BBI 3219

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BBI 3219

• Semantik Pragmatik

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TOPIC
1 Figurative Language - Compositional meaning - The Principle of Compositionality - Metaphor, Metonymy, Idioms - Synecdoche
2 Presupposition, entailment
3 Contextual meaning / context and inference - Utterance meaning - Deixis, reference
4 Cooperation and Implicature - The cooperative principle, Grices maxim - Conversational implicature, Relevance Theory - Conventional implicature
5 Speech Acts and Events - The speech act theory - Felicity conditions - Speech act classification
6 Politeness and Interaction - Politeness theory - Positive and negative face - Positive and negative politeness
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Pragmatics

• The study of meaning in context
• Situational context
• Linguistic context
• Social context
• Utterances not sentences
• Deixis
• Speech Acts
• Cooperation Principles Implicature
• Politeness

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Deixis

• Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) -
  pointing via language.
• Any linguistic form used to accomplish this
  pointing is called a deictic expression.
• When you notice a strange object and ask, Whats
  that?, you are using a deictic
  expression(that) to indicate something in the
  immediate context.
• Deictic expressions are also sometimes called
  indexicals. Yule, 1996 9

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• Person deixis Any expression used to point to a
  person (me, you, him, them)
• Place / Spatial deixis Words used to point to a
  location (here, there, yonder)
• Time / Temporal deixis used to point to a time
  (now, then, tonight, last week)
• All these deictic expressions have to be
  interpreted in terms of what person, place or
  time the speaker has in mind.
• There is a broad distinction between what is
  marked as close to the speaker (this, here, now)
  and what is marked as distant (that, there,
  then).
• It is also possible to mark whether movement is
  happening towards the speaker's location (come)
  or away from the speaker's location (go).

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• Temporal Deixis Tenses
• indicating past, present, and future time
• must also be regarded as deictic, because past,
  present, and future times are defined by
  reference to the time of utterance.
• The present tense - proximal form
• the past tense - distal form.
• The actual distance or proximity to be expressed
  means not only the distance from current time,
  but also distance from current reality or
  facts (Yule 1996, 14-15).
• Coding vs receiving time
• An utterance in present tense was produced
  during a temporal span including the coding
  time (Levinson 2005, 115).
• Past tense would mean that the event took place
  before the coding time.

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SPEECH ACT THEORY
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• Declarative sentences like
• Theres a snake in the grass
• may involve more than a description of the world

• The speaker could be
• guessing that there was a snake in the grass
• claiming ...
• warning the hearer that ...
• expressing his surprize that ...
• expressing his relief that there is ...

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• Language can be used not just for describing the
  thoughts and beliefs conveyed, but rather of the
  acts the speakers perform the illocutionary
  forces of uttrances.
• State
• Conclude
• Apologize
• Complain
• Reprimand
• Correct
• Offer
• Invite
• Greet
• Congratulate

We do things with words
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A speech act is an action performed by means of
language Ex. describing something ("It is
snowing.") asking a question ("Is it
snowing?") making a request or order ("Could you
pass the salt?", "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot
you!") making a promise ("I promise I'll give it
back.")
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We use language to do a wide range of
things. Ex. Conveying information The PM is
out of the country. Requesting information When
and where is the lecture? Giving orders Stand
up! Making requests Please, carry my
bags. Making threats Do that again, and Ill
send you to your room. Giving warnings Theres a
spider on your shoulder. Giving advice You ought
to go to the lectures every week. and so on...
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• A PERFORMATIVE utterance is one that actually
  describes the act that it performs, i.e. it
  PERFORMS some act and SIMULTANEOUSLY DESCRIBES
  that act.
• Which one is a performative and which is not?
  Why?
• I promise to repay you tomorrow
• John promised to repay me tomorrow

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• I promise to repay you tomorrow is performative
  because in saying it the speaker actually does
  what the utterance describes, i.e. he promises to
  repay the hearer the next day. That is, the
  utterance both describes and is a promise.
• John promised to repay me tomorrow, although it
  describes a promise, is not itself a promise.

