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19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / c. Presupposition

[what is taken for granted in a conversation]

5 ideas
A presupposition is what makes an utterance sound wrong if it is not assumed? [Magidor]
     Full Idea: The most obvious test for presupposition would be this: if s generates the presupposition p, then an utterance of s would be infelicitous, unless p is taken for granted by participants in the conversation.
     From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.3.1.1)
     A reaction: The principle of charity seems to be involved here - that we try to make people's utterances sound right, so we add in the presuppositions which would achieve that. The problem, she says, is that the infelicity may have other causes.
A test for presupposition would be if it provoked 'hey wait a minute - I have no idea that....' [Magidor]
     Full Idea: A proposed test for presupposition is the 'Hey, wait a minute' test. S presupposes that p, just in case it would be felictious to respond to an utterance of s with something like 'Hey, wait a minute - I had not idea that p!'.
     From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.3.1.2)
     A reaction: [K. Von Finkel 2004 made the suggestion] That is, you think 'hm ...this statement seems to presuppose p'. She says the suggestion vastly over-generates possible presuppositions - unlikely ones, as well as the obvious ones.
The best tests for presupposition are projecting it to negation, conditional, conjunction, questions [Magidor]
     Full Idea: The most robust tests for presupposition are the projection tests. If s presupposes p, then Žs does too. If s1 presupposes p, then 'if s1 then s2' presupposes p. If s1 presupposes p, then 's1 and s2' presupposes p. If s presupposes p, then 's?' does too.
     From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.3.1.3)
     A reaction: [compressed] She also discusses quantifiers. In other words, the presupposition remains stable through various transformations of the underlying proposition.
Why do certain words trigger presuppositions? [Magidor]
     Full Idea: We can ask why a range of lexical items (e.g. 'stop' or 'know') trigger the presuppositions they do.
     From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.3.2)
     A reaction: I'm not sure whether we'll get an answer, but I would approach the question by thinking about mental files.
If both s and not-s entail a sentence p, then p is a presupposition [Magidor]
     Full Idea: In the traditional account, a sentence s presupposes p if and only if both s and Žs entail p. Standardly, this entails that if s presupposes p, then whenever p is false, s must be neither true nor false.
     From: Ofra Magidor (Category Mistakes [2013], 5.3.2)
     A reaction: 'I'm looking down on the garden' presupposes 'I'm upstairs'. Why would 'I'm not looking down on the garden' entail 'I'm upstairs'? I seem to have missed something.