Semantics I acknowledgements
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| 4.1.6 Presupposition Presupposition is a condition found in the meaning of the sentence expressing the proposition. It expresses referential requirement whose satisfaction is the condition which the proposition can make statement. To make clear, let’s see this example ; My brother is a doctor presupposes I have a brother. Thus the rule of presupposition X presupposes Y If Xis true, Y s true If the negation of Xis true, Y is true. SEMANTICS Page According to leech there are two types of presupposition Logical Presupposition - Pragmatic Presupposition. Logical presupposition is a theory, which treats presupposition as a relation between propositions, defined in terms of their truth and falsehood. Pragmatic presupposition is a theory, which treats presuppositions as a question of the status of a speech act in relation to the speaker’s or hearer’s beliefs. To distinguish one from the other let’s se the example below a. The book you stole from the library is valuable. (proposition) b. The book you stole from the library is not valuable. (negative proposition) c. Is the book you stole from the library valuable (yes no question) d. When did you steel the book from the library (wh – question) e. See that you return the boo you stole from the library. (command) f. What an interesting book you stole from the library!. SEMANTICS Page By the virtue of logic, only (a) and (b) said to be proposition and that they are the presupposition of ; You stole the book from the library. Therefore it is a logical proposition. But Leech expressed that ; You stole the book from the library presupposes all the sentence mentioned above. For, based on pragmatic, one is concerned with what is publicy interpretable, not with the secret intentions or assumptions of the speaker (1981 : We can see for example the illocutionary forced which was proposed by J. L. Austin on which he was dissatisfied with the traditional concentration on referential meaning and the truth and falsehood of statements. He expressed that the illocutionary force deals with ; What sort of act do we perform in uttering a sentence. Charles J. Fillmore was a linguist influenced by this approach and gave an illustration illocutionary of an utterance such : Please shut the door, as : - the speaker and the addresses of this sentence are in some kind of relationship which allows the speaker to make a request of the addresses. - The addresses is in a position where he is capable of shutting the door. - There are some particulars which the speaker has in mind and which he has reason to assume the addresses can identify without any further descriptive aid on the speaker’s part. - The door in question, is, at the time of utterance, open. SEMANTICS Page The speaker wants the door to become closed From this we can identify the utterance to be the situation in which speaker and hearer utter it (in stimulus respond. In other words, it is a linguistic expression related to its users (in pragmatic sense. That is why those which are mentioned above called pragmatic presupposition. If presupposition concerns with pragmatic use, then we cannot make the rule of its truth and falsehood. But still, it is logic. As also, seen in this question ; Where is the comb Its presupposition would be ; It is some place. Download 332.89 Kb. Share with your friends:
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