语义学 蕴含与预设

?

odd

?

in (17d), and

?

glad

?

in (17e) have factive

presuppositions.

(17) a. She didn

?

t realize he was ill.

(

＞＞

He was ill)

b. We regret telling him.

(

＞＞

We told him)

c. I wasn

?

t aware that she was married.

(

＞＞

She was married)

d. It

isn?t

odd that he left early.

(

＞＞

He left early)

e. I

?

m glad that it

?

s over.

(

＞＞

It

?

s over)

The presupposed information following the verb

?know? can be treated as a fac

t,

and is described as a factive presupposition. Words like know, realize, regret as well

as phrases involving ?be? with ?aware?, ?odd?, and ?glad? have factive presuppositions.

(Yule, 2004: 27-28)

◆

Lexical

presupposition:

when

a

specific

word

triggers

a

presupposition.

It

is

featured

by

implicative

verbs

like

?

manage

,

?

start

?

,

?

stop

?

,

?

fo rget

?

,

etc.

Generally

speaking, in lexical presupposition, the use of one form with its asserted meaning is

conventionally

interpreted

with

the

presupposition

that

another

(non-asserted)

meaning is understood.

Each

time

you

say

that

someone

?

managed< /p>

?

to

do

something,

the

asserted

meaning

is

that

the

person

succeeded

in

some

way.

When

you

say

that

someone

?

didn

?

t manage

?

, the asserted meaning is that the person did not succeed. In both cases,

however,

there

is

a

presupposition

(non- asserted)

that

the

person

?

tried

?

to

do

that

something. So,

< br>?

managed

?

is conventionally interpreted as asserting

?

succeeded

?

and

presupposing

?

tri ed

?

.

(18) a. He stopped smoking.

(

＞＞

He used to smoke)

b. They started complaining.

(

＞＞

They weren

?

t complaining before)

c. You

?

re late again.

(

＞＞

You were late before)

Lexical presupposition: in lexical presupposition, the use of one form with its

asserted

meaning

is

conventionally

interpreted

with

the

presupposition

that

another(non-asserted) meaning is understood. For example, someone

?managed? to do

something,

the

asserted

meaning

is

that

the

person

succeeded

in

some

way.

Someone ?didn?t manage?;

the asserted meaning is that the person did not succeed. In

both cases, there is a presupposition (non-

asserted) that the person ?tried? to do that

something.

So

?managed?

is

conventionally

interpreted

as

asserting

?succeeded?

and

presupposing ?tried?. Other examples, involving the lexical items, are ?stop?, ?start?,

and ?again?. (Yule, 2004: 28)

◆

Structural presupposition: certain sentence structures presuppose something to be

true.(wh- questions).

We

might

say

that

speakers

can

use

such

structures

to

treat

information as presupposed (i.e. assumed to be true) and hence to be accepted as true

by the listener.

For example, the wh-question construction in English, as shown in (19a) and (19b),

is

conventionally

interpreted

with

the

presupposition

that

the

information

after

the

wh-form is already known to be the case.

a. When did he leave?

(

＞＞

He left)

b. Where did you buy the bike?

(

＞＞

You bought the bike)

Certain sentence structures have been analyzed as conventionally and regularly

presupposing that part of the structure is

already assumed to

be true. We might

say

that speakers can use such structures to treat information as presupposed (i.e. assumed

to be true) and hence to be accepted as true by listener. For example, the wh-question

construction in English is conventionally interpreted as that the information after the

wh-form

is

already

known

to

be

the

case.

Such

structurally-based

presuppositions

may represent subtle ways of making information that the speaker believes appear to

be what the listener should believe.(wh-questions)

◆

Non-factive presupposition: It is one that is assumed not to be true. Verbs like

?

dream

?

,

?

imag ine

?

, and

?

pretend

?

, as shown in (20), are used with the presupposition

that what follows is not true.

(20). a. I dreamed that I was rich.

(

＞＞

I was not rich)

b. We imagined we were in New York.

(

＞＞

we were not in New York)

He pretends to be ill.

(

＞＞

He is not ill)

◆

Counter- factural presupposition: What is presupposed is not only not true, but is

the opposite of what is true, or

?

contrary to facts

?

.

(Conditional structure)

A

conditional

structure

of

the

type

shown

in

(21),

generally

called

a

counterfactual conditional, presupposes that the information in the if-clause is not true

at the time of utterance.

(21). If you were my friend, you would have helped me.

