Introduction to Pragmatic

Presupposition

Arranged by: Ni Kadek Catri Dwi Cahyanti (213020)

ENGLISH EDUCATION
STKIP AGAMA HINDU AMLAPURA
2022
 Foreword

Om Swastyastu

Praise and gratitude the author goes to Ida Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa, because thank

you to His mercy and grace the author was able to complete the assignment of a paper with

the title Indonesian Culture on time. The purpose of writing this paper is to fulfill the task of

one of the compulsory subjects, namely Introduction to Pragmatic. The author does not forget

to thank Mr. Eka Dwi Putra, S.Pd., M.Pd. for the guidance that has been given so that the

author can complete this paper smoothly.

The author is fully aware that the preparation of this paper is far from perfect.

Therefore, constructive criticism and suggestions will be very helpful in carrying out the next

assignment. The author hopes that this paper will be useful for the readers. Finally, the author

says thank you.

Om Santi, Santi, Santi Om

Karangasem, 7 October 2023

Writer

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 TABLE OF CONTENT

Foreword i
TABLE OF CONTENT ii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Formulation
1.3 Objectives
1.4 Benefits
CHAPTER 2: DISCUSSION
2.1 Introduction ( entailment, presupposition, implicature)
2.2 Defining Presupposition
2.3 Properties of Presupposition
2.4 Presupposition Types
2.5 Presupposition Examples
CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

3.1 Conclusion
3.2 Recommendation
REFERENCES

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background

1.2 Problem Formulation

Based on the background that has been written, the following is the formulation of the
problem that can be determined in the writing of this paper, namely as follows:

1.3 Objectives
Based on the formulation of the problem, the following are the objectives of writing this
paper, including:

1.4 Benefits
The benefits expected from writing this paper are as follows:

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 CHAPTER 2: DISCUSSION
2.1 Introduction
1. Introduction

When one reads or hears pieces of language, one normally tries to understand not
only what the words mean, but what the writer or the speaker of those words intend
to convey. One of the principal difficulties that one faces when dealing with aspects
of language is how to distinguish between entailment and presupposition. These
two concepts are described and examined for the reason that they seem to provide
the basis for answering a number of questions both about speaker- commitment and
sentence meaning. As a matter of fact, presupposition is what the speaker assumes
to be the case prior to making an utterance whereas entailment is what logically
follows from what is asserted in the utterance.

The study deals with the notion of entailment, its types, i.e., background and
foreground, as well as the relation between entailment and hyponymy. On the other
hand, the research tackles the concept of presupposition showing its nature,
properties, the difference between this notion and some concepts like synonymy
and supposition, in addition to demonstrating the six kinds of presupposition. More
specifically, this study attempts to reveal the relation between entailment and
presupposition.

This study aims at:

1. Assessing Iraqi EFL university students’ achievement in recognizing entailment

and presupposition.

2. Identifying the points of difficulty which Iraqi EFL university student encounter
in using entailment and presupposition.

3. Finding out the reasons beyond students’ errors and the suitable solutions posited
to deal with such errors.

In view of the preceding aims, it can be hypothesized that:

1. Most Iraqi EFL university students are unable to differentiate between entailment
and presupposition.

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2. The performance of both of the groups of students that have undertaken the first
test is close.

3. The achievement of the experimental group that had been given lessons in this
topic is anticipated to be better than that of the control group in the second try.

The researcher adopts the following steps in order to achieve the objectives of this
study.

1. Producing, as far as possible, a comprehensive exposition of entailment and

presupposition depending on the literature available in this field.

2. A test has been submitted to Iraqi EFL university students in order to pinpoint
the problems and difficulties that they may face in using entailment and
presupposition.

3. Analyzing the results of the test, on the bases of which conclusions have been
presented.

This study is limited to third year students, Department of English, College of

Education, University of Babylon during the academic year (2007-2008). The third
year students have been selected because they have been taught this topic during a
course given to them.

