Lecture Three Presupposition 1.doc

Lecture Three PresuppositionThe robbery was committed by a pair of twins, both are said to be about 18 years old.So you are a housewife and a mother. Do you have any children?In our communication, we normally do not expect people to tell us something we already know. Embedded in every utterance is a considerable amount of understood information which comes from our knowledge of the language itself. The slips in this exercise give or ask for redundant information, information which can be automatically inferred from the meanings of words the speaker has already used. If you know the meaning of year, twins, age and mother, then you also know that: a year is 12 months long; twins are the same age; your age is how old you are; a mother has a least one child.So it is reduntant if someone says the above utterancesto you:People usually draw some inferences from the linguistic forms or do some guesswork to arrive at the speakers intended meaning.In this lecture, we examine presupposition, one kind of inference which is closely linked to an utterance. But before we deal with presupposition, we should know something about entailment, another kind of inferences.1. Entailment What is entailment?(Yules bool P25)An entailment is something that logicallly follows from what is asserted in the utterance. Sentence, not the speaker, have entailment.We can identifiy some entailments in this sentence:Mary s brother bought a new house in Sanya.Take the sentence, The painters broke the window. This sentence has many entailments Here are some very basic (one-way) entailments: Entailment 1: Someone broke the window. Entailment 2: The painters did something to the window. Entailment 3: The painters broke something. 1.1 Decide whether each of my following statements is true or false and why. (a) My mother is a woman(b) My mother is a doctor.(c) The tiger is unhappy.(d) The tiger is an animal.(e) My mother is a boy. (f) The tiger is a reptile. Without knowing anything about my mother or the tiger in question, you can quite easily answer true to (a) and (d) because of your knowledge of English. These sentences are necessarily true because of the meaning relationship between the words mother and woman and between tiger and animal. These types of sentences are sometimes referred to as analytic sentence . Similarly, given that you interpret everything literally, you can easily answer false to (e) and (f). The meanings of mother and boy and tiger and reptile make such sentences necessarily false, or contradictions. However, (b) and (c) present you with a problem. They may or may not be true. You cannot verify the truth or falsity of those statements by looking in your dictionary. You would need other, non-linguistic, information about my mother and the particular tiger I am referring to. These are sometimes referred to as synthetic sentences. If it turns out that my mother actually is a doctor or that the tiger is unhappy, we would say that these statements are synthetically true. That is, their truth is based on what is happening in the world, not on what is happening in the language. Similarly, if my mother is an engineer rather than a doctor and the tiger is quite happy, we would say that these statements are synthetically false. 1.2 Assume that sentence (a) in each pair is synthetically true. Then look at sentence (b) and decide if you can assume that it is automatically true given the truth of (a). l(a) Annie caught a trout. l(b) Annie caught a fish. 2(a) Annie is thin. 2(b) Annie is not fat. 3(a) Annie baked a cake.3(b) Annie baked something.4(a) Mama Bear is in front of Papa Bear. 4(b) Papa Bear is behind Mama Bear. The answer is yes in all three cases. Once we establish the truth of sentence (a), sentence (b) becomes automatically true because of the meaning relationships between trout/fish, thin/fat, and cake/something. In each case, we can say that sentence (b) is an entailmant of sentence (a). All sentences have a number of entailments. That is, other sentences which are automatically true if the original sentence is true. The thing about entailment is that this kind of inference is for free. It requires only a knowledge of the semantic system of the language being used. At this point, you may be wondering whether a paraphrase is the same thing as an entailment. In semantics, a paraphrase is a special kind of entailment. The next exercise will show you what I mean. HYPONYMY and SUPER-ORDINATEThere is a semantic relationship between words called hyponymy. Here are some examples of hyponymy:Hyponym Super-ordinateRose flowersalmon fishhammer toolIn the relation of HYPONYMY the meaning of the SUPER-ORDINATEterm is included in the meaning of the HYPONYM. That is, the meaning of rose includes the meaning of flower. We can also say that the hyponym is a kind of the super-ordinate. For example, a rose is a kind of flower. Note also that the entailment relationship between hyponyms and their super-ordinates is one-way (seeExercise 2.4). For example, I picked a rose entails I picked a flower, but I picked a flower does not necessarily entail Z picked a rose. Discuss the types of implicatures that can be drawn in the following dialogues which exploit the relation of hyponymy. Would you class some of these as generalized implicatures?(a) Mike: Did you buy her a rose?Annie: I bought her a flower.(b) Jane: Theres salmon on the menu.Steve: I dont like fish.(c) Ed: Be careful of that sofa.Meridyth: Its a piece of furniture, Dad.(d) Mat: So youve taken up teaching.Chris: Its a job.1.3 For each pair, decide whether you can assume that sentence (b) is automatically true given the synthetic truth of sentence (a). Then reverse the process. If sentence (b) is synthetically true, can you assume that sentence (a) is automatically true? 1 (a) Tom saw a bear. 1 (b) Toms saw an animal. 