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Performatives vs. Constatives

• Performatives Utterances that are used to do
  things or perform acts.
• 1. I pronounce you man and wife.
• 2. I sentence you to 50 years in prison.
• 3. I promise to drive you to Singapore.
• Austin initially also believes that Performatives
  can not be verified as true or false.
• Constatives Utterances that can be verified as
  true or false. These utterances were typically in
  the form of assertions or statements. The
  Michigan River sometimes freezes over.

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• PERFORMATIVE VERBS
• I assert that the Prime Minister is out of the
  country.
• I ask when and where is the lecture?
• I order you to stand up.
• I request that you carry my bags.
• I warn you that if you do that again, and Ill
  send you to your room.
• I warn you that theres a spider on your
  shoulder.
• I bet you fifty dollars that New Zealand will
  beat Australia in the Rugby World Cup.
• I advise you to go to the lectures every week.
• These sentences have verbs that state the speech
  act.
• These sentences are explicit performatives.
• These verbs are called performative verbs.
• These verbs can be used to perform the acts they
  name.

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Not every speech act has its own explicit
performative verb.. The performative
hypothesis Ex. Clean up this mess! This is an
impicit performative (no performative verb is
present) How can I define its communicative
intention / what kind of speech act is it?
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The hereby test One simple way to decide
whether a speech act is a performative (an
implicit performative) is to insert the word
hereby between subject and verb. If the
resulting utterance makes sense, then the speech
act is probably a performative. Hereby As a
result of this, by this means Ex Clean up this
mess! I hereby order you that you clean up this
mess. (ordering) Please, take out the garbage. I
hereby request you to take out the garbage.
(making a request)
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FELICITY CONDITIONS

• In order for a performative utterance to work,
  there are certain conditions that have to be met.
  
• Austin called these felicity conditionstheyre
  the conditions that must be in place for the act
  in question to come off successfully (or
  felicitously).

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FELICITY CONDITIONS The context and the
situation that allow us to recognize a speech act
as intended by the speaker. The conditions that
must be fulfilled for a speech act to be
satisfactorily performed or realized A sentence
must not only be grammatically correct, it must
also be felicitous , that is situationally
appropriate.
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FELICITY CONDITIONS

• Felicity conditions expected or appropriate
  circumstances for a speech act to be recognized
  as intended
• I sentence you to six months in prison
• - performance will be infelicitous if the speaker
  is not a judge in a courtroom

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Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary
Speech Acts

• Austin (1962) says that when a speaker utters a
  sentence, s/he may perform three types of acts
  locutionary act, illocutionary act and
  perlocutionary act.

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Locutionary Act

• The basic act of speaking
• Making meaningful utterance
• An act of uttering a sentence with a certain
  sense and reference, which is roughly equivalent
  to meaning in the traditional sense.
• The ?nal exam will be dif?cult.

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Ilocutionary Act

• an act of performing some action in saying
  something (e.g, warning)
• Is the speakers intention. What is said has a
  purpose in mind.
• An utterance either verbal or written with the
  purpose in mind to fulfill an intention or
  accomplish an action.
• Performing an Illocutionary act means issuing an
  utterance that carries an illocutionary
  force/point.

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Ilocutionary Act

• Examples of illocutionary forces would be
  accusing, promising, naming, ordering.
• (1) The ?nal exam will be dif?cult.
• By uttering (1), the speaker may be performing
  the act of informing, claiming, guessing,
  reminding, warning, threatening, or requesting.

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Perlocutionary Act

• What speakers bring about or achieve by saying
  something, such as convincing, persuading,
  deterring.
• (1) The ?nal exam will be dif?cult.
• By uttering (1), I may have achieved in
  convincing you to study harder for the ?nal exam

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• A sentence can be associated with several
  different illocutionary forces, depending on the
  discourse context.
• (3) I will send you an email next week.
• By uttering (3) the speaker can report a
  decision, and at the same time make a promise.

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Searles typology of speech acts
Searle grouped speech acts into five types
Illocutionary point Direction of point/fit Expressed psychological state
Representative words-to-world belief (speaker)
Directives world-to-words desire (addressee)
Commissives world-to-words intention (speaker)
Expressives none variable (speaker)
Declarations both none (speaker)

• Examples Match the examples to correct category
• Wow, great!
• Ill be back in five minutes.
• Chinese characters were borrowed to write other
  languages, notably Japanese, Korean and
  Vietnamese.
• Jury foreman We find the defendant not guilty.
• Turn the TV down.

