NMTS-Group3: Difference between revisions
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===Entailment or presupposition=== | ===Entailment or presupposition=== | ||
To find out whether you are dealing with an entailment or a presupposition you ought to use the so-called '''negation method'''. | To find out whether you are dealing with an entailment or a presupposition you ought to use the so-called '''negation method'''. | ||
When the second sentence turns out to be false such as the '''''Bobo is not an animal''''' then you are probably being confronted with an entailment rather than a presupposition. A presupposition instead would remain true even if negated, e.g. '''''The king of France is/isn't bald'''''. Either way there is a king of France. | When the second sentence turns out to be false such as the '''''Bobo is not an animal''''' then you are probably being confronted with an entailment rather than a presupposition. A presupposition instead would remain true even if negated, e.g. '''''The king of France is/isn't bald'''''. Either way there is a king of France, therefore a presupposition. | ||
== References and links == | == References and links == | ||
Revision as of 15:39, 18 March 2013
Warning:
The material on this page has been created as part of a seminar. It is still heavily under construction and we do not guarantee its correctness. If you have comments on this page or suggestions for improvement, please contact Manfred Sailer.
This note will be removed once the page has been carefully checked and integrated into the main part of this wiki.
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Presupposition (Group 3)
Comments of the NMTS team
- bei den References sind die Bücher in Codetags (?) und grün?
- bei "Our Pictures" fehlen die Bilder, die darüber schon eingebunden wurden
- bei den Exercises 1.1. ist die Seite zu Megaphone eine Help-page, warum genau verstehe ich nicht
- winziger Schönheitsfehler bei 2.: die Leerzeichen vor den "Click me"s sind auch Links
- Maybe add Glossary entry definition (A presupposition is a background belief or assumption relating to an utterance.) to the short description on the main page.
- Exercises still incomplete.
Overview
Members
Short description of the topic
There are endless ways of communicating. It takes place through language, the appearance of a person, animals communicate, music has the power to communicate and of course literature and even plants communicate. Usually we take a lot of knowledge for granted, such as Germany has a female Bundeskanzler or even historical events that have become part of our cultural memory and are therefore taken as common knowledge. Due to our topic communication via language in will be the aim of our group. We will deal with a part of semantics that is called formal semantics. This is a branch of linguistics that approaches meaning using the notion of truth. For presuppositions truth /falsity is important in terms of the relation between sentences. This means that the truth or falsity of the second sentence (the presupposed sentence) is implied by the truth or falsity of the first sentence
Examples
Presuppositions
A presupposition is a background belief or assumption relating to an utterance.The truth of the second sentence is implied by the truth/falsity of the first sentence. If we know that the first sentence is not true, such as there isn‘t a king of France, bewilderment would be the reaction to such bold statement.
Entailments
Entailments are defined as a relation between sentences such that the truth of the second sentence, e.g. Bobo is a bear, follows from the truth of the first sentence, e.g. Bobo is an animal, but the falsity of the second sentence does not necessarily follow from the falsity of the first sentence:
Entailment or presupposition
To find out whether you are dealing with an entailment or a presupposition you ought to use the so-called negation method. When the second sentence turns out to be false such as the Bobo is not an animal then you are probably being confronted with an entailment rather than a presupposition. A presupposition instead would remain true even if negated, e.g. The king of France is/isn't bald. Either way there is a king of France, therefore a presupposition.
References and links
References
- Meyer, Paul Georg. 2002.Synchronic English Linguistics-An Introduction. Tübingen: Narr Studienbücher.
- Bieswanger, Markus.2010. Introduction to English Linguistics. Stuttgart: UTB- Verlag.
Links
Our e-learning objects
Our wiki pages
Our podcasts
<mediaplayer>http://youtu.be/YQJvOaMCUaw</mediaplayer>
<mediaplayer>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8c7pEEEYg</mediaplayer>
Our materials for an interactive whiteboard
Our pictures
Kitty, Katharina's cat
Dani's favorite sunset
Caterina's pet
Eva's dog
Our exercises
1. Presupposition or entailment?
You will now have to find out whether the sentence is a presupposition or an entailment.
Comment Sailer: The second sentences, i.e. the presuppositon or the entailment, is missing in your examples. - but it seems you are not done yet anyways. Is this correct?
- Where is the man with the megaphone?.
- Queen of England attended a cooking workshop.
- My dog Richard was killed in a car accident.
Comment: I know you're still working on these exercises, but just as a first comment: the explanation for the last sentence is a bit confusing. Maybe you could re-write it so it becomes more clear.
2.The following sentences make certain presuppositions. What are they?
- Would you mind washing up the dishes this time? Presupposition:Click me
- I want more milk for my tea! Presupposition:Click me
Comment Sailer:
1) ??? and ?? are very bad names for wiki pages. Please use longer and more mnemonic names - such as PresupposionEx2-1 or similar
2) In your example solution you should give more than just one presuppositions because the sentences have many presuppositions. Alternatively you could underline a particular word in the original sentence and ask for the presupposition(s) that are triggered by this word.
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