2. Entailment

Entailment is a term derived from formal logic and now often used as part of the
study of semantics. All the other essential semantic relations like equivalence and
contradiction can be defined in terms of entailment. Crystal (1998: 136) defines it as
"a term refers to a relation between a pair of sentences such that the truth of the
second sentence necessarily follows from the truth of the first, e.g. I can see a dog
entails

'I can see an animal'. One can not both assert the first and deny the second".

Lyons (1977: 85) points out that entailment is "a relation that holds between P and
Q where P and Q are variables standing for propositions such that if the truth of Q
necessarily follows from the truth of P (and the falsity of Q necessarily follows

6
from the falsity of P), then P entails Q". Thus, Lyons treats entailment from a
logical point of view. For instance, the sentence John is a bachelor entails three
other sentences as follows:

1.a. John is unmarried. b. John is male.

c. John is adult.

The relations between such words as bachelor and unmarried, male, adult can be
handled in truth-conditional terms (Kempson, 1977: 38). The truth conditions in
John is a bachelor are included in the conditions for John is unmarried, John is
male and John is adult. It should be clear from this example that entailment here is
not being used in the sense of material implication, which does not necessarily
correspond exactly to the use of anything found in natural language, it is valid
because of the truth functions assigned to it. We have here strict implication which
involves truth in all possible worlds. Hence, to say that John is a bachelor entails
'John is unmarried' is to say that in all possible worlds, if the first is true, the second
is true (Palmer, 1988: 203).

According to Yule (2000: 33), there are two types of entailment: background
entailment and foreground entailment. In the example:

2. Bob chased three rabbits.

The speaker is necessarily committed to the truth of a very large number of

background entailments, only some of them are presented as follows:

3.a. Someone chased three rabbits

b. Bob did something to three rabbits

c. Bob chased three of something

d. Something happened

On any occasion of utterance (2), the speaker will indicate how

these entailments are to be ordered, i.e., the speaker will communicate which
entailment is assumed to be more important for interpreting intended meaning, than
any others. For instance, in uttering sentence (4a) below, the speaker indicates that
the foreground entailment is that Bob chased a certain number of rabbits:-

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4. a. Bob chased THREE rabbits. b. BOB chased three rabbits.

In (b), the focus shifts to Bob, and the main assumption is that 'someone chased
rabbits'.

Hence, there is a simple pragmatic rule to bear: the background entailments of a

sentence are assumed to be not relevant in the context, what is assumed to be
relevant, and thus the "point" of saying the sentence, is whatever information has to
be added to the background to obtain the foreground, i.e., 'Bob chased three rabbits'
(Levinson, 1997: 219). Consider another example:

5.a. John is married to Sarah

b. John is married to Sarah (foreground entailment) c. John is married to someone

(background entailment) d. John has some property.

The first utterance with heavy stress on Sarah determines the focal scale or chain of
entailments. This scale is obtained by substituting existentially

quantified variables or someone for constituents in the sentences, starting with the
focus constituent, here Sarah.

The entailments that were looked at so far are lexical in origin, that is, they are
derived from the lexical relationship between individual words. But entailment can
also be syntactic in origin. Active and passive versions of the same sentence will
entail one another (Finch, 2000: 164), for example:

6.a. John killed Bill.

b. Bill was killed by John.

These sentences mutually entail each other.

Kempson (1977: 80) states that "a relation of entailment arises

between two assertions whenever an argument or predicate in one assertion is

hyponymous to an argument or predicate in the other". Thus, there is a precise
correspondence between entailment and hyponymy. "If two assertions differ only
in the substitution of a hyponym for a superordinate term, then one of the assertions
entails the other" (Allan, 1986: I 181)

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Thus, hyponymy involves entailment. For instance, the utterance This is a tulip
entails This is a Flower and This is scarlet entails This is red. This is true since
hyponymy is the relationship between specific and general lexical items so that the
former is included in the latter (Zuber, 2002: 2).

Another example is the following pair of sentences: 7.a. Jack killed Ann.

b. Ann died.

The entailment here is a consequence of the semantic relationship between 'kill' and
'die'. Since one of the possible ways in which one dies can be through being killed
(Lyons, 1977: 180).

