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Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

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The easiest way of differentiating presupposition and entailment is through the<br />

different responses of the two phenomena to negation. If the sentences in (3) are negated,<br />

we end up with the following.<br />

(5) a. The anarchist did not assassinate the emperor.<br />

b. The emperor did not die.<br />

The tricky part is that the negative form of the sentence in (5a) does not entail the<br />

negative sentence in (5b) since it is entirely possible that, although the anarchist tried his<br />

or her best to end the emperor’s life and failed, the emperor nonetheless died of gout or<br />

something like that. That is to say, the negation can apply to either the part of the<br />

assertion in (5a) that is equivalent to (5b), in which case (5b) would be true, or the<br />

negation can apply to the manner in which the emperor died, in which case (5b) would be<br />

false. If one asserts, however, that (5b) is true, then (5a) must also be true, since (5b) is an<br />

essential component of (5a).<br />

Presupposition, however, works quite differently and if negation is introduced into<br />

one of the examples of presupposition dealt with above, the difference should be<br />

abundantly clear.<br />

(6) a. Her husband is not a fool.<br />

b. She does not have a husband.<br />

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