《语用学Pragmatics》课件 第九周

1、Chapter 4 Presupposition and entailmentThe classification of entailmentKey point The classification of entailmentDifficult points One-way entailment Two-way entailmentThe truth condition of entailmentChapter 4 Presupposition and entailmentAn entailment is something that logically follows from what i

2、s asserted in the utterance. Sentences, not speakers, have entailments.4.1 Entailment: generally speaking, entailment is not a pragmatic concept (e.g. having to do with speaker meaning), but instead is considered a purely logical concept, symbolized by -. Exercise in the classAssume that sentence (a

3、) in each pair is synthetically true. Then look at sentence (b) and decide if you can assume that it is automatically true given the truth of (a).Exercise in the class1(a) Annie caught a trout.1(b) Annie caught a fish.2(a) Annie is thin.2(b) Annie is not fat.3(a) Annie baked a cake.3(b) Annie baked

4、something.Answers The answer is “yes” in all three cases. Once we establish the truth of sentence (a), sentence (b) becomes automatically true because of the meaning relationships between trout/fish, thin/fat, and cake/something. In each case, we can say that sentence (b) is an ENTAILMENT of sentenc

5、e (a). all sentences have a number of entailments. That is, other sentences which are automatically true if the original sentence is true. The thing about entailment is that this kind of inference is “for free”. It requires only a knowledge of the semantic system of the language being used. And paraphrase is a special kind of entailment.Assingments1.Write the truth condition of the following snetences:1(a) Goldilocks saw a bear.1(b) Gold