Presupposition

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

An implicit assumption embedded in an utterance that is taken for granted by the speaker and that must be true for the utterance to be meaningful — such as the existence of the thing referred to

History and origin

Frege identified the phenomenon in 1892; formalised by P.F. Strawson in 'On Referring' (1950); central to formal semantics and pragmatics

Examples

• 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' presupposes that you were beating your wife — regardless of your yes/no answer.
• Presupposition differs from entailment in that presuppositions survive negation: 'John didn't stop smoking' still presupposes John used to smoke.

Synonyms: background assumption, taken-for-granted assumption