Presupposition

How it is used

Presuppositions survive negation: 'My car isn't being repaired' still assumes I have a car. Words like stop, again, the and regret trigger them. Loaded questions and advertising often exploit presuppositions.

Example sentences

1. 'Have you stopped skipping classes?' carries the presupposition that you used to skip them.

2. Advertisers like presupposition because listeners accept it without noticing.

Common collocations

• presupposition trigger
• existential presupposition
• carry a presupposition
• shared presupposition

Related terms

• implicatureMeaning that a speaker suggests without saying it directly and that a listener works out from context, as when 'Some students passed' suggests that not all of them did.
• pragmaticsThe study of how context affects meaning: how speakers mean more than they actually say, and how listeners work out intended meanings, politeness and hints.
• semanticsThe study of meaning in language: what words, phrases and sentences mean, and how their meanings relate to each other and to the world.
• contextThe situation, surrounding text and shared knowledge in which something is said or written, which help listeners and readers understand the intended meaning.

More terms: Semantics and Pragmatics

• synonym
• ambiguity
• speech act
• deixis
• connotation
• polysemy
• antonym