Lejla Zejnilović, PhD

 A is synonymous with B: A has the same meaning as B

a My brother is a bachelor.
b My brother has never married.
 A entails B: we know that if A then automatically B
a The anarchist assassinated the emperor.
b The emperor died.
 A contradicts B: A is inconsistent with B
a My brother Sebastian has just come from Rome.
b My brother Sebastian has never been to Rome.
 A presupposes B: B is part of the assumed background
against which A is said
a The Mayor of the Manchester is a woman.
b There is a Mayor of Manchester.
 The relation of entailment (also known as logical
consequence) holds when the truth of a proposition
expressed by one sentence p logically necessitates the
truth of another sentence q.
 Thus, the basic description of entailment is as follows:
if p is true, q is also true.
The anarchist assassinated the emperor.
The emperor died.
(Rasulić: 2016; Saeed: 1997)
 If p (The anarchist assassinated the emperor) is true, is
q (The emperor died) automatically true? YES.
 If q (The emperor died) is false, is p (The anarchist
assassinated the emperor) also false? YES.
 Then p entails q. Note that if p is false then we can’t
say anything about q; it can be either true or false.
(Saeed 1997: 98)
p q
T → T
F → T or F
F ← F
T or F ← T
(Saeed 1997: 99)
 Synonymy (paraphrase) is a relation that holds
between two propositions that always have the same
truth-value, i.e. if p describes a situation so will q, and
vice versa; while if either incorrectly describes a
situation so will the other.
p Alice owns a book.
q This book belongs to Alice.
(Saeed 1997: 100)
p q
T → T
F → F
T ← T
F ← F
(Saeed 1997: 100)
 p q
T → F
F → T
T ← F
F ← T

p Mr Jones stole my car.

q Mr Jones did not steal my car.
(Saeed 1997: 100)
 In ordinary language, to presuppose something means to assume
it, and the narrower technical use in semantics is related to this.
In the following examples the a sentence is said to presuppose
the b sentence:
a Her husband is a fool.
b She has a husband.
a The Prime Minister of Malaysia is in Dublin this week.
b Malaysia has a prime minister. (Saeed 1997: 101)
 In some respects presupposition seems like entailment: a fairly
automatic relationship, involving no reasoning, which seems free
of contextual effects.
 In other respects, though, presupposition seems sensitive to
facts about the context of utterance.
 This leads us to the identification of two possible types of
approach to presupposition, arising from different ways of
viewing language. The first approach is essentially semantic and
the second is pragmatic. (Saeed 1997: 102)
p John’s brother hasjust got back from Texas.
(presupposing sentence)
q John has a brother. (presupposed sentence)
 If p (presupposing sentence) is true then q
(the presupposed sentence) is true.
 If p is false, then q is still true.
 If q is true, p could be either true or false.
(Saeed 1997: 102)
p q

T → T

F → T

T or F ← T

(Saeed 1997: 102)

 If we negate an entailing sentence, then the entailment
fails; but negating a presupposing sentence allows the
presupposition to survive.
►Entailment pair
a I saw my friend today. (entailing sentence)
b I saw someone today. (entailed sentence)
► Presupposition pair
a The Mayor of Liverpool is in town. (presupposing
sentence)
b There is a Mayor of Liverpool. (presupposed
sentence) (Saeed 1997: 103)
 a The King of France is bald.
b There is a King of France.
 If there is no king of France, i.e. if the sentence b is
false, what is the status of sentence a?
 Is sentence a false, or neither true or false?
 This is a problem for truth-based theories, known as a
truth-value gap. On this view, if a presupposition is
not satisfied, i.e. if it is false (as in the example b
above), the original proposition is neither true or false,
i.e. it would not be truth-evaluable at all.
(Saeed 1997: 104; Rasulić 2016: 90)
 Definite noun phrases
The King of Botswana is very handsome. » There is a
king of Botswana.
 Possessive noun phrases
Bill’s wife is a nuclear physicist. » Bill has a wife.
 Proper names
Engelbert Humperdinck was born in India. » There is
someone uniquely identifiable as Engelbert
Humperdinck.
 Factive verbs (know, realize, regret… presuppose
the truth of their complement clause)
Jack knows that Jill is CIA agent. » Jill is a CIA agent.
 Counterfactive verbs (pretend, wish, imagine…)
Jill pretends to be a housewife. » Jill is not a housewife.
 Change of state verbs (stop, begin, continue…)
Bill stopped bullying his classmates. » Bill bullied his
classmates.
 Implicative verbs (manage, remember, fail,
forget…)
Joshua managed to complete his PhD thesis. » Joshua
tried to complete his PhD thesis.
 Iteratives (again, repeat, return…)
Dodo escaped again. » Dodo had escaped before.
 Manner adverbs (slowly, quickly…)
Bill walked slowly. » Bill walked.
 Additive particles (too, also, as well)
Sam moved to Paris too. » Somebody other than Sam
moved to Paris.
 Focus-sensitive particles (even, only)
Even Bill can ride a bicycle. » Everybody can ride a bicycle.
 Cleft sentences (it-clefts, wh-clefts)
It was Jennifer that was robbed last night. » Someone was
robbed last night.
 Temporal clauses (before, after, while, since…)
It got worse after Snowden got asylum in Russia. »
Snowden got asylum in Russia.
 Comparative constructions
Alex is a better journalist than Jeremy. » Jeremy is a
journalist.
 Non-restrictive relative clauses and other appositives
Dr. Jones, who is an internationally renowned expert, will
attend the conference. » Dr. Jones is an internationally
renowned expert.
 Counterfactual conditionals
If Bill had been patient, he would have got the role. » Bill
was not patient.
 Wh-questions
When did Sue get married? » Sue got married.
 Alternative questions
Did Bill graduate from Harvard or from Yale? » Bill
graduated from Harvard or from Yale.
(Rasulić 1996: 96-97)
 Presupposition is essentially a pragmatic phenomenon
(Stalnaker 1974).
Pragmatic presupposition requires and interactional
description which includes taking into account :
● common ground (the set of assumptions made by
participants in a conversation)
● accommodation (presuppositions being introduced as new
information). (Saeed 1997: 109)
John’s brother has just got back from Texas.

My sister just got married.

(Saeed 1997: 109)

 Rasulić, K. (2016). Exploring Semantic Relations.
Belgrade: Faculty of Philology.
 Saeed, J. I. (1997). Semantics. UK: Wiley-Blackwell.