LING 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Presupposition, Microsoft Powerpoint
Document Summary
Something that may not be said but somehow assumed. A person who says this is assuming that the other knows that they were out of town. Sometimes a presupposition is not shared by those having the conversation. In conversation, speakers routinely consider certain background assumptions to be shared between the conversation participants, or at least they talk as though they didsuch background assumptions are known as presuppositions. Speakers may be mistaken in taking certain assumptions to be shared. Great, but i didn"t know you ever left. The" we met at the cocktail bar in leacock. Presupposition: there is exactly one cocktail bar in leacock. Hey wait a minute; i didn"t know that there was a cocktail bar in leacock . It-clefts:it was the butler who killed lord disgrace. Certain lexical items or constructions, known as presupposition triggers, are systematically associated with presuppositions. No: implies you smoked before but not anymore. Presupposition is that you have smoked marijuana before.
