7.3. Presupposition
In the presupposition of an utterance there is information that is assumed to be true by the interlocutor in order for the utterance to be meaningful. Some elements that trigger presuppositions in languages (of any modality) are implicative verbs, pronouns and determiners, discourse particles, clefts, and interrogative clauses. Moreover, the use of signing space in sign languages may also trigger presuppositional content. When spatial locations associated with a discourse referent appear in a high location in the signing space, they can carry presuppositions that involve tallness and power or importance. In what follows some examples of presuppositions triggered by implicative verbs, focus particles, clefts, interrogative clauses, and the use of signing space in LSC are shown.
Implicative verbs like continue, stop, fail or manage trigger presuppositions. In examples (a) and (b) below the utterances presuppose that Maria used to smoke, since for someone to stop or continue smoking it must have smoked in the first place. The triggers of these presuppositions in the following examples are the verbs continue and cut.
a) maria smoke continue.
‘Maria keep smoking.’
Presupposition: Maria used to smoke
b) maria smoke cut.
‘Maria quit smoking.’
Presupposition: Maria used to smoke
In examples (c) and (d) below, the presupposition that Maria used to smoke is kept. In addition, in these examples there is also a presupposition triggered by the signs fail and success, namely, that Maria tried to stop smoking.
a) maria smoke cut fail.
‘Maria failed quitting smoking.’
Presupposition: Maria used to smoke
b) maria smoke cut success.
‘Maria succeeded quitting smoking.’
Presupposition: Maria used to smoke
Moreover, some adverbs and discourse particles like too and only, may also trigger presuppositions. In what follows we present some examples of LSC sentences with the focus particles also and only, glossed as also and that’s-it, respectively. In the example below the focus particle also is triggering the presupposition that the interlocutor already got advice other than ‘legal advice’.
ix1 1advice3 lawyer advice also.
‘I advise you that you get advice from a lawyer too.’
Presupposition: The sender got already advice from another person before.
(© Alexandra Navarrete-González. Reprinted with permission from Navarrete-González, to appear)
The focus particle only is also a common trigger of presuppositions. In example (a) below the sign that’s-it triggers the presupposition that Mary ate pizza. Since presuppositions survive under negation, in example (b) we can observe that the presupposition of (a) still holds even if we negate the utterance.
a) maria pizza eat that’s-it.
‘Mary only ate a pizza.’
Presupposition: Mary ate a pizza.
b) maria pizza eat that’s-it no, ix-list-1 pizza, ix-list-2 salad ix-list-3 ice_cream.
‘Mary didn’t eat only a pizza, she ate a pizza, a salad, and an ice cream.’
Presupposition: Mary ate a pizza.
(© Alexandra Navarrete-González. Reprinted with permission from Navarrete-González, to appear)
Regarding syntactic structures, it is very common that the use of some clefts, interrogatives, and non-restrictive relative clauses trigger presuppositions. In examples a-d below different syntactic structures are presented, all of which trigger the same presupposition, namely, that someone took the chair.
a) chair steel who? joan. (pseudocleft)
‘The one who took the chair was Joan.’
Presupposition: Someone took the chair.
b) joan self chair steel. (cleft)
‘It was Joan who took the chair.’
Presupposition: Someone took the chair.
c) chair steel who? (interrogative)
‘Who took the chair?’
Presupposition: Someone took the chair.
d) boy person self chair steel now work ix.
‘The boy, who took the chair, now works there.’
Presupposition: Someone took the chair
In LSC the use of the signing space can also trigger a presupposition. For instance, in the example below the verb fly is articulated moving from a position lower in the signing space to a higher rightward position. This movement is depicting the actual position of both cities (Barcelona and Amsterdam) in a map. Therefore, it is presupposed that Amsterdam is actually located in a north-eastern position in relation to the position of Barcelona.
a) week next ix1 [up_right]fly[down_left] ixb tenerife.
‘Next week she will fly (from Barcelona) to Tenerife.’
Presupposition: Tenerife is located south-west in relation to Barcelona.
b) alicia week next amsterdam [up_right]fly[down_left] australia.
‘Next week Alícia will fly from Amsterdam to Australia.’
Presupposition: Australia is located south-east in relation to Amsterdam.
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A. Location for Amsterdam |
B. Location for Australia |
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Localisation mapping between Amsterdam and Australia by means of the verb fly |
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In many cases LSC signers may choose to use a more abstract location in signing space for expressing locative relations. In the example below, for instance, the island of Tenerife is not placed in the south-west position as expected. When there is only one locative in the sentence, the corresponding location in space is mainly associated with a default high location and this spatial configuration triggers the presupposition that the location itself refers to a location different from the actual discourse situation.
week next ix1 fly[up_right] tenerife.
‘Next week she will fly (from Barcelona) to Tenerife.’
Moreover, the use of space combined with role shift may also trigger presuppositions. In example (a) below, the signer is addressing the man by looking up with the head tilting backwards, indicating that the person she is addressing to is taller than her. By contrast, in example (b) the signer is addressing the man by looking down, indicating that the addressee is smaller than her. The presupposition in these examples is based on iconicity.
a) know yesterday metro man cl(B): ‘person pushing’ rude[up_left].
‘You know what? yesterday in the metro a man pushed me, and I told him he was being rude.’
Presupposition: The man is very tall/taller than me.
b) know yesterday office man enter cl(B): ‘person_walking’ rude[down_left]!
‘You know what? Yesterday a man entered the office without saying anything, and I told him he was being rude.’
Presupposition: The man is very small/smaller than me.
In the example below, the signer makes use of a role shift construction again, in order to represent the citizens asking the government to free the political prisoners. In this example, the signer is addressing to a higher location in space where the referent that has more power (the government) is localised.
rs
ix3pl citizen++ ask_for[up_left] government [prisoners jail free_jail][up_left].
‘The citizens asked the government to free the political prisoners.’
Presupposition: The government is hierarchically higher than the citizens.’
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Role shift addressing to a high location in space |