Presuppositions

Abstract

My aim is to sketch a general abstract account of the notion of presupposition, and to argue that the presupposition relation which linguists talk about should be explained in terms of this general account. The notion I will discuss is a pragmatic notion, as opposed to a purely semantic one. This means that the presupposition relation cannot be explained solely in terms of the meaning or content of sentences, but must be explained partly in terms of facts about the users of sentences: their beliefs, intentions and expectations. My notion will thus contrast with the standard account of presupposition which has been given by philosophers and linguists. According to this standard account, one sentence presupposes another just in case the latter must be true in order that the former have a truth value at all. This definition was given by Strawson¹, and has been developed formally by van Fraassen². Generative semanticists such as G. Lakoff, Horn, and Karttunen³ have used or assumed this kind of semantic definition.