UNDERSTANDING PRESUPPOSITION AND ENTAILMENT

Abstract

The term, ‘presupposition’ was initiated by the British philosopher, Peter
Strawson around 1950. It deals with the knowledge of world and situations in
which the speakers engage in conversation. The interlocutors produceand
understand the utterances in a given context because they assume the background
knowledge that controls the language when it is used. So far, the concern of
linguist with presupposition is more recent than that of logicians and
philosophers. However, the term is discussed in relation to certain specialized
problems, whose connection with the wider aspects of language is not entirely
clear. Similarly, entailment is logical or truthful consequence ‘It is something that
necessarily follows from what is asserted. The present paper attempts to explain
what the logicians or philosophers have said regarding presupposition and
entailment in the domain ofsemantics and pragmatics.