Thảo luận nhóm TMU DISCUSSION PRAGMATICS TOPIC PRESUPPOSITION AND ENTAILMENT

Potential presupposition is divided into 6 types : existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical presupposition,structural presupposition, non-factive presupposition, count

THUONGMAI UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH -

 -DISCUSSION

PRAGMATICS

TOPIC:

PRESUPPOSITION AND

ENTAILMENT

Supervisor: Pham Thuy Giang Class: 2214ENTH2931

Group: 4

Ha Noi, 2022

EVALUATE MEMBERS OF GROUP 4

1 Bùi Thị Huyền - Exercise

2 Lê Thanh Huyền - One-way and Two-way

entailment

3 Nguyễn Thị Khánh - 1.3 Types of presupposition

- Edit word

4 Hồng Vân Linh - Background and Foreground

Entailment

5 Đinh Nhật Minh -Characteristics of

presupposition

- Build Outline

6 Nguyễn Thị Mơ - Introduction

- Definition of presupposition

7 Nguyễn Lê Na - Definition and Characteristics

of entailment

8 Thanh Hoài - Comparison between

presupposition and entailment

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I Introduction 1

II Contents 2

1 Presupposition 2

1.1 Definition 2

1.2 Characteristics 3

1.3 Types of presupposition 4

2 Entailment 7

2.1 Definition 7

2.2 Characteristics 8

2.3 Background and Foreground Entailment 9

2.4 One-way and Two-way entailment 10

3 Comparison between presupposition and entailment 11

4 Exercise 11

III Conclusion 17

IV Reference 17

I INTRODUCTION

It would be acknowledged that pragmatics plays a fundamental role in the conversation According to research, there is a wide variety of definitions of pragmatics specifically, from the perspectives of Yule (1996), pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning or contextual meaning Furthermore, it is supposed to be the study of the expression

of relative distance or it is also the study of how more gets communicated than is said According to Levinson (1983), pragmatics is the study of deixis, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and aspects of discourse structure Moreover, the ability to comprehend and produce a communicative act is referred to as pragmatic competence (Kasper, 1997) In conclusion, pragmatics is the study of the relationships between linguistic forms and the users of those forms

It can be shown that there are no denying a range of benefits of pragmatics Learners can offer an opportunity to cognitive development or they can stand a better chance to raise pragmatic awareness and give them choices about their interpretations in the target language Furthermore, it is essential for learners to maintain their own cultural identities and to engage more fully in target language communication and accumulate control of the force and outcome of their contribution

On the one hand, presupposition and entailment were considered to be central to pragmatics According to research, there are a number of different views on presupposition and entailment as well as a variety of their characteristics and genres So what is involved in presupposition and entailment, it is clarified through the study below

1 Presupposition

1.1 Definition

Presupposition is the assumption the speaker makes about what the hear is likely to accept without challenge According to Richards et al., 1987:228; presupposition is “what a speaker or writer assumes that the receiver of the message already knows”

Example: Why did Lily stop playing with her toys?

Presupposes: + Lily stopped playing with her toys

+ Lily did play with her toys

Moreover, presuppositions are deemed to the inferences about what is assumed to be true in the utterance rather than directly asserted to be true

Example:

“John borrowed Hanna’s pencil” directly asserts “John borrowed Hanna’s pencil”

“Hanna has a pencil” presupposes “John borrowed Hanna’s pencil”

Whether we negate or question the above statement, the presupposition is guaranteed

to be correct

Example:

“John didn’t borrow Hanna’s pencil”

“Did John borrow Hanna’s pencil”

-> It would be acknowledged that Hanna has at least one pencil.

Besides, from the perspectives of Fromkin and Rodman, speaker often make implicit assumptions about the real world, and the sense of an utterance may depend on those assumptions, which some linguists term presuppositions

Example: A and B know who Mina and Monica are, that Mina likes to have a dog on her birthday, and that Monica owns a pet store.

A: What about giving Linda a dog for her birthday?

B: Good idea! Let adopt one from Jame’s store

Presuppositions can be used to communicate information indirectly This can be evidenced by the fact that if someone says “My cat is cute” The person has a cat, even though that fact is not explicitly stated Much of the information that is exchanged in a conversation or discourse is of this kind After a conversation has ended, it is realized that some fact imparted to us was not specifically mentioned The fact is often a presupposition

1.2 Characteristics

1.2.1 The presupposition of an utterance remains the same under its negation

Example:

(1) A Nam’s book is interesting

B Nam’s book isn’t interesting

A- B both presuppose that Nam has a book

(2) A David love my phone

B David doesn’t love my phone

A-B presuppose that I own a phone

1.2.2 The presupposition of an utterance remains the same under its interrogation

Example:

A His brother stopped playing games

B Did his brother stop playing games?

