Abstract
My aim is to sketch a general abstract account of the notion of presupposition, and to argue that the presupposition relation which linguists talk about should be explained in terms of this general account. The notion I will discuss is a pragmatic notion, as opposed to a purely semantic one. This means that the presupposition relation cannot be explained solely in terms of the meaning or content of sentences, but must be explained partly in terms of facts about the users of sentences: their beliefs, intentions and expectations. My notion will thus contrast with the standard account of presupposition which has been given by philosophers and linguists. According to this standard account, one sentence presupposes another just in case the latter must be true in order that the former have a truth value at all. This definition was given by Strawson1, and has been developed formally by van Fraassen2. Generative semanticists such as G. Lakoff, Horn, and Karttunen3 have used or assumed this kind of semantic definition.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
P. F. Strawson, Introduction to Logical Theory (London, 1952), pp. 175ff.
Bas van Fraassen, ‘Singular Terms, Truth Value Gaps and Free Logic’, Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966), 481–95
Bas van Fraassen, ‘Presupposition, Implication and Self-Reference’, Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968), 136–52.
George Lakoff, ‘Generative Semantics’, in Danny Steinberg and Leon Jakobovits, Semantics: an Interdisciplinary Reader in Philosophy, Linguistics and Psychology (Cambridge, 1971)
Laurence Horn, “A Presuppositional Analysis of ‘Only’ and ‘Even’,” in Papers from the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (Chicago, 1969)
Lauri Karttunen, ‘Plugs, Filters, and Holes: The Projection Problem for Presuppositions’. (Paper presented at the Second Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Linguistic Society, October 24, 1971, in Montreal, Quebec.)
Horn, op. cit.
Karttunen, op. cit.
Jerry Morgan, ‘On the Treatment of Presupposition in Transformational Grammar’, in Papers from the Fifth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (Chicago, 1969).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1975 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stalnaker, R. (1975). Presuppositions. In: Hockney, D., Harper, W., Freed, B. (eds) Contemporary Research in Philosophical Logic and Linguistic Semantics. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1756-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1756-5_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-0512-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-1756-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive