Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

egularly presupposed (and therefore usually definite), while the focus of a clause
typically corresponds to the assertion.
As segments of text follow in sequence, subsequent clauses regularly presuppose
certain elements of previous clauses, but at the same time, certain assertions require that
other assertions that may or may not follow in sequence also be true—this is entailment
(The following examples are taken from Saeed 2003, 98-99, ex. 4.52, 4.56, and 4.57.)
(3) a. The anarchist assassinated the emperor.
b. The emperor died.
(4) a. I bought a dog today.
b. I bought an animal today.
In (4), we have the simplest form of entailment, which involves a hyponym “dog” being
replaced by a hypernym such as “animal.” Since, at least from the logical point of view,
all dogs are animals, the sentence in (4b) “includes” the sentence in (4a) and any
assertion of (4a) necessarily “includes” an assertion of (4b). Although they are somewhat
more complex, the same goes for verbs, hence the entailment that holds between (3a) and
(3b). Since the verb “assassinate” includes death as one of its semantic components and
the referent of the nominal argument that undergoes assassination in (3a) is the same one
that experiences death in (3b), namely the emperor, any assertion of (3a) necessarily
includes an assertion of (3b).
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