(

＞＞

you are not my friend)

Summary:

Type

existential

factive

non-factive

lexical

structural

counterfactural

◆

The properties of presuppositions

★

Cancel ability / Defeasibility

:

Levinson(1983:186)

states

that

they

can

be

cancelled

out

by

either

the

immediate linguistic context

or by some

wider

context

or mode of discourse.

If we

say

?

The committee failed to reach a decision

?

, it presupposes that they tried, but we

can cancel out that presupposition if we add

?

because they didn

?

t even get round to

discussing it

?

. Similarly, we can argue presupposition out of the way by a variant on

the

reductio

ad

absurdum

(the

disproof

of

a

proposition

by

showing

that

its

conclusion can only be absurd) mode of discourse:

?

He didn

?

t do it, and she didn

?

t do

it

…

In fact, nobody did it

?.

They are defensible in (a) certain discourse contexts, (b)

certain intra- sentential context. This property will prove to be the undoing(doing away

with) of any possible semantic theory of presupposition. They are defeasible in certain

intra- sentential contexts and certain discourse context, for example,

(1) Sue cried

before

she finished her thesis.

(2) Sue finished her thesis.

(3)Sue died

before

she finished her thesis.

In

Sentence(3)

the

presupposition

seems

to

drop

out,

since

we

generally

hold

that

people do not do things after they die, it follows that she could not have finished her

thesis.

They

are

liable

to

evaporate

in

certain

contexts,

either

immediate

linguistic

context or the less immediate discourse context, or on circumstances where contrary

assumptions are made.(Levinson,2001, p187)

Another kind of contextual defeasibility arises in certain kinds of discourse contexts.

For example, the cleft sentence 1 is supposed to presuppose 2:

1. It isn?t Luke who will betray you.

2. Someone will betray you.

You say that someon

e in this room will betray you. Well maybe so. But it won?t be

Luke

who

will

betray

you,

it

won?t

be

Paul,

it

won?t

be

Matthew,

and

it

certainly

won?t be John. Therefore no one in this room is actually going to betray you

Example

the X

I regret leaving

He pretended to go

He managed to escape

When did she die?

If I weren

?

t ill,

Presupposition

＞＞

X exists

＞＞

I left

＞＞

He didn

?

t go

＞＞

He tried to escape

＞＞

She died

＞＞

I am ill

Here

each

of

the

cleft

sentence(It

won?t

be

Luke,

etc.)should

presuppose

that

there

will

be

someone

who

will

betray

the

addressee.

But

the

whole

purpose

of

the

utterance

1

is,

of

course,

to

persuade

the

addressee

that

no

one

will

betray

him,

as

stated in the conclusion. So the presupposition is again defeated; it was adopted as a

counterfactual

assumption

to

argue

to

the

untenability

(

站不住脚

)

of

such

an

assumption.

So far we have shown that some of the core examples of presuppositional phenomena are subject to presupposition

cancellation in certain kinds of context, namely:

(i)

Where it is common knowledge that the presupposition is false, the speaker is not assumed to be committed

to the truth of the presupposition

(ii) Where what is said, taken together with background assumptions, is inconsistent with what is presupposed,

the presuppositions are cancelled, and are not assumed to be held by the speaker

(iii) In certain kinds of discourse contexts, presuppositions can systematically fail to survive.

3.4.2 Presuppositions are apparently tied to particular aspects of surface structure

. This property may serve

to distinguish presupposition from conversational implicatures (which are tied to the context rather than the surface

structure.), the other major form of pragmatic inference.( Levinson, S. C. 2001)

There are no doubt many other kinds of contextual defeasibility as well, but these examples are sufficient to

establish that presuppositions are defeasible by virtue of contrary

beliefs held in a context. There are also many

kinds of intra-sentential cancellation of suspension of presuppositions.(Levinson, 190)

3.4.3 Projection in presupposition

There is a basic expectation that the presupposition of a simple sentence will

continue to be true when that simple sentence becomes part of a more complex sentence. This is one version of the

general idea that the meaning of the whole sentence is a combination of the meaning of its parts. However, the

meaning of some presuppositions (as

?

parts

?

) does not survive to become the meaning of some complex sentences

(as

?

wholes

?

).

This

is

known

as

the

projection

problem

.

(Yule,

2004:

P

30-33

)

Another

explanation

given

by

Levinson

(Levinson,

1983:

191)

is

that

Frege

held

that

meanings

of

sentences

are

compositional,

i.e.

that

the

meaning

of

the

whole

expression

is

a

function

of

the

meaning

of

the

parts.

