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Part of
Beyond Meaning
Edited by Elly Ifantidou, Louis de Saussure and Tim Wharton
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 324] 2021
► pp. 43–60

Presupposition effects

Beyond and within speaker’s meaning

| University of Neuchatel

This paper focuses on presupposition effects, in the light of Sperber and Wilson (2015). First, we define semantic presuppositions as determinate contents, which can in turn be instances of meaning or/and showing. A discussion is then engaged regarding the determinacy of semantic and discursive presuppositions, leading to the identification of a specific property of presuppositions, namely their contribution to the acceptance of an utterance (as per Sperber et al. 2010). The last section seeks to account for the ambivalent status of presuppositions, as they are both ostensive (i.e. triggered by an ostensive verbal stimulus) and relatively less ostensive. We conclude that a proper identification of presuppositions requires to go ‘within’ the speaker’s meaning, by adding an ‘ostensive’ and ‘less ostensive’ continuum to the showing – meaning diagram.

Keywords: presupposition effects, implicated premises, comprehension vs acceptance, less ostensive meanings, processing background information
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Determinate and indeterminate presupposition effects
    • 2.1Semantic presuppositions as determinate contents
    • 2.2Discursive presuppositions as indeterminate meanings
    • 2.3Two criteria to distinguish discursive presuppositions from implicated premises
  • 3.The ostensive and less ostensive continuum
    • 3.1Presupposition effects and the relevance comprehension heuristic
    • 3.2Presupposition effects as less ostensive meanings
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.324.c3
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