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Searles typology of speech acts
Searle grouped speech acts into five types
Illocutionary point Direction of point/fit Expressed psychological state
Representative words-to-world belief (speaker)
Directives world-to-words desire (addressee)
Commissives world-to-words intention (speaker)
Expressives none variable (speaker)
Declarations both none (speaker)
Examples Match the examples to correct
category Expressives Wow, great! Commissives
Ill be back in five minutes. Representative
Chinese characters were borrowed to write other
languages, notably Japanese, Korean and
Vietnamese. Declarations Jury foreman We find
the defendant not guilty. Directives Turn the
TV down.
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Types of Illocutionary act

• Searle classifies Speech Acts into five
  categories
• 1.Assertives/ Representatives commit the Speaker
  to the truth of the expressed proposition. They
  have a truth value and express Speakers belief
  that p.
• Paradigm cases asserting, concluding, affirming,
  alleging, announcing, answering, attributing,
  claiming, classifying, concurring, confirming,
  conjecturing, denying, disagreeing, disclosing,
  disputing, identifying, informing, insisting,
  predicting, ranking, reporting, stating,
  stipulating.

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Searles speech act classification

• 2. Directives are Speech Acts which are attempts
  the Speaker makes in order to get the addressee
  engage in a certain action. They express
  Speakers wish that Hearer do the act A.
• Paradigm cases include requesting, questioning,
  advising, admonishing, asking, begging,
  dismissing, excusing, forbidding, instructing,
  ordering, permitting, requiring, suggesting,
  urging, warning.

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Searles speech act classification

• 3. Commissives commit Speaker to some future
  course of action. Speaker expresses the intention
  that Speaker do the act A.
• Paradigm cases comprise promising, threatening,
  offering, agreeing, guaranteeing, inviting,
  swearing, volunteering .

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Searles speech act classification

• 4. Expressives express Speakers attitude to a
  certain state of affairs specified (if at all) in
  the propositional content a variety of different
  psychological states propositional content must
  be related to Speaker or Hearer.
• Paradigm cases thanking, apologizing, welcoming,
  congratulating, condoling, greeting, accepting.

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Searles speech act classification

• 5. Declarations are Speech Acts which effect
  immediate changes in the institutional state of
  affairs and which tend to rely on elaborate
  extralinguistic institutions.
• Paradigm cases include excommunicating, declaring
  war, christening, marrying, firing from
  employment.

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• A single utterance can express two different
  illocutionary forces at the same time.
• (1) I will send you an email next week.
• By uttering (1), the speaker can report a
  decision, and at the same time make a promise.

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Indirect speech acts

• Searle also recognized the existence of indirect
  speech acts.
• In a direct speech act there is a direct
  relationship between its linguistic structure and
  the work it is doing.
• In indirect speech acts the speech act is
  performed indirectly through the performance of
  another speech act.

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• 1(a) Come in, please. is a direct request.
• 2(a) It is quite wrong to condone robbery. is a
  direct assertion against robbery.
• 3(a) You should go to the doctor. is a direct
  piece of advice.
• Performing an indirect speech act, the speaker
  utters a sentence which does not mean exactly
  what he or she says
• 1(b) Wont you come in? is not merely a Yes-No
  question. ? an indirect request made in a very
  concerned manner.
• 2(b) Is it right to condone robbery? is an
  indirect assertion against, robbery though it is
  in form of a Yes-No question.
• 3(b) Why dont you go to the doctor? is not
  used to ask for any reason. Instead, it is used
  to give an indirect piece of advice though it is
  in form of a Wh-question

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• Indirect speech acts are more polite than their
  direct counterparts. The more indirect a speech
  act is, the more polite it is.
• The most influential model of politeness is Brown
  and Levinsons face-saving-model.

