The Notion of Presupposition in Pragmatics

Abstract

The notion of presupposition is perhaps the least established and least uniform notion of pragmatics that I look at in this investigation. The literature on presupposition is disparate, consisting mainly of articles that are either extremely programmatic¹ or of a purely technical nature.² However, in order to get a first approximation of what pragmatists characteristically mean by the term ‘presupposition’, consider the following exchange:

A: Do you regret having bought that apartment?

B: Do I regret what!? I haven’t bought an apartment.

Here, A seems to have made a false assumption concerning B, namely, that B has bought an apartment. It seems that it is only against the background of this assumption that it makes sense for A to ask B whether he regrets his (assumed) transaction. And since the assumption is false, it does not make sense for B to answer affirmatively or negatively: he can only state that the assumption that A has obviously made is false.