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. DEFINITION
• A presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case
prior to making an utterance. It 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. ANSWERS:
(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. ANSWERS:
(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.
Presuppositions remains constant under negation of the main
sentence.
9. CONSTANCY UNDER NEGATION TEST
• One of the tests used to check for the presuppositions underlying
sentences involves negating a sentence with a particular
presupposition and checking if the presupposition remains true.
• Whether you say My car is a wreck or the negative version My car is
not a wreck, the underlying presupposition (I have a car) remains true
despite the fact that the two sentences have opposite meanings.
• This is called the “constancy under negation” test for identifying 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.
(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. TYPES OF PRESUPPOSITION
• The types of presupposition are:
• existential
• factive
• non-factive
• lexical
• structural
• counterfactual
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19. SUMMARY (PRESUPPOSITION)
• 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.