Crouch (2003: 11) states a special type of entailment called the metaphorical
entailment which is " the imparting of a characteristic of the source domain (the
metaphorical image) to the target domain (the concept receiving metaphorical
treatment) by logical means".

Here are some examples of metaphorical entailment (Zuber, 2000: 4):-

8.a. He strayed from the line of argument. b. Do you follow my argument?

c. I'm lost.

d. You're going around in circles.

As a matter of fact, there are some semantic relations that can be

defined in terms of entailment, one of which is contradiction "If a sentence is said

to entail the negation of the other then they are said to be contradictories" (Smith
and Wilson, 1980: 152), for instance:

9.a. No one has led a perfect life. b. Someone has led a prefect life.

Whenever (9a) is true, (9b) must be false, and whenever (9b) is true, (9a) must be
false.

Another semantic relation is paraphrase. It is, according to Hurford and Heasley

(1996: 112), a special symmetric case of entailment, both of which are sense
relations between sentences and they are systematically connected with such sense
properties of sentences as analyticity and contradiction.

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Hence, the basis of semantic description is the notion of entailment. Many
problems of semantics can be solved by assuming that the meaning of a sentence is
a structured, partially ordered, set of entailments, with the structure being
determined by a combination of syntactic, lexical, phonological and logical
considerations.

4. Implicature

Conversational implicatures are pragmatic inferences: unlike entailments and

presuppositions, they are not tied to the particular words and phrases in an
utterance but arise instead from contextual factors and the understanding that
conventions are observed in conversation. The theory of conversational
implicatures is attributed to Paul Herbert Grice, who observed that in conversations
what is meant often goes beyond what is said and that this additional meaning is
inferred and predictable. As an illustration of what Grice was talking about,
consider the sentence in (1).

(1) John ate some of the cookies

The sentence in (1) expresses the proposition that John ate a portion of the cookies
and is true just in case it corresponds to the outside world. Intuitively, all of the
cookies still constitutes a portion of the cookies. So the sentence in (1) is true even
if in the outside world John ate all of the cookies. However, something interesting
happens when this sentence is uttered in a conversation like (2).

(2) A: “John ate some of the cookies”

B: “I figured he would. How many are left?”

It is clear from (2) that A conveys the literal meaning of the sentence in (1), i.e., its
semantic content. It is equally clear that A implies — or at least B infers — the
proposition expressed by (3).

(3) John didn’t eat all of the cookies

You might suspect that what the word some really means is something like a
portion but not all, so that the sentence in (1) literally means that John ate a portion

10
but not all of the cookies and (1) entails (3). Let me show you that this is not the
case by comparing the sentences in (4).

(4) a. John ate some of the cookies;

# in fact, he ate none of the cookies

b. John ate some of the cookies;

in fact, he ate all of the cookies

In (4a), I cannot follow the sentence John ate some of the cookies with the sentence
in fact, he ate none of the cookies because the second sentence contradicts the first
sentence. In other words, there is no way in which the world could correspond to
both sentences simultaneously. However, no such contradiction arises

1in (4b) and the two sentences are mutually consistent. This proves that (1) does not
entail (3). If it did, there would be a contradiction. That leaves us with an intriguing
puzzle. The meaning of (3) is not part of the literal meaning of (1) and yet it is
implicated by the utterance of (1). It is a systematic inference by the addressee, one
the speaker does not try to discourage and therefore must intend. We note this
inference using the symbol +>, illustrated in (5).

(5) John ate some of the cookies

+> John didn’t eat all of the cookies

This inference obtains through a special reasoning process, one that relies on our
understanding of the conventions of communicative exchanges—or conversations.
Let ’ s assume the speaker and addressee are in some sense cooperating in this
exchange to make it smoother and beneficial to both. The speaker utters the
sentence in (5) and in so doing conveys its literal meaning. The speaker (in the
spirit of cooperation) is being as informative as he can in the exchange and the
addressee (assuming he is being cooperative) believes this. The addressee reasons
that if the speaker had known John ate all the cookies, he would have said so. Since
the speaker did not say so, then he must know otherwise. In other words, the
speaker must know that John didn’t eat all of the cookies. So the addressee infers—
from what the speaker said, from what the speaker didn’t say, and from the way in
which cooperative exchanges take place—that John didn’t eat all of the cookies.

