Page 109 - 6688
P. 109
109
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)
There are also a number of other forms which may best be treated as the source of lexical
presuppositions. 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' 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, 'managed' is conventionally interpreted as asserting 'succeeded' and
presupposing 'tried'. Other examples, involving the lexical items, 'stop', 'start', and 'again', are
presented, with
their presuppositions, in [7].
[7] 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)
In the case of lexical presupposition, the speaker's use of a particular expression is
taken to presuppose another (unstated) concept, whereas in the case of a factive
presupposition, the use of a particular expression is taken to presuppose the truth of the
information that is stated after it.
In addition to presuppositions which are associated with the use of certain words and
phrases, there are also structural presup-positions. In this case, certain sentence structures
have been ana-lyzed 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 presup-posed (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 [8a.] and [8b.],
is conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that the information after the wh-form (i.e.
'When' and 'Where') is already known to be the case.
[8] a. When did he leave? (» He left)
b. Where did you buy the bike? (» You bought the bike)
The type of presupposition illustrated in [8] can lead listeners to believe that the
information presented is necessarily true, rather than just the presupposition of the person
asking the question. For example, let's say that you were standing at an intersection one
evening. You didn't notice whether the traffic signal had Iciirned to red before a car went
through the intersection. The car was immediately involved in a crash. You were witness to the
crash and later you are asked the question in [9].
[9] How fast was the car going when it ran the red light?
If you answer the question as asked (Just answer the question!) and estimate the
speed of the car, then you would appear to be accepting the truth of the presupposition (i. e. »
the car ran the red light). Such structurally-based presuppositions may represent subtle ways
of making information that the speaker believes appear to be what the listener should believe.