2(a) . This porridge is too cold. 2(b) This porridge is not too hot. 3(a) Baby Bear cried. 3(b) Baby Bear wept. 4(a) Mama Bear is in front of Papa Bear. 4(b) Papa Bear is behind Mama Bear. Entailment and Paraphrase:As you can see, things get a bit more complicated when we look to see if the entailment works both ways. In sentence pairs 1 and 2, the entailment works in only one direction. If Tom saw a bear, then he necessarily saw an animal. But if he saw an animal, he could have seen a bear but not necessarily. It could have been a big tiger, for example. If something is too cold, by definition it cannot be too hot. But if the porridge is not too hot, is it necessarily too cold? No. it could be just right. When there is only ONE-WAY ENTAILMENT, the sentences are not true paraphrases of each other. Sentence pairs 3 and 4 behave somewhat differently. Because of the meaning relationship between cried/wept and in front of/behind, we have a situation of TWO-WAY or MUTUAL ENTAILMENT between the sentences in each pair. These sentences are paraphrases of each other. The term paraphrase is used in semantics when there is a relationship of mutual entailment between two sentences. Generally speaking, entailment, analytic sentence and contradiction are considered to be purely semantic concepts, having to do with sentence meaning rather than speaker meaning. However, these issues can be quite relevant to the study of pragmatics as the next two exercises will illustrate. Summary of Entailment:Entailment refers to the semantic relation between propositions of which one logically follows from another. For instance: a. I have a brother. b. I have a sibling. Here, ( a) as an assertion entails ( b), because we can derive the latter from the former. This is enabled by the hyponymic relation or relation of semantic inclusion between brother and sibling. Logically, two conditions are necessary for Proposition A to entail Proposition B (written as A 11- B): Condition One: If A is true, B is true. Condition Two: If A is not true, B may be true or false. Condition Three: If B is not true, A is false,too.Summary:Each of these different messages illustrates how more can be communicated than simply what is said. The importance given to one entailment over another by a speaker has important consequences for the pragmatic analysis of that utterance. All sentences have a number of entailments - other sentences which are automatically true if the original sentence is true. Entailments are inferences that can be drawn solely from our knowledge about the semantic relationships in a language. This knowledge allows us to communicate much more than we actually say. In the USA, an accused mugger rather foolishly chose to defend himself at the trial. The following is one of the questions he put to his victim:Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?This goes some way to explaining why he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but it also highlights another type of inference that we make when interpreting utterances and analysing speaker meaning. What presupposition do we get from his utterance at the court? I took your purse. Faye has looked for the keys directly asserts Faye has looked for the keysWhere has Faye looked for the keys? presupposes Faye has looked for the keysAnnie has a sofa.Annie has a sofa directly asserts Annie has a sofa Dont sit on Annies sofa.Dont sit on Annies sofa presupposes Annie has a sofa2. PresuppositionHowever, it has proved very difficult for authors in the area to agree on a definition for it. This definition problem is partly a reflection of the fuzzy boundary between pragmatics and semantics. Some definitions of presupposition are very broad and speaker oriented: anything the speaker assumes to be true before making the utterance. Others are much more narrow and sentence oriented: a necessary precondition for the sentence to be true. Definition:Presuppositions are inferences about what are assumed to be true in the utterance rather than directly asserted to be true.Presuppositions are inferences that are very closely linked to the words and grammatical structures actually used in the utterance, but they come from our knowledge about the way language users conventionally interpret these words and structures. Because of this, presuppositions can be quite sneaky as the next exercise will demonstrate. Annie has a sofa directly.Annie has a sofa directly asserts Annie has a sofa Dont sit on Annies sofa.Dont sit on Annies sofa presupposes Annie has a sofa Stop being lazy.Stop being lazy presupposes you are being lazy.Lucy knows Mary loves Tom.Lucy knows Mary loves Tom. presupposes Mary loves TomIf we change do to don ; stop to dont stop ; and knows to doesnt know, do the inferences still hold? Yes!Rules for presuppositionLogically, two conditions are necessary for Proposition A to presuppose Proposition B (written as A B): Condition A: in any situations where A is true, B is true. Condition B: in any situations where A isnt true, B is still true. Condition C: in any situation where B is not true, A is neither true nor false.Semantic or pragmatic?Presupposition is greatly researched in the field of linguistics. Some people say that combined with logic, presupposition studies truth value of a sentence, so it belongs to semantics. Others believe that it is a pragmatic phenomenon because that presupposition is studied relating to the belief, attitude, purpose of the speaker and utterance, proposition and context. Although presupposition is based more closedly on the actual linguistic structure of sentences, such inferences can not be thought of as semantic in the narrow sensen because they are very sentitive to contextual factors and they may be cancelled in a given context. Therefore I agree to the latter opinion that presupposition is more pragmatic phenomenon than a semantic one. This unit addresses the topic from the pragmatic perspective, exploring the features of presupposition and how pragmatic presupposition can be contextually canceled or suspended.Features of presuppositions1. A presupposed fact: (Negation test) 1. (a) Do you know that Mary looked for the keys? (b) Claire has looked for the keys. 2. (a) Did you buy this aweful wine? (b) This wine is aweful. 