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2. Grice’s Theory of Conversational Implicatures

Grice proposed that participants in a communicative exchange are guided by a

principle that determines the way in which language is used with maximum
efficiency and effect to achieve rational communication. He called it the
Cooperative Principle, defined in (6).

(6) The Co-operative Principle

Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it

occurs, by the

accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.

This cooperative principle is an umbrella term for nine components that guide how
we communicate. These nine components are grouped together into four categories,
called the Maxims of Conversation: the maxim of quality (truthfulness), the maxim
of quantity (informativeness), the maxim of relation (relevance), and the maxim of
manner (perspicuity).

(7) The Maxims of Quality

i. Do not say what you believe to be false

ii. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

(8) The Maxims of Quantity

i. Make you contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of

the exchange)

ii. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

(9) The Maxims of Relation Be relevant

(10) The Maxims of Manner

i. Avoid obscurity of expression

ii. Avoid ambiguity

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iii. Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)

iv. Beorderly

Following the cooperative principle and its maxims ensures that in an exchange, the
right amount of

information is provided and that the exchange is conducted in a truthful, relevant,

perspicuous fashion. The theory is abbreviated in (11).

(11) Grice’s Theory of Conversational Implicatures (abridged)

i. The Cooperative Principle

ii. The Maxims of Conversation

Quality Quantity Relation Manner

Try to make your contribution one that is true

Make your contribution as informative and no more so than is required. Be relevant

Be perspicuous

In a conversation, the speaker may do one of four things with regards to the
cooperative principle and the maxims. These are listed in (12).

(12) i.

ii. The speaker may opt out of a maxim by using a phrase that eliminates or
mitigates the effect

The speaker may observe the maxims—this is the default assumption.

of the maxims and signals this to the addressee—this phrase is called a hedge.

iii. The speaker may flout a maxim, to the full knowledge of the addressee

iv. The speaker may violate a maxim, e.g., lie.

If the speaker chooses to do the last, (12iv), he is ignoring the cooperative principle
without giving the addressee a cue that he is doing so. We will ignore this
altogether as it is impossible to predict anything from it and so no systematic

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 analysis can result from it. The remaining three are of interest, especially (12i). In
particular, Grice’s theory relies on a fundamental assumption in (13).

(13) Fundamental Assumption

It is assumed that at some level, the speaker is always observing the cooperative
principle, even if this is not evident from what is literally said, i.e., what is literally
said does not coincide with the maxims. Observing the maxims at a non-literal
level triggers a standard conversational implicature, sometimes called a
conversational implicatureO.

This just means that if the addressee assumes the speaker is following the maxims,
but that this is not evident at a literal level, then the addressee infers additional
meaning (in the form of an implicature) to make up the difference. In other words,
what is literally said + the implicature together satisfy the maxims.

2.2 Defining Presupposition

Presupposition is defined as a proposition or inference whose truth is taken for
granted in the utterance of a sentence.5 Its main function is to act as a preconditionof
some sort for the appropriate use of that sentence. This background assumption will
remain in force when the sentence that contains it is negated. The German
mathematician and logician Gottlob Frege is generally recognised as the first scholar
in modern times who (re)introduced the philosophical study of presupposition (see
especially Frege 1892), though the notion of presupposition may go back at least as far
as the mediaeval philosopher Petrus Hispanus (see e.g. Huang 2007).

Presupposition is usually engendered by the use of particular lexical items and/or

linguistic constructions. Lexical items and linguistic constructions that give rise to
presuppositions are called presupposition triggers. While presupposition has in
general been regarded as ‘a heterogeneous collection of quite distinct and different
phenomena’ (Levinson 1983: 217) since Karttunen (1973), a list of its representative

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 examples may be given in (16) – (23) (see e.g. Levinson 1983, Atlas 2005, Huang 2007).
(I use the symbol ‘>>’ to stand for ‘presuppose’.

