NMTS-Group3

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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.

Members

• Katharina
• Caterina
• Daniela
• Eva

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

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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. Besides the fact that we know for now that there isn't a king of france this famous example by Betrand Russel sentence still wonderfully illustrates what the basic concept of presuppositions are.

Types of Presuppositions

There are six different types of presuppositions. To find out what type of presupposition you are dealing with you either have be aware of certain trigger words or the phrase structure as well as the context in which the sentences are uttered:

1 existential presupposition

To be aquainted with the existence of s.o/s.th

My sister in law bought/didn't buy a new pair of shoes.

1. here we can presuppose that I am married
2. my husband has a sister
3. she has of course old shoes
4. and so on...

2 factive presupposition

Here the notion that something is true is triggered by words and phrases such as know, realize, to be relieved....

I know/ don't know that you have an appointment with your attorney next week.

1. presupposes that I know as a fact that you will be meeting with your attorney
2. this meeting will be next week
3. ...

3 lexical presuppositions

Here it is the assumption that, in using one word, the speaker can act as if another meaning (word) will be understood. In this case, the use of the expressions certain trigger words are taken to presuppose another (unstated) concept.

I used to smoke.

meaning: I do not smoke anymore.

He missed out on his piano lessons again.

meaning: He misses at least more than once for piano class.

4 Structural presupposition

Those presuppositions can be identified by Wh-questions. Sentences were one speaker asks the another person questions in the form of:

1. What have you been doing last night at the cemetery?
2. Why did you skip school yesterday?
3. Who was that pretty girl sitting beside you at the hair salon?
4. When did you leave the party last night?
5. ...

Those kind of questions can only be asked if some prior knowledge exists in advance. Therefore this sort of knowledge is presupposed.

document

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

• Presupposition

• Dr. Pelka, Bastian. 2007.Ein Mediawiki Handbuch von Einsteigern für Einsteiger. Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationsforschung (IJK) der Hochschule für Musik und Theater. Hannover

Our e-learning objects

Our wiki pages

• Denotation (definition in Basic Glossary)
  

• Presupposition (definition in Basic Glossary)

Our podcasts

<mediaplayer>http://youtu.be/YQJvOaMCUaw</mediaplayer>

<mediaplayer>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8c7pEEEYg</mediaplayer>

Our materials for an interactive whiteboard

Presuppositions.notebook