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Politeness and interaction

• General idea of politeness
• fixed concept of social behavior/etiquette within
  a culture, involves certain general principles as
  being tactful, generous, modest, sympathetic
  towards others
• Narrower concept of politeness within an
  interaction
• face the public self-image of a person
  (emotional and social sense of self one has and
  expects everyone else to recognize)

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Politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987)

• Face is the public self image that every member
  wants to claim for himself.
• Individual's self-esteem (face) motivates
  strategies of politeness (solidarity, restraint,
  avoidance of unequivocal impositions).
• Within everyday social interaction people
  generally behave as if their expectations
  concerning their face wants (i.e. public
  self-image) will be respected
• Positive face
• Negative face

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Politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987)

• Positive face individuals desire to be accepted
  and liked by others positive self-image or
  personality
• Positive politeness orients to preserving the
  positive face of others.
• Speech strategies that emphasize solidarity with
  the addressee, e.g. claiming common ground,
  conveying that speaker and addressee are
  co-operators

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• Negative face individuals right of freedom of
  actions the basic claim to territories, personal
  preserves, rights to non-distraction -- i.e., to
  freedom of action and freedom from imposition
• Negative politeness orients to maintaining the
  negative face of others.
• Speaker tends to choose the speech strategies
  that emphasize his deference to the addressee.
• As rational agents, conversational participants
  will ideally try to preserve both their own face
  and the others in a verbal interaction.

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• Face-threatening acts (FTAs) are speech acts that
  intrinsically threaten face, for example
  complaints, disagreements and requests.
• Speaker says something that represents a threat
  to another individual's expectations regarding
  self-image.
• FTAs can threaten positive face (e.g.
  accusations, insults, criticism), negative face
  (e.g. orders, suggestions, requests) or both
  positive and negative face (e.g. complaints,
  threats)

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• Face saving act speaker says something to lessen
  a possible threat
• Situation Young neighbour is playing loud music
  late at night. Older couple cannot sleep.
• A I'm going to tell him to stop that awful noise
  right now!
• B Perhaps you could just ask him if he's going
  to stop soon because it's getting a bit late and
  people need to get to sleep.

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Indirect speech acts

• Which one does more to save the addressee's
  negative face?
• Could you pass the salt?
• Pass the salt.
• Is there a difference in positive politeness?

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Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson 1987)

• This theory holds that the speakers considering
  the performance of a speech act will generally
  choose more polite strategies in proportion to
  the seriousness of the act.
• There are four different levels of polite
  strategies that have the potential to gain the
  goal
• Bald on Record
• Positive Politeness
• Negative Politeness
• Off-record Strategy

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1.Bald on Record

• This strategy is a direct way of saying things,
  without any minimisation to the imposition, in a
  direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way.
• Directly address the other person to express your
  needs
• Using imperative forms
• Wash your hands
• Generally, however, bald on record expressions
  are associated with speech events where the
  speaker assumes he/she has power over the other -
  in everyday interaction between social equals
  they are avoided as face threatening acts

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2. Positive Politeness

• Acts of saving or protecting the hearer's
  positive face
• This strategy is directed to the addressee's
  positive face, her/his perennial desire that
  her/his wants - or the actions, acquisitions,
  values resulting from them - should be thought of
  as desirable.
• A face saving act concerned with the person's
  positive face will tend to show solidarity,
  emphasize that both speakers want the same thing
  and have a common goal
• e.g. strategies seeking common ground or
  co--operation, such as in jokes or offers
• Wash your hands, honey

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Positive Politeness Strategies

• St. 1 Noticing, attending to H
• St. 2 Exaggeration
• St. 3 Intensifying interest to H
• St. 4 Using in- group identity makers
• St. 5 Seeking agreement
• St. 6 Avoiding disagreement
• St. 7 Presupposition/ raise/ assert common ground
• St. 8 Joking
• St. 9 Asserting or presuppose Ss knowledge of
  and concern for Hs wants
• St. 10 Offering and promising
• St. 11 Being optimistic
• St. 12 Including both S and H in the activity
• St. 13 Giving (or ask) reasons
• St. 14 Assuming or asserting reciprocity
• St. 15 Giving gifts to H (goods, sympathy,
  understanding, cooperation)

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3. Negative Politeness

• Negative politeness attends to a person's
  negative face needs and includes indirectness and
  apologies. It expresses respect and
  consideration.
• A face saving act oriented to a person's negative
  face tends to show deference, emphasizes the
  importance of the other's time or concerns and
  may include an apology for the imposition