The positive and negative versions of the examples are separated by ‘/’, and the
lexical presupposition triggers are italicised.) What makes presuppositions special?
That is, to the extent that presuppositions are just a part of the conventional meaning
of some expressions, what makes them sufficiently distinctive that they merit their
own entries in handbooks and encyclopedias, as well as many hundreds of other
articles and book chapters elsewhere? First, presuppositions are ubiquitous. And
second, there are various respects in which the behavior of presuppositions differs
sharply from other aspects of meaning.

2.3 Properties of Presupposition

Presuppositions exhibit two main properties: constancy under negation and
defeasibility. In addition, certain cases of defeasibility give rise to what is known as
the projection problem of presupposition.

 Constancy under negation

By constancy under negation is meant that a presupposition generated by the

use of a lexical item or a syntactic structure remains the same when the sentence
contain- ing that lexical item or syntactic structure is negated (e.g. Strawson 1952).
Using constancy under negation as diagnostic or Constancy under negation the
feature of the presupposition of an utterance by virtue of which it remains constant
or true even when the statement is negated.

Utterance of a sentence S presupposes a proposition p if

1. Marry cat is cute

>>>Marry exists, she has a cat
2. Marry cat is not cute
>>>Marry exists, she has a cat

 Defeasibility

They are cancelled if they are inconsistent with :

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 1. background assumptions

2. conversational implicature,

3. specific discourse context.

Moreover, they can also disappear in certain intrasentential contexts, some

of which give rise to the problem of presuppositional projection. Defeatism is
generally considered to be the second most important presupposed trait.

First, presuppositions can be lost if there are inconsistencies with

background assumptions or real-world knowledge.

1. John earned an assistant professor position before he completed his

Ph.D.
>> John completed his Ph.D.

2. John died before he completed his Ph.D.

>>> John completed his Ph.D.

Second, presumptions can be invalidated by inconsistent conversational im.

1. If Susan dances on the table, her mother will not be happy that she did it.
+>Maybe Susan has danced on a table, maybe she hasn't
>>> Susan has been dancing on the table.

Third, presuppositions can be canceled contextually, that is, they can

evaporate.meaning if it contradicts what the immediate discourse context tells us.

1. ->> There was a French king

2.4 Presupposition types

1. The existential presupposition

This presupposition indicated the existence of something, by not only

the possessive construction, but also the noun phrase.

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 For example:

The boy next door has the new car.

This statement presupposes that there is a boy next door and he is exist.

2. The factive presupposition

This presupposition assumes something that is true, real, and followed

by the verbs by the word regret, no, be aware, and realize.

For example:

- I regret leaving the party.

In this sentence, after the verb "regret" there is a statement said which is
presupposed to be true that i left the party.

3. The non-factive presupposition

This kind of presupposition is associated with something that is not true,

they are followed by the words like dreamed, pretended, and imagine.

For example:

- I dreamed that i was famous

Which presupposes that i wasn't famous.

4. The lexical presupposition

In this presupposition, by using one word the speaker can act as

some other meaning can also be understood.

For example:

- Mary stopped skating at weekends.

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 In this sentence we can presuppose that Mary used to skate at weekends so the
information given after the verb "stop", this information indicates that this
action or this presupposition shows that something that was going for a long
time before, until and unless it was stopped, so it also presupposes.

5. The structural presupposition

There are the structures that treats the information as presuppose and
they are accepted by the listener for example the WH Question ( When,
Where, Who, etc.)

If i ask someone that "when did she die?" this also presupposes that she
died, that is necessarily true that she died. A part of the question part if we
pardon it for, a while that when she die, we have a presupposition after the
question part that she died.

6. The counter-factual presupposition

The counter factual presupposition, which assumes something that is

not only untrue but they're also contrary to the reality or the fact.

For example:

- If you were happy you would've smile.

