about the full picture even as more and more of the heavylifting is assigned to the pragmatics abbott, 2006. Apr 17, 2012 pragmatics presupposition and entailnment 1. This book provides a thorough analysis of the interpersonal aspects of the interlocutors. Linguistic context is discourse that precedes a sentence to be interpreted and situational context is knowledge about the world. To assist you in detecting the different types of presupposition common in natural language some useful and illustrative examples follow. A read is counted each time someone views a publication summary such as the title, abstract, and list of authors, clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the fulltext. This uptodate resource covers a substantial body of formal work on linguistic phenomena, and presents the way the semantics pragmatics interface has come to be viewed today. Pragmatics seeks to characterize the features of the speech context which help determine which proposition is expressed by a given sentence stalnaker 1972. The semantics and pragmatics of presupposition compositional upon discourse structure. Introduction entailment is a relation between sentence meanings, or propositions. Also called strict implication, logical consequence, and semantic consequence. Entailment and presupposition by zainurrahman entailment definition. This unfortunate, inconsistent use of the notion raises.

The use of default rules shows precisely what the pragmatic. Presupposition and implicature the handbook of contemporary. Formal pragmatics addresses issues that are on the borderline of semantics and pragmatics of natural language, from the point of view of a modeltheoretic semanticist. The introduction of accommodation in conditionals and factives and the neo.

In semantics and pragmatics, entailment is the principle that under certain conditions the truth of one statement ensures the truth of a second statement. Pragmatics implicature the concept of conversational implicature was introduced by british philosopher paul grice 1975 to show how meaning expressed by the speaker speaker meaning, not directly encoded in the words, can be inferred recognized by the hearer. Some definitions emphasise that a presupposition is a proposition that is backgrounded or taken for granted. The second answer is that presupposition should be given a pragmatic analysis. Pdf understanding presupposition and entailment balaji g. Similarly, entailment is logical or truthful consequence it is something that necessarily follows from what is asserted. Presupposition and cooperation carnegie mellon university. They are now among the most trusted and widely explored sources of insight into how language and context interact, the role of social cognition in shaping linguistic behavior, and the nature of linguistic meaning itself. For example, if pronounced with emphasis on john, the following sentence triggers the presupposition that somebody other than john had dinner in new york last night.

John knew that there was a mountain behind the house. The king of france is bald there is a unique king of france b. Grice on presupposition, implicature, and the ambiguity of negation. Pdf this paper examines the claim that the only adequate account of presupposition in natural language must be a contextual one, and that a.

It is argued that a full account of the processes and levels of representation involved in their interpretation typically requires the sequential pragmatic derivation of two different propositions expressed. In a semantic theory presupposition is usually defined as a binary relation between pairs. What is a presupposition sil glossary of linguistic terms. Presupposition definitiontypes of presupposition some commonpresupposition triggers 3. The presuppositions of an utterance are the pieces of information that the speaker assumes or acts as if she assumes in order for her utterance to be meaningful in the current context.

Pragmatics is the study of how context affects meaning, such as how sentences are interpreted in certain situations or the interpretation of linguistic meaning in context. An example of that is the presupposition trigger too. Pdf understanding presupposition and entailment balaji. Presupposition and implicature stanford university. I apply this to stalnakers defense of van fraassens theory of semantic presupposition against karttunen. The meaning of a sentence can be regarded as a function from a context including time. This knowledge allows us to communicate much more than we actually say. Entailments and presupposition occur automatically, and are one of the most. Presupposition the handbook of pragmatics wiley online. Email citation part 2 of this introductory textbook to formal pragmatics is entirely devoted to the issue of presupposition projection. Presupposition and linguistic context stanford university.