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3. Negative Politeness

• Strategy 1 Being conventionally indirect
• Strategy 2 Questioning, hedge
• Strategy 3 Being pessimistic
• Strategy 4 Minimizing the imposition
• Strategy 5 Giving deference
• Strategy 6 Apologizing
• Strategy 7 Impersonalising S and H
• Strategy 8 Stating the FTA as a general rule

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4. Off--record Strategy

• This strategy is the indirect strategy.
• It uses indirect language and removes the speaker
  from the potential to being imposing.
• statements not directly addressed to another
  person
• e.g. off-record strategies, which consist of all
  types of hints, metaphors, tautologies, etc.
• Gardening makes your hands dirty
• Uh, I forgot my pen.
• Where is the pen.
• Hmm, I wonder where I put my pen

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Conversational Implicature
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Cooperation and Implicature

• When people talk with each other, they try to
  converse smoothly and successfully.
• Cooperation is the basis of successful
  conversations.

• It is the expectation that the listener has
  towards the speaker.
• The speaker is supposed to convey  true
  statements and say nothing more than what is
  required.

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• The Cooperative Principle
• Imagine what would happen to language if there
  were no rules to follow during conversations.
• Then it would be perfectly acceptable to follow
  "Hi, how are you doing? with "cars are typically
  made from steel", or to simply lie with every
  statement you made.
• But then communication would be virtually
  impossible.

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• The Cooperative Principle
• Grice suggested that conversation is based on a
  shared principle of cooperation.
• One of the most basic assumptions we must make
  for successful communication to take place is
  that both people in a conversation are
  cooperating.

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Grices Cooperative Principles

• The Maxims of Conversation
• Quality Try to make your contribution one that
  is true
• Quantity Make your contribution as informative
  and no more so than is required.
• Relation Be relevant
• Manner Be perspicuous

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The maxims of the cooperative principle

• The maxim of quantity
• Make your contribution as informative as
  required
• Do not make your contribution more informative
  than required.
• The maxim of quality
• Do not say what you believe to be false
• Do not say that for which you lack adequate
  evidence.
• The maxim of relation
• Make your contribution relevant.
• The maxim of manner
• Be perspicuous, and specifically
• avoid obscurity
• avoid ambiguity
• be brief
• be orderly.

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The co-operative principle

• The overriding social rules which speakers follow
  in conversation.
• How it works
• The speaker observes the co-operative principle
  and the hearer assumes that the speakers follow
  it.

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Husband Where are the car keys? Wife Theyre
on the table in the hall. The wife has answered
clearly (manner) and truthfully (Quality), has
given just the right amount of information
(Quantity) and has directly addressed her
husbands goal in asking the question (Relation).
She has said precisely what she meant, no more
and no less.
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Implicatures

• Grices maxims (or, their violation) form the
  basis for inferences that we draw in
  conversation, which Grice called implicatures.
• Grice asserted that different ways of violating
  these maxims give rise to different types of
  implicatures.

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USING THE MAXIMS TO GENERATE IMPLICATURES

• Overview three ways to generate conversational
  implicatures
• 1. Observe the maxims
• 2. Violate the maxims
• 3. Flout the maxims

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1. Observing the maxims

• A I've run out of petrol.
• B There's a garage just round the
  corner.
•  
• If B's answer is relevant and informative, but
  not too informative (i.e. with useless,
  misleading information), it must connect to A's
  statement.

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2. Violating a maxim

• Violation, takes place when speakers
  intentionally refrain to apply certain maxims in
  their conversation to cause misunderstanding on
  their participants part or to achieve some other
  purposes.
• Mother Did you study all day long?
• Son who has been playing all day long Yes, Ive
  been studying till now!
•  
• In this exchange, the boy is not truthful and
  violates the maxim of quality. He is lies to
  avoid unpleasant consequences.

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3. Flouting a maxim

• The flouting of maxims takes place when
  individuals deliberately cease to apply the
  maxims to persuade their listeners to infer the
  hidden meaning behind the utterances that is,
  the speakers employ implicature.
• Teacher to a student who arrives late more than
  ten minutes to the class meeting
• Wow! Youre such a punctual fellow! Welcome to
  the class.
• Student Sorry sir! It wont happen again.
• The teacher ? teasing the student and his purpose
  ? praising him. He exploits the maxim of quality
  (being truthful) to be sarcastic.
• The student seems to notice the purpose behind
  the teachers compliment and offers an apology in
  return.