The part of "if" negates or gives the information that something he has
stated is not true but also contrary to the fact that he has stated.

It means that you are not happy.

Generally in this type of the counter-factual presupposition there are the

conditional sentences If and then there is statement and that statement is
contrary.

So if say that "If the doctor had arrived on time, the patient would not
have died" which gives a presupposition that the doctor hasn't arrived on
time and the end result or the effect we have nothing to do with that the
patient had died that is the fact. But if portion of this statement presupposes
that something that contrary to the fact that he hasn't arrived on time, that
you are not happy. These kinds of things called the counter-factual
presupposition.

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2.5 Presupposition Examples

1. Existential Presupposition

Existential presupposition involves assuming the existence or non-

existence of certain entities.

See these examples :


Nita found the cat. (Presupposes that there is indeed a cat.)

The bike needs repairs. (Presupposes that the bike exists.)

Mael found the missing keys. (Presupposes that there were keys that
were missing.)
 Lidya sold her house. (Presupposes that Lidya had a house to sell.)
2. Factive Presupposition

Factive presupposition implies that a certain statement or action is

known or accepted as a fact.

Examples:


Vino regrets eating the entire cake. (Presupposes that Vino indeed ate
the entire cake.)
 The professor denies the accusations. (Presupposes that there are
accusations made against the professor.)
 Dion stopped his friend's argument. (Presupposes Dion friend is
fighting)
 He hit his opponent back. (Presupposes he was beaten)
3. Non-Factive Presupposition

Non-factive presupposition implies that the speaker acknowledges or

entertains an idea or statement without endorsing its truthfulness.

See these examples:

 Bitha thinks angel are real. (Presupposes that Peter holds the belief in
the existence of angel, but it doesn’t imply that angel are real.)
 The article claims that aliens have visited Earth. (Presupposes that the
article makes the claim, but it doesn’t guarantee the truthfulness of the
claim.)
4. Structural Presupposition

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 Structural presupposition stems from the way sentences are
structured, implying certain background information.

Examples:

She stopped smoking. (Presupposes that she used to smoke.)

The key to success is hard work. (Presupposes that there is, in fact, a
key to success.)
 The book that I bought is interesting. (Presupposes that the speaker
bought a book.)
 They blamed each other for the accident. (Presupposes that there was
an accident and both parties were involved.)
5. Lexical Presupposition
6. Counter-Factual Presupposition

Counter-factual presupposition implies that the presupposed situation

does not align with reality.

Examples:

 If I were taller, I could reach the top shelf. (Presupposes that the speaker
is not tall enough to reach the top shelf.)
 She would have passed the exam if she had studied. (Presupposes that
she did not study and therefore did not pass the exam.)

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 CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1 Conclusion
1. Introduction

When one reads or hears pieces of language, one normally tries to understand not only what
the words mean, but what the writer or the speaker of those words intend to convey. One of
the principal difficulties that one faces when dealing with aspects of language is how to
distinguish between entailment and presupposition. These two concepts are described and
examined for the reason that they seem to provide the basis for answering a number of
questions both about speaker- commitment and sentence meaning. As a matter of fact,
presupposition is what the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance
whereas entailment is what logically follows from what is asserted in the utterance.

2. Entailment

Entailment is a term derived from formal logic and now often used as part of the study of
semantics. All the other essential semantic relations like equivalence and contradiction can be
defined in terms of entailment.

3. Presupposition

Presupposition plays an important role in the production and comprehension of speech act. It
is defined from different points of view, each of which is similar to each other in some way
or another.

4. Implicature

Conversational implicatures are pragmatic inferences: unlike entailments and presuppositions,

they are not tied to the particular words and phrases in an utterance but arise instead from
contextual factors and the understanding that conventions are observed in conversation.

3.2 Recommendation
In writing this paper, the author realizes that there are still many shortcomings in the
contents of this paper. Therefore, the author really needs suggestions and constructive
criticism from readers. But besides that, the author also hopes that this paper can be useful for
all readers. Finally, the author says thank you.

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