C Why did his brother stop playing games?

A-B-C presuppose that his brother once played games

1.2.3 The presupposition of an utterance may be cancelled under its extension.

A Thomas didn’t feel regret taking part in English course

B Thomas didn’t feel regret taking part in English course because he needs to improve his

English score.

A presupposes that Thomas took part in English course while B presupposes that he took

the English test.

1.3 Types of presupposition

It has been explained that presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be case prior of making utterances (Yule, 1996:25) He also stated that presupposition has been associated with the use of a large number of words, phrases, and structure (Yule, 1996: 27)

These linguistics forms are considered as indicators of potential presupposition which can only become actual presupposition in context with speaker A potential presupposition is

an assumption typically associated with the use of a linguistic form (words, phrases, structure)

Potential presupposition is divided into 6 types : existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical presupposition,structural presupposition, non-factive presupposition, counter-factual presupposition

1.3.1 Existential presupposition

By using any of the expressions in, the speaker is assumed to be committed to the existence of the entities named

It is assumed to be present in possessive constructions and in any definite noun

phrase

Example

*Possessive constructions

-My mother’s dress is gorgeous (We can presuppose that My mother exists and that she has

a dress)

-Your book is torn (we can presuppose that You exist and that you have a book)

*Definite noun phrase

-The photos were disappeared ( Presupposes that the existence of the entities it refer to, in

this case the “Photos”)

-The covid-19 Pandemic is breaking out (Presupposes that the existence of the entities it

refers to, in this case the “Covid-19 Pandemic)

1.3.2 Factive presupposition

It is the assumption that is true and can identify by some verbs such as “know,

realize’, regret, be, aware, odd , and, glad”.

Example

She regret lying her mom (she lied)

She didn’t realize that Peter was wrong (Peter was wrong)

He was glad that his mother gave him a laptop (his mother gave him a laptop)

1.3.3 Lexical presupposition

It is the presupposition that use of one word with is asserted meaning is conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that another (non; asserted) meaning is understood Other examples involving the lexical presupposition are: ‘stop’, ‘start’, ‘again’

Example

She stopped talking (She used to talk)

You make mistakes again (You made mistakes before)

They start learning (They weren’t complaining before)

1.3.4 Structural Presupposition

It is the assumption associated with the use of certain words and phrase and assumed

to be true, for example, WH question construction in English are conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that the information after the WH - form is already known to be case

Example

When did you book the flight? (You booked the flight)

Where did you organize the party? (you organized the party)

1.3.5 Non - factive presupposition

It is the assumption that is assumed not to be true and which is identified by presence

of some verb such as ‘dream’, ‘image’, ‘pretend’ Those are used with presupposition that what is not true

Example

I dreamed that I could fly (I can’t fly)

We imagined that we were in Nha Trang ( We weren’t in Nha Trang)

He pretends not to be at home ( He is at home)

1.3.6 Counter-factual presupposition

It is the assumption that what is presupposition is not only untrue, but it is opposite of what is presupposed is not only untrue, but it is opposite of what is true, or contrary to fact For instance, some conditional structure, generally called counterfactual conditionals

presuppose that the information in if-clause is not at the time of utterances.

Example

If I were you, I wouldn’t give him the information ( I’m not you)

If I were a billionaire, I would do all things I want (I’m not a billionaire)

I wish I had studied in economical faculty ( I didn’t study in economical faculty)

2 Entailment

2.1 Definition

Entailment is a concept that refers to a specific kind of relationship between two sentences More specifically, entailment means that if one sentence is true, then another sentence would also have to be true: the second sentence would be entailed by the first sentence

In pragmatics (linguistics), entailment is the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B) For example, the sentence (A) The president was assassinated Entails (B) The president is dead

Another way to prove entailment between two sentences is to demonstrate that if the one sentence is false, then the other sentence must also be false Entailment is closely related

to the concept of logical consequence Within logic, the idea that if A is true, then B must be true too is nothing other than a form of entailment

Example:

1 Emi goes to school every morning

Entails: Emi is at school now (if it’s still morning)

2 A cat chased a rat

Entails: A rat was chased by a cat.

