Types of Inference:

Entailment, Presupposition, and

Implicature

Presented by: Kawtar Filahi

 Outline
• Entailment
• Presupposition
• Properties of presupposition
• Projection problem of presupposition
• Implicature
• Types of implicature
• A brief comparison
 Entailment
• Entailment:
• Is derived from Formal Logic
• Refers to a semantic relationship between a sentence and a proposition
that the sentence expresses.

• A sentence entails another sentence if whenever the first sentence is true the
other sentence is also true.

• Example:
Mary was not able to escape
ll- Mary did not escape
 Entailment
• Semantic entailment:
Entailment is seen as semantic in nature because it is not defeasible; it cannot
evaporate in any linguistic or non-linguistic context

• It defines many semantic relations which are:

Propositional equivalence ; Contradictory

The hut was hidden by the trees ; No one likes dark tourism
The hut was concealed by the trees ; At least someone likes dark tourism

Contradiction ; Contrariety
John isn’t married, but his wife ; This skirt is blue
is a feminist This skirt is red
 Presupposition

• Presupposition:
• Is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an
utterance

Example:
(a) Joe speaks English fast
(b) Joe speaks English
 Properties of Presupposition
• There are two major properties of presupposition:
1. Constancy under negation:

• When a presupposition of a statement remains constant even when

that statement is negated
Example:
(p) Jim is angry because Dave crashed the car
(q) Dave crashed the car p >>q
------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Not p) Jim is not angry because Dave crashed the car

(q) Dave crashed the car Not p >> q
 Properties of Presupposition
2. Defeasibility:
Presuppositions are cancelled if they are inconsistent with:

• Background assumptions or real world knowledge

(p) John died before he finishes his PhD
(q) John finishes his PhD p ~>> q

• Some verbs such as: tell, mention, ask, believe, think, etc.
• They can evaporate if they run contrary to what the immediate discourse tell
us
There is no king if France, therefore, the king of France is bald
~>> There is a king of France
 Projection problem of presupposition
The most important issue in accounting presuppositions is:
• Projection problem of presupposition:
• The meaning of some presuppositions doesn’t survive to become the meaning of
some complex sentences.

Example:
I imagined that Kelly was ill and nobody realized that she was ill
Nobody realized that Kelly was ill >> Kelly was ill
I imagined that Kelly was ill >> Kelly was not ill
 Implicature
• This notion was first introduced in the work of H.P. Grice
• Implicature has two types:

1. Conversational Implicature:
Refers to any meaning implied or expressed by, and understood from
the utterance of a sentence which is meant without being part of what is
said
Example
(a) Some of the tourists are admiring the view
(b) +> Not all/most/many tourists are admiring the view
 Implicature
• Conversational implicatures have some characteristics:
• Defeasibility
They can vanish in certain lgx or non-lgx contexts
• Non-Detachability
Any expression with the same semantic content tends to carry the same Conv.
Implicature
• Calculability
They can be derived via cooperative principles and its component maxims
• Non-Conventionality
Rely on what is said without being part of it
 Implicature
2. Conventional Implicature:
It is a non-truth-conditional meaning which arises from the conventional
features attached to particular lexical items and/or lgx constructions
-Those lexical or lgx constructions could be: but, therefore, even…

Example:

John is poor but he is honest (Contrast)

Even a child can scoff all small bananas (Contrary to expectations)
Lihua is a chines; she, therefore, knows how to us chopsticks (Follows)
 Implicature

• Conventional implicatures have some characteristics:

• They are attached by convention to particular lexical items

• They are not calculable but given by convention

• They are not defeasible; they cannot be cancelled

• They do not tend to be universal

 A brief Comparison
• Comparing between semantic entailment, presuppositions, conversational
an conventional implicatures in terms of:
• Defeasibility:
Semantic entailment and conventional implicature are not defeasible; most cases of
presuppositions and all cases of conversational implicatures are defeasible
• Negation:
Presupposition can survive negation, but entailment cannot
• Conventionality:
Semantic entailment (falls in semantics) > conventional implicature > presupposition >
conversational implicature (more sided to pragmatics)
• Semantics vs pragmatics
Conventional implicature can be considered either pragmatics or semantics depending
on how the boundary between semantics and pragmatics is placed
Thank you for your attention !