Presupposition: A Semantic or Pragmatic Phenomenon?

Abstract

There has been debate among linguists with regards to the semantic view and the pragmatic view of presupposition. Some scholars believe that presupposition is purely semantic and others believe that it is purely pragmatic. The present paper contributes to the ongoing debate and exposes the different ways presupposition was approached by linguists. The paper also tries to attend to (i) what semantics is and what pragmatics is in a unified theory of meaning and (ii) the possibility to outline a semantic account of presupposition without having recourse to pragmatics and vice versa. The paper advocates Gazdar's analysis, a pragmatic analysis, as the safest grounds on which a working grammar of presupposition could be outlined. It shows how semantic accounts are inadequate to deal with the projection problem. Finally, the paper states explicitly that the increasingly puzzling theoretical status of presupposition seems to confirm the philosophical contention that not any fact can be translated into words. I. Introduction The nature of presupposition has been the subject of serious debate since early seventies. Attention was paid to presupposition mainly because of two reasons. The notion of presupposition involves the specification of the concepts of truth, falsity and logical form. Discussions of presupposition also broach a theory of meaning underlying the concept of logical form and extending well beyond it. Linguists, however, have used the notion " presupposition " in multitudinous ways. This could be explained by the fact that the use of the term " presupposition " is conditioned by the framework in which it is explicated. Put differently, specifying whether presupposition is a semantic or a pragmatic notion is a necessary assumption on which a grammar of presupposition could be outlined. This unfortunate, inconsistent use of the notion raises different, though related, questions: what is pragmatic and what is semantic in a unified theory of meaning – if there is one? Is it possible to outline a semantic account of presupposition without recourse to pragmatics and vice versa? Is it possible to do either semantics or pragmatics without drawing on philosophy?