讲座2 presu and Entail

Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
• Now take the negation of 4): • 7) John didn’t manage to stop the car in time. • From this, we cannot infer 5) John stopped the car in time., yet 6) is preserved and thus shared by both 4) and 7). • So the presupposition of both 4) and 7) is 6) John tried to stop the car in time., but not 5).
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Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
• • • • • • Another example: a. Everybody knows that John is a gay. (=p) b. Everybody doesn’t know that John is a gay. (=not p) c.John is a gay. (=q) d.p>>q & NOT p>>q Notice that although both speakers disagree about the validity of p, they both assume the truth of q.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
• • • • • • e.g. 1) John managed to stop the car. Inference 2) John stopped the car. entailment 3) John tried to stop the car. presupposition Negate S 1): 4) John didn’t manage to stop the car. From S 4), we cannot get S 2), so S 2) is the entailment of S 1). • But from both S1) and S4), we can get 3), so S 3) is the presupposition of S1).
Triggers (前提语) of presupposition:
• 3) Factive (实情) presupposition: • The presupposed information following a verb like “know”, “regret”, “realize”. • e.g. She didn’t realize he was ill. presupposes “he was ill”. • 4) Lexical presupposition: • e.g. manage(= implicative verb含蓄动词): the person succeeded in some way, it asserted “succeed”, and presupposed: tried. • others: stop(change of state verbs), start, again(iterative表示反复 的词语): • He stopped smoking. >>He used to smoke. • You are late again.>>You were late before.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
• Ordinary sense of presupposition and and the technical usage within linguistics: • A. Ordinary (Levinson, 1983:168): • 1) Effects presuppose causes. • 2) John wrote Harry a letter, presupposing he could read. • 3) Harry asked Bill to close the door, presupposing that Bill had left it open.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
Triggers (前提语) of presupposition:
• 8) Adverbial clause of time: after, since • e.g. After his father died he stepped into a large fortune. • >> His father died. • 9) cleft sentences: • e.g. It was John who danced the last dance with Mary. • >> Someone danced the last dance with Mary.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
• Triggers (前提语) of presupposition:
• 10) Structures and expressions indicating comparison: • e.g. Carol is a better pianist than Mike. >> Mike is a pianist. • 11) non-restrictive clauses: • e.g. The islands of Japan, which are located to the east of China, have frequently been struck by earthquakes of varying forces. • >> The islands of Japan are located to the east of China.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
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Examples of negation: Did you buy the awful wine? Didn’t you buy the awful wine?
The presupposition remains the same under negation of the main sentence. This is sometimes used as a test for presupposition, and it highlights how a presupposition can take on the appearance of “established truth”. This property of presupposition is generally described as constancy under negation.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
• • • • • • A.B 的前提关系必须满足两个条件: 1) If A is true, B is true. 2) If A is not true, B is still true. e.g. John is married.>> John exists. John is not married. still >>John exists. But after negation, if the inference might or might not be true, then the inference is its entailment, not its presupposition.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
Triggers (前提语) of presupposition:
• 5) Non-factive presupposition: • e.g. dream, imagine, pretend • I dreamed that I was rich. >>I was not rich. • 6) Counter-factual presupposition • If I weren’t ill,… • 7) verb of judging: accused, criticize: • e.g. peter accused Smith of forgery. >> Peter thinks forgery is bad.
Lecture 3 Presupposition and Entailment
Triggers (前提语) of presupposition:
1) Existential presupposition: • words like: the, that, this, those • possessives like: Annie’s, my, your, etc (definite noun phrase) • e.g. Is Mike giving Annie the chocolate cake? presupposes there is a chocolate cake. 2) Structural presupposition • wh- words like why, when, what, how etc., both when they are used to ask a question and when introduce a subordinate clause. • e.g. I wonder how Mike smashed the television. • yes/No: • e.g. Is there a piano in the room? • >> Either there is a piano in the room or there is not a piano in the room.