It

was

originally

suggested

by

Langendoen & Savin (1971) that this was true of presuppositions too, and moreover that the set of presupposition

of

the

complex

whole

is

the

simple

sum

of

the

presuppositions

of

the

parts,

i.e.

if

S

0

is

a

complex

sentence

containing

sentences

S

1,

S

2

…

S

as

constituents,

then

the

presuppositions of

S

0

=

the

presuppositions

of

S

1

+

the

presuppositions of S

2

…

+ the presuppositions of S

n

.

But such a simple solution to the presuppositions of complex

sentences is far from correct, and it has proved in fact extremely difficult to formulate a theory that will predict

correctly which presuppositions of component clauses will in fact be inherited/maintained by the complex whole.

This compositional problem is known as the

projection problem

for presuppositions, and the particular behaviour

of

presuppositions

in

complex

sentences

turns

out

to

be

the

really

distinctive

characteristic

of

presuppositions.

(The

Chinese

version

may

be

a

little

easier

to

understand:

详见

索振羽

,

《语用学教程》

2000.

北京大学出版社

P

13 6-140

)

◆

Presupposition triggers:

Some of the kinds of words and structures that seem to trigger presuppositions.

Definite

noun

phrase/definite

descriptions:

words

like

the,

this,

that,

these,

those

and

possessives

like

my,

Mary’

s,

your,

prepositional

phrase

like

with

(two

heads)

,

in

,

etc.

trigger

the

basic

kind

of

presupposition.

The

possessives lead to a particularly strong presupposition about the existence of something; this is sometimes called

existential presupposition.

(Peccei, p20)

John saw/didn

?

t see the man with two heads.

》

there exists a man with two heads

WH-words like

when, why, how, etc

.

used either to ask questions or to introduce a subordinate clause to trigger

the presupposition that the speaker has assumed “the person in question did something” is true. (Peccei, p 21

)

Mr. Givens,

why

is it important for people to understand body language---that is, communication by

means of

movements and gestures?

Where

do we get mannerisms such as these?

Verbs that can trigger presuppositions: implicative verbs, factive verbs, change of state verbs and verbs of

judging.

1) Implicative verbs

（

含蓄动词）

: manage, forget, happen, avoid etc. triggers the presupposition that some actions

were conducted(manage), not expected(happen), or should have been conducted(forget).

John

managed

/didn?t

manage

to open the door

》

John tried to open the door

John forg

ot /didn?t forget to lock the door

》

John ought to have locked, or intended to lock, the door

some

further

implicative

predicates:

X

happened

to

V

》

X

didn?t

plan

or

intend

to

V;

X

avoid

Ving

》

X

was

expected to, or usually did, or ought to V

2) factive verbs(

述实动词

/

事实动词

a verb followed by a clause which the speaker or writer considers to express

a fact

:

know, realize, regret, deplore

（谴责）

, I am aware, it is strange, it is odd that, be sorry that, be proud that,

be indifferent that,

be glad that, be sad that, etc. triggers the presupposition that what follows is a fact

。

(Peccei,

p22)

Martha regrets /doesn?t

regret

drinking John?s home brew

)

Martha drank John?s home brew

It was

odd

/it was not

odd

how proud he was.

》

he was proud

3) change of state verbs

（

状态变化动词）

: stop, continue, keep, arrive, begin, come, enter, transform, turn, finish,

carry on, cease, leave, enter, go, etc. trigger the presupposition that the action was (A) going on before, (B) not

going on before.

John stopped /didn?t stop beating his wife

》

John had been beating his wife

4) verbs of judging

（评价动词）

:

accuse, charge, criticize, repudiate/criticize,

rs the presupposition that

what follows is the judgement or comments made by the subject on the topic or people in question. This kind of

implication is, arguably, not really presuppositional at all; for, unlike other presuppositions, the implications are

not attributed to the speaker, so much as to the subject of the verb of judging.

Ian

criticized

/ didn?t

criticize

Agatha for running away

》

(Ian thinks)Agatha ran away

The police

charged

John with reckless driving.

》

John drove recklessly.

5) Verbs like pretend, imagine, dream

,etc. triggers the

resupposition that what follows is

fiction.

Iteratives: again, anymore, return, another time, to come back, restore, repeat,

for the

-nth time

Carter

returned

/didn?t r

eturn

to power