Presupposition and Information Structure
This area studies the background assumptions an utterance takes for granted (presupposition) and how utterances package information as given or new (information structure).
Definition
Presupposition is the information an utterance presents as background that is taken for granted; information structure is the organization of an utterance's content with respect to what is given, new, focal, or topical.
Scope
The area covers presupposition, the content that an utterance treats as already taken for granted, including the expressions (triggers) that introduce it, its survival under negation and questions, and how it projects from embedded contexts or is accommodated by hearers. It also covers information structure: the partition of utterances into topic and comment, focus and background, and given and new information, and how these are marked by intonation, word order, and special constructions.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What does an utterance take for granted, and what triggers those presuppositions?
- Is presupposition a semantic or a pragmatic phenomenon?
- How do presuppositions project out of embedded contexts?
- How do languages mark topic, focus, and given versus new information?
Key concepts
- presupposition trigger
- projection
- accommodation
- common ground
- focus and background
- topic and comment
- given vs. new information
Key theories
- Pragmatic presupposition and common ground (Stalnaker)
- Presupposition is a property of speakers and contexts: to presuppose a proposition is to treat it as part of the common ground, the body of information taken for granted by the conversational participants.
- Notions of information structure (Krifka)
- Information structure is analysed through the interacting notions of focus (alternatives), givenness, and topic, each with distinct semantic and pragmatic effects on interpretation and form.
History
Presupposition, anticipated by Frege and Strawson in connection with referring expressions, became a central topic of formal pragmatics in the 1970s through the work of Karttunen on projection and Stalnaker on the common ground. Information structure, with roots in the Prague School's theme-rheme distinction, was developed through alternative semantics for focus (Rooth) and syntheses such as Krifka's typology of its basic notions.
Debates
- Semantic vs. pragmatic theories of presupposition
- Whether presupposition is a semantic relation (e.g. yielding truth-value gaps) or a pragmatic relation between speakers and the common ground, with implications for the projection problem.
Key figures
- Robert Stalnaker
- Lauri Karttunen
- Manfred Krifka
- Mats Rooth
- Gottlob Frege
Related topics
Seminal works
- stalnaker1974
- levinson1983
- krifka2008
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between presupposition and implicature?
- A presupposition is background content treated as already taken for granted (and it survives under negation, e.g. 'The king of France is/ isn't bald' both presuppose there is a king of France), whereas an implicature is additional content the speaker conveys beyond what is said and is typically cancellable.