3. (a) Dont sit on Anns sofa. (b) Ann has a sofa. 4. (a) Stop being lazy. (b) You are being lazy. 5. (a) Lucy knows that George is a crook. (b) George is a crook. These inferences are not entailments, they are called presuppositions. In the above exammples, if we change do to dont in (a); did to didnt in (b); do to dont in (c); stop to dont stop in (d); and knows to doesnt know in (e). Those inferences still hold. Sit on Annies sofa.Sit on Annies sofa presupposes Annie has a sofa Stop being lazy.Stop being lazy presupposes you are being lazy.Lucy knows Mary loves Tom.Lucy knows Mary loves Tom. presupposes Mary loves TomIf we change do to don ; stop to dont stop ; and knows to doesnt know, do the inferences still hold? Yes!You will have found that each of these presuppositions, remains constant under NEGATION tests of the main sentence.(Unfortunately for our mugger at the beginning of the unit, the inference that he took the purse would still hold whether or not his victim said she got a good look at his face.) This is sometimes used as atest for a presupposition, and it highlights how a presupposition can take on the appearance of established truth. For instance: a. My brother is a linguist. b. I have a brother. c. My brother is not a linguist. d. I have a brother.a.He came again.b. He had been here before.c. He didnt come again.d. He had been here before.Here, (a) as an assertion presupposes (b), because the former would be false if the latter were false. The use of the definite description my brother as the topic of discourse enables the presupposition. Speaker relatedThe second condition is sometimes described in terms of constancy under negation test(否定测试下的恒定). That is, tbe presupposed proposition remains true even if the proposition presupposing it is negated. Thus, when (2a) is negated, as in (2c), (2b) is still true. By contrast, the negation test does not apply to semantic entailment. If I say I dont have any brother, I may still have a sibling, but it is also likely that I do not. It is worth mentioning that both entailment and presupposition are information which is not stated but implicitly communicated. Both require inferring, although the inference is based solely on the linguistic form used. Sentences or propositions, not speakers, contain entailments. However for presuppositions, speakers not the sentences make presuppositions.In each case we can assume that the judge has made a presupposition . What are the presupposition(s) in each case?A How did you know that the defendant had bought a knife?B How long have you been selling cocaine?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 when 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?Presuppositions:(a) The defendant had bought a knife.(b) You have been selling cocaine.(c) A bracelet was stolen and The bracelet belonged to you.(d) The woman was murdered and She left the office.(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 and A crime had been committed. Tu Vous presuppose some relationship between the speaker and listener.However, it soon became apparent that there are some presupposition-like phenomena that do not behave in quite the way that the concept of semantic presupposition requires. For example: Keenan noted that the use of the prenoun tu in the French sentence seems to presuppose that “the addressee is an animal, child, socially inferior to the speaker, or personally intimate with the speaker”(1971:51) Tu es the mother of Napoleon.But suppose I use Tu es the mother of Napoleon, when none of these conditions obtains-it would be strange to say that what I said was neither true nor false: It is true just in case the addressee is indeed the mother of Napoleon and false otherwise. And the polite or formal usage just shares the same truth condition.Vous etes the mother of Napoleon.Thus the presuppositions concerning the relationship holding between speaker and addressee , expressed by the user of tu or vous, simply do not affect truth conditions. Keenan therefore held that such examples form an independent and distinct class of pragmatic inferences which he called pragmatic presuppositions, which are best described as a relation between a speaker and the appropriateness of a sentence in a context.When sentences or propositions are put to use in context, we are more concerned with how speakers or writers make use of presupposition as a way of communicating implicit meaning. We tend to use pragmatic presupposition as a term to signal that we are dealing with something not exactly the same as the semantic notion of presupposition. Speakers, not sentences or propositions, have pragmatic presuppositions. Presupposition relates to the purpose of the speaker.Look at how existential presuppoition could work if I wanted to sell you some hair lotion: Youll want DomeBeGone, my revolutionary cure for baldness. Here, I am directly asserting that You will want it but inside the definite noun phrase my revoluti