Chapter three More On Presupposition.ppt

More On Presupposition A further study of presupposition Contents 1. Types of presuppositions 2. Presupposition triggers 3. Projection problems 4. Accommodation of presuppositions 5. Cultural Presupposition 6. Presupposition in Critical discourse analysis 1. Types of presuppositions 1.1 Existential Presupposition Certain words presuppose the existence of a person or something which is called existential presupposition. Pronouns such as he, she and names like Tom, Mary, Lily and so on presuppose the existence of a person. Demonstrative pronouns in English like this, that, these, those presuppose the existence of certain entities which is near to or distant from the speaker. 1.2 Factive Presupposition When speaking, the speaker presupposes that the thing he discussed is a fact. Factive verbs such as ‘know’,‘regret’are a kind of presupposition triggers usually followed by clauses, these clauses are expressions of facts, the contents of presuppositions. For example: 1-1 I regret visiting him. The presupposition that the speaker visited him is a fact. The word ‘regret’triggers a factive presupposition. 1.3 Non-factive Presupposition It is contrary to factive presupposition. Verbs like imagine, dream, trigger presuppositions which are not true. For example: 1-2 I imagined I was in Paris. The proposition follows the verb imagine is a fiction. What is assumed is not true, that is the speaker was not in Paris. 1.4 Structural Presupposition The presuppositions discussed so far are triggered by words, which are only a small part of presupposition triggers. Besides certain words, some sentence structures also trigger presuppositions. For example: 1-3 Where is your car? The information after the wh-form is the presupposition of this question. The speaker assumes that the listener has a car. This presupposition is related to the wh-question construction. It is also a kind of presupposition triggers. 1.5 Counter-factual Presupposition It means that