Entailment (pragmatics)

Entailment (pragmatics)

In pragmatics (linguistics), entailment is the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B).

For example, the sentence (A) "The president was assassinated." entails (B) "The president is dead". Notice also that if (B) is false, then (A) must necessarily be false. To show entailment, we must show that (A) true forces (B) to be true and (B) false forces (A) to be false.

Entailment differs from implicature (in their definitions for pragmatics), where the truth of one (A) suggests the truth of the other (B), but does not require it.Dubious|date=March 2008 For example, the sentence "(A) Mary had a baby and (B) got married" implicates that (A) she had a baby before (B) the wedding, but this is cancellable by adding " -- not necessarily in that order." Entailments are not cancellable.

Entailment also differs from presupposition in that in presupposition, the truth of what one is presupposing is taken for granted. A simple test to differentiate presupposition from entailment is negation. For example, both "The king of France is ill" and "The king of France is not ill" presuppose that there is a king of France. However "The president was not assassinated" no longer entails "The president is dead." Presupposition remains under negation, but entailment does not.

ee also

*metaphorical entailment


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Pragmatics — Linguistics …   Wikipedia

  • Implicature — is a technical term in the pragmatics subfield of linguistics, coined by H. P. Grice, which refers to what is suggested in an utterance, even though neither expressed nor strictly implied (that is, entailed) by the utterance.[1] For example, the… …   Wikipedia

  • Speech act — For the US Act, see SPEECH Act of 2010. Speech Act is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy of language. The contemporary use of the term goes back to John L. Austin s doctrine of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts.… …   Wikipedia

  • Downward entailing — In linguistic semantics, a downward entailing (in short: DE ) expression is one that denotes a monotone decreasing function. A downward entailing expression reverses the relation of semantic strength among expressions. An expression like run fast …   Wikipedia

  • Implication — can refer to:* Logic: ** Logical implication as regarded in mathematical logic. ** Material conditional as regarded in philosophical logic.:* Entailment (pragmatics):Also, in linguistics, there are different specialized related notions::*… …   Wikipedia

  • Loaded question — A loaded question is a question which contains a controversial assumption such as a presumption of guilt.[1] Such questions are used rhetorically, so that the question limits direct replies to be those that serve the questioner s agenda.[2] The… …   Wikipedia

  • Double-barreled question — A double barreled question (sometimes, double direct question[1]) is an informal fallacy. It is committed when someone asks a question that touches upon more than one issue, yet allows only for one answer.[2][3][4] This may result in inaccuracies …   Wikipedia

  • Presupposition — In the linguistic branch of pragmatics, a presupposition is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include: * Do you want to… …   Wikipedia

  • metalogic — /met euh loj ik/, n. the logical analysis of the fundamental concepts of logic. [1835 45; META + LOGIC] * * * Study of the syntax and the semantics of formal languages and formal systems. It is related to, but does not include, the formal… …   Universalium

  • Meaning (linguistics) — In linguistics, meaning is what is expressed by the writer or speaker, and what is conveyed to the reader or listener, provided that they talk about the same thing (law of identity). In other words if the object and the name of the object and the …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”