2.2 Characteristic

The relation of entailment is unidirectional or asymmetric In this case, only sentence or proposition A entails sentence proposition B If we accept that Sumatra is an elephant then we also accept that Sumatra is a mammal However, if Sumatra is a mammal is true, it does not necessarily entail Sumatra is an elephant The proposition Sumatra is an elephant Maybe true or false, because if Sumatra is a mammal it can be something else

other than an elephant, for instance, it can be a cat or a dog We can say the entailment in the former case is correct whereas the entailment in the latter is incorrect:

A Sumatra is an elephant Sumatra is mammal (correct)

B Sumatra is an elephant Sumatra is mammal (incorrect)

The prerequisite for this relation to hold is that sentence A contains a word that is a hyponym of a word in sentence B In the above examples, elephant in A is a hyponym of mammal in B This can be illustrated as follows:

A Sumatra is an elephant (hyponym)

B Sumatra is mammal (superordinate)

This is called Basic Rule of Sense Inclusion where it is applied to the entailment of A and B above when the assertion of the truth of proposition A with a hyponym necessarily entails the assertion of proposition A B with its superordinate This rule can be stated about the relation between hyponym and entailment: Given two sentences A and B, identical in every way, except that A contains a word X where B contains a different word Y, and X is a hyponym of Y, then sentence A entails sentence B

2.3 Background entailments & Foreground entailments

In one occasion, one sentence can have a number of background entailments but one foreground entailment Background entailments are any logical consequences of an utterance while Foreground entailments are main logical consequence of an utterance

2.3.1 Background entailments

The speaker will necessarily be committed to the truth of a myriad of background entailments

Example : John passed 2 tests

Some background entails:

Somebody passed 2 tests (John)

John did something to 2 tests (passed)

John passed 2 of something (tests)

Something happened (John passed 2 tests)

On any occasion of the above utterance, the speaker will indicate how these entailments are

to be ordered.

2.3.2 Foreground entailments

When there are a number of background entailments, the speaker will communicate by stressing which entailment is to be assumed to be in the foreground, or more important for interpreting intended meaning, than any others

Example : In uttering:

+ John passed 2 tests

The speaker indicated that the foreground entailments, or his main assumption, is that

John passed A CERTAIN NUMBER of tests.

+THOMAS used five headphones

Thomas USED five headphones

Thomas used FIVE headphones

Thomas used five HEADPHONES

2.4 One-way & two-way entailment

According to research, there are two other types of entailments, namely one-way entailment and two-way (or mutual) entailment:

+One-way entailment is the entailment that works in only one direction

+Two-way entailment is the entailment that has meaning relationship and the sentences that contain mutual entailment are paraphrases of each other

2.4.1 One-way entailment

The first sentence entails the second but not the other way round

Example : Lily eats a peal entails Lily eats a fruit

Peal is a fruit but fruit is not necessarily a peal This means that the entailment works in only one way

2.4.2 Two-way (or mutual) entailment

The first sentence entails the second, and the second sentence entails the first

Example : Na is in front of Linh entails Linh is behind Na

Sometimes, two-way entailment is expressed in the term of active-passive pairs

Example :

The dog bits David entails David is bitten by the dog

The entailment is expressed in active-passive pairs The second sentence is the passive form of the first sentence, and the first sentence is the active form

3 Presupposition and Entailment

+ Entailment is the relationship between sentences or clauses

+ Presupposition: A presupposition is an assumption that the speaker makes before speaking +The speakers have presuppositions while sentences have entailments

+The presupposition of an utterance remains the same under its negation while the entailment changes when the sentence is negated Regarding presupposition, the negation of the first statement may not affect the second while the negation of the first sentence will affect the truth of the second in entailment

Example:

(1) A English teacher is beautiful

B Negative: English teacher is not beautiful

-> Presupposition: There is an English teacher (the presumption does not change)

(2) A The king was assassinated

-> King died.

B Negative: The king was not assassinated.

-> King died → not true

4 Exercise

Ex1 Choose the correct answer:

1 Which of the following DOES NOT HAVE the correct entailment?

A Bill didn’t see a flower entails Bill didn’t see a rose

B Bill didn’t see a person entails Bill didn’t see a boy

C Bill didn’t see a boy entails Bill saw a person

D Bill didn’t see a rectangular entails Bill didn’t see a square