Pragmatics is the study of how receivers of messages interpret utterances. Lecture notes pragmatics in linguistic theory linguistics. Sometimes, speaking loosely, we talk as though it were a relation between sentences. Grices reduction of referential presupposition to implicature. But chapter 1 has a brief introduction to pragmatics and it is mentioned in all chapters sometimes there is rather more than a mention. This word triggers the presupposition that, roughly, something parallel to what is stated has happened. The term, presupposition was initiated by the british philosopher, peter strawson around 1950. We can say that the presupposition that the interlocutor speaks english, like the presupposition that the interlocutor is interested in what the speaker or writer has to say, is a conversational presupposition or, following stalnaker 1972.

The pragmatics of a lexical item must then be represented as a function which is computed in context. A cognitive pragmatic approach is taken to some longstanding problem cases of negation, the socalled presupposition denial cases. A central concern of the book is the relation between pragmatics and semantics, and dr levinson shows clearly how a pragmatic approach can resolve some of the problems. Factive presupposition is when the speaker chooses verbs that indicate something is a fact.

A presupposition is background belief, relating to an utterance, that. Apr 04, 2009 pragmatics is the study of deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and aspects of discourse structure. Over the past few decades, presupposition and implicature have risen to a pre. Pragmatics by george yule is a valuable book for the language students. For example, zachary forgot to do his homework, indicates that there was homework that needed to be. This paper examines the claim that the only adequate account of presupposition in natural language must be a contextual one, and that a purely semantic account of this notion is inadequate. Pragmatics definition is a branch of semiotics that deals with the relation between signs or linguistic expressions and their users. Definition 3 sociopsychological pragmatics pragmatics is the study of the speakers meaning.

Read the bulletpoint statements and try to detect the presuppositions in each. I show that, since stalmaker fails to distinguish a from b, this defense. The present paper attempts to explain what the logicians or philosophers have said regarding presupposition and entailment in the domain of semantics and pragmatics. In this textbook, however, dr levinson has provided a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. Stalnaker claims for his pragmatic account the advantage that it predicts such. Presupposition is one aspect of a speakers strategy of organizing information for maximum clarity for the listener. Keywords context dependence, common ground, indexicality, conversational implicature, presupposition, speech acts. This textbook provides a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and conversational structure. Presupposition definition in the cambridge english. Presupposition definition in the cambridge english dictionary. The interlocutors produce and understand the utterances. Find materials for this course in the pages linked along the left. Farside pragmatics is focused on what happens beyond saying.

Pragmatics definition of pragmatics by merriamwebster. Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society. It deals with the knowledge of world and situations in which the speakers engage in conversation. Since linguists began extensive work on presupposition in the 1970s, a long. I seek to identify unifying themes among these concepts, provide a highlevel guide to the primary literature, and relate the phenomena to issues in computational linguistics. I argue that a the phenomenon characteristic of pragmatic presupposition, is distinct from b the phenomenon characteristic of semantic presupposition, and that there are sentences exhibiting a alone. The pragmatics is gricean, supplemented by austinsearle speech acts, and making use in a couple of places of. Robert stalnaker, pragmatic presuppositions princeton university. Formal pragmatics addresses issues that are on the borderline of the semantics and pragmatics of natural language, from the point of view of a modeltheoretic semanticist. According to a pragmatic view, the presuppositions of a sentence detrmine the class of contexts in which the sentence could be felicitously uttered.

Pragmatics and presupposition university of arizona. Presuppositions are implications that are often felt to be in the background to be assumed by the speaker to be already known to the addressee 7. Pdf on oct 4, 1996, david beaver and others published presupposition find. Entailments are inferences that can be drawn solely from our knowledge about the semantic relationship in a language. Pragmatics is the study of deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and aspects of discourse structure. Discussion regarding the nature of presupposition originates for our purposes with debates in philosophy about reference and how to translate referring expressions into logical form. In this textbook, however, dr levinson has provided a lucid and integrative analysis of the central topics in pragmatics deixis, implicature, presupposition. The paper also tries to attend to i what semantics is and what pragmatics is in a unified theory of meaning and ii the possibility to outline a semantic account of presupposition without having recourse to pragmatics and vice versa. Intuitively, a presupposition constitutes a necessary assumption required to understand the meaning of a sentence.