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3. Flouting a maxim

• Majid and Ali are talking on the phone
• Ali Where are you, Majid?
• Majid Im in my clothes.
• Majid tells the truth because it is expected that
  people are always in some clothes, yet he flouts
  the maxim of quantity because the information is
  insufficient for Ali.
• ?Humorous effect

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The flouting of the cooperative principle

• Assuming that the speaker is a bona fide
  (goodwill) speaker.
• Inference comes into play in the conversation.
• Flouting is effectively an invitation to find a
  new meaning, beyond what is said' -- one that
  makes the utterance co-operative after all
• Flouting is generally associated with particular
  rhetorical effects

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• Implicature can be considered as an additional
  conveyed meaning (Yule, 1996 35).
• It is attained when a speaker intends to
  communicate more than just what the words mean.
• It is the speaker who communicates something via
  implicatures and the listener recognizes those
  communicated meanings via inference.

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Presupposition Entailment
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What on earth is entailment?

• Examples of entailment for the sentence in (1)
  are represented in (2).
• (1) Rover chased three squirrels.
• (2) a. Something chased three squirrels.
• b. Rover did something to three squirrels.
• c. Rover chased three of something.
• d. Something happened.

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Entailment

• A logical relation between propositions.
• A proposition P entails a proposition Q, if and
  only if the truth of Q follows inescapably from
  the truth of P.
• e.g. if P is Pete killed the wasp and
• Q is The wasp died
• then if P is true, Q must also be true, and if Q
  is false, P must also be false.

The wasp died could not be true any time before
it was true that Pete killed the wasp.
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• The English sentence (14) is normally interpreted
  so that it entails the sentences in (15) but does
  not entail those in (16).(14) Lee kissed Kim
  passionately.
• (15)a. Lee kissed Kim.b. Kim was kissed by
  Lee.c. Kim was kissed.d. Lee touched Kim with
  her lips.
• (16)a. Lee married Kim.b. Kim kissed
  Lee.c. Lee kissed Kim many times.d. Lee did not
  kiss Kim.
• (Gennaro Chierchia and Sally McConnell-Ginet, Mean
  ing and Grammar An Introduction to Semantics.
  MIT Press, 2000)

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Entailment
P Q
Its a dog. Its an animal.
All dogs are purple My dog is purple.
P entails Q if it is the case that whenever P is
true, B is true. Test/Justification If there is
any situation where A can be true, and B might
not be true, then A does NOT entail B. If there
is no such situation, then A entails B. Step 1.
Assume that A is true. Step 2. Assume that B is
NOT true. Step 3. Check for contradiction. ? If
there is a contradiction, then A entails B. If
not, then A does not entail B.
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Contradiction

• Contradictory sentence A contradictory sentence
  (or a contradiction) is a sentence which is
  necessarily false, because of the senses of the
  words in the sentence. e.g.
• Elephants are not animals. 
• Cats are fish.    
• A man is a butterfly. 

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Analytic sentence

• Analytic sentences are generally
  self-explanatory.
• They often have little to no informative value ?
  redundant statements
• Frozen water is ice.
• Bachelors are unmarried men.
• Two halves make up a whole.
• No additional meaning or knowledge is contained
  in the predicate that is not already given in the
  subject.
• Analytic sentences tell us about logic and about
  language use. They do not give meaningful
  information about the world

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Synthetic Sentence

• Synthetic statements are based on our sensory
  data and experience.
• The truth-value of a synthetic statements cannot
  be figured out based solely on logic.
• Children wear hats.
• The table in the kitchen is round.
• My computer is on.
• A synthetic sentence is one which is not analytic
  or contradictory, but which may be true or false
  depending on the way the world is.

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Anomaly

• Refers to what happens when you break semantic
  rules and create nonsensical expressions.
• An example of a semantic anomaly would be the
  phrase the cat sewed the milk.
• It's not ungrammatical, but it is nonsensical
  since milk cannot be sewn, nor can cats sew with
  their tiny adorable paws, as far as we know!

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Presuppositions

• Presuppositions can be used to communicate
  information indirectly.
• If someone says My brother is rich, we assume
  that the person has a brother, even though that
  fact is not explicitly stated.
• Often, after a conversation has ended, we will
  realize that some fact imparted to us was not
  specifically mentioned.
• That fact is often a presupposition.

