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What is a presupposition?

 

Definition
 

A presupposition is background belief, relating to an utterance, that

 
  • must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context
  • generally will remain a necessary assumption whether the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and
  • can generally be associated with a specific lexical item or grammatical feature (presupposition trigger) in the utterance.
Examples (English)
 

  • The utterance John regrets that he stopped doing linguistics before he left Cambridge has the following presuppositions:

    • There is someone uniquely identifiable to speaker and addressee as John.
    • John stopped doing linguistics before he left Cambridge.
    • John was doing linguistics before he left Cambridge.
    • John left Cambridge.
    • John had been at Cambridge.
    Source:

    Levinson 1983 179–180

    •
    Kinds
      Here are some kinds of presuppositions:
     
    Sources
     

    Crystal 1980 283

     

    Talmy 1985 79–80

     

    Caton 1981 97–98

     

    Levinson 1983 179–181, 204–205, 216–217


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