TASK 2
I. PRESUPPOSITION
1. In this example, ‘regret’ introduces the same presupposition, John failed the
exam.
a) John regrets that he failed the exam.
b) John doesn’t regret that he failed the exam.
What kind of presupposition is it?
Lexical.
In the whole complex, if a) is true, b) cannot be true. This is a logical contradiction.
BUT can you explain these two utterances taking place without any contradiction?
In a) he may regret that he failed the exam maybe because he could had studied enough
to do it well, but in the second he doesn’t regret it because it didn’t brought any
negative effects over his academic life (for an example) anyway and didn’t lost time
studying.
2. Does ‘before’ create a presupposition in both examples? Explain.
a) John got to safety before the boiler blew up
b) John got to the safety handle before the boiler blew up
In a) John got away from the explosion and in b) he managed the safety handler
to avoid the boiler from blowing up, so we have presuppositions in both
sentences, but they aren’t the same. In any case all we can presuppose from both
is that the boiler was about to blow.
3. Explain with an example of your own that negation alters a sentence’s
entailment, but it leaves the presupposition untouched.
It was Michael who killed your cat.
I wasn’t Michael who killed your cat.
The presupposition is that someone killed the cat, but the entailment changes because of
the negation. In the first sentence is Michael who killed the cat, but in the second it is
not Michael but someone else, including the one saying it and the listener.
4. Following Wilson and Sperber, how would you express the background
entailment in this example?
John invited a lot of people to a weird party.
Someone invited people to a party.
5. By a clefting construction different parts can be highlighted.
John invited a lot of people to a weird party.
1. Transform this sentence into several cleft constructions
2. Mark the focus of each in CAPITAL LETTERS