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Presuppositions

• The propositions or beliefs assumed by an
  utterance.Those people stopped smoking 
• presupposes that
• the designated people exist
• that the activity called smoking exists
• that that activity is known to the hearers and
• that the designated people habitually smoked in
  the past.

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• Your brother is waiting outside for you
• Presupposition ? you have a brother.
• Why did you arrive late?
• Presupposition ? you did arrive late.
• When did you stop smoking cigars?
• Presupposition
• you used to smoke cigars
• you no longer do so.

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• Questions like this, with built-in
  presuppositions, are very useful devices for
  interrogators or trial lawyers.
• If the defendant is asked by the prosecutor
• Okay, Mr. Smith, how fast were you going when
  you ran the red light?
• Presupposition Mr. Smith did, in fact, run the
  red light.
• If he simply answers the How fast part of the
  question, by giving a speed, he is behaving as if
  the presupposition is correct

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• When did you stop beating your wife?
• Presupposition The target of the question is
  married to someone he has beaten at some point in
  the past
• Find the presupposition for the following
  statements
• 1. John knows that Mary passed the exam.
• 2. Mary has stopped revising.
• 3. John didnt manage to pass the exam.
• 4. Mary is better at revising than John

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• 1. John knows that Mary passed the exam.
• Mary passed
• 2. Mary has stopped revising.
• Mary has revised previously.
• 3. John didnt manage to pass the exam.
• John tried to pass.
• 4. Mary is better at revising than John.
• Both Mary and John revised.

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Constant under negation

• One of the tests used to check for the
  presuppositions underlying sentences involves
  negating a sentence with a particular
  presupposition and considering whether the
  presupposition remains true.
• e.g. My car is a wreck.
• Take the negative version of this sentence
• My car is not a wreck.
• Notice that, although these two sentences have
  opposite meanings, the underlying presupposition,
  I have a car, remains true in both.
• This is called the constancy under negation test
  for presupposition.

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Constant under negation

• I used to regret marrying him, but I don't regret
  marrying him now
• The presupposition I married him remains constant
  even though the verb regret changes from being
  affirmative to being negative.
• John realized/didn't realize that he was in debt
• Presupposition John was in debt
• My cat loves sardines / My cat hates sardines
• Presupposition I have a cat

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Presuppositions

• Presuppositional information adds facts/beliefs
  to what is explicitly said
• Presuppositional information is that which is
  taken for granted
• My wife will go to London tomorrow
  (the speaker has a wife)
• My number is 212-555-1212 (the speaker has a
  telephone account)
• Im upset about being charged for a call to
  Ethiopia (the speaker was charged for a call to
  Ethiopia)
• Im a bachelor (the speaker is an unmarried male
  person)
• Test the negation and question presuppose the
  same thing
• Dianes children are nice.
• Dianes children arent nice.
  Diane has got some children
• Are Dianes children nice?

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Characteristics of presupposition

• The presupposition of an utterance remains the
  same under its NEGATION
• (1)a. John stopped smoking.
• (1)b. John didnt stop smoking.
• (1)a-b both presuppose that John once smoked
  cigarettes.
• (2)a. The dogs tail was cut.
• (2)b. The dogs tail wasnt cut.
• (2)a-b both presuppose that the dog had a tail.
• (3)a. I like his car.
• (3)b. I dont like his car.
• (3)a-b both presuppose that he owns a car.

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Characteristics of presupposition

• The presupposition of an utterance remains the
  same under its INTERROGATION
• (4)a. John stopped smoking.
• (4)b. Did John stop smoking?
• (4)c. Why did John stop smoking?
• (4)a-c all presuppose that John once smoked
  cigarettes.

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Practice

• What are the presuppositions for the following
  utterances?
• I lost my watch yesterday at Ipoh market.
• Emily was very sad when her turtle went missing.
• This is my youngest sister.
• The king of Sweden has just left for France.
• I wasnt aware that she was married.
• I dreamed that I was rich.
• Youre late again.
• I m going to change job.
• Who is going to give me a lift to the airport?
• You shouldnt have seen such a horror film.

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