In the branch of linguistics known as
pragmatics, a
presupposition (or
ps) 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:
- Jane no longer writes fiction.
- Presupposition: Jane once wrote fiction.
- Have you stopped eating meat?
- Presupposition: you had once eaten meat.
- Have you talked to Hans?
- Presupposition: Hans exists.