摘要
预设（presupposition,又译为“前提” 、“前设” 、“先设”。）是一种常见的自然语言现象。哲学家在研究指代(reference) 与意义(meaning) 的关系时发现了预设现象：即专有名词(proper names)和有定描述(definite descriptions) 总是指向客观存在的实体(entities)，即使我们否定一个句子或命题，预设关系仍不受影响。例如，“余教授精力充沛”，“余教授精力不充沛”，都预设“有一个余教授”。语义学也正是在哲学研究的基础上定义预设：预设是一种特殊的逻辑蕴涵关系(logical entailment)，它能在句子或命题被否定后幸存下来(survival under negation)。随着预设研究的不断深入，语言表达中越来越多的预设关系被发现，列文森(1983: 181-184) 在总结他人观察结果的基础上，列举了13 种预设触发语(presupposition-triggers)，其中包括叙实动词(factive verbs)，状态改变的动词(change-of-state verbs)，分裂结构(cleft constructions) 等等。预设的两个显著特性：可取消性(defeasibility)和投射问题(projection)也在人们加深对预设的认识的同时显露出来。这两个问题说明预设对语境具有依赖性。语境，不论是语言语境还是非语言语境，都可以在一定条件下允许小句(clauses)中的预设上升为整个复合句的预设，或取消(block)小句的预设。显而易见，在真值条件（truth-conditional）下的语义学框架内，很难找到解决这两个问题的满意办法。
二十世纪七十年代对预设研究的大量文献体现了在语用学的范围内解释预设的努力。诸多语用因素，如话语的合适条件(felicity conditions)，格赖斯会话含义(Gricean implicatures), 说话人的态度和意图(He[39], 1995:69) 等等都被用来解释预设。这些尝试虽然从不同角度加深了我们对预设的认识，但它们也使得预设的概念变得扑朔迷离。为了不使预设变成一个包罗万象的杂乱的聚合体，本文只讨论那些由语言表层结构引发的预设关系，并认为预设是在动态交际过程中，交际者认为理所当然的，已知的，或无争议的信息。本文也讨论了两种影响很大的，在语用学框架内对预设投射问题的处理办法：即卡土南和皮特士(Karttunen & Peters[10], 1979)，盖世达(Gazdar[11],1979) 的预设投射理论。这两种理论都是描述性的。前者认为预设是一种规约含义(conventional implicature)，同时词汇和语法结构也具有一种继承功能（a heritage function）， 这种功能决定预设的上升或取消。卡土南和皮特士为不同的词汇和语法结构引发的预设规定了各自的继承条件，但这种一对一的零散的格式常常对预设的投射作出错误的预测。盖世达对所有的预设投射现象规定了全面而统一的投射条件，即语境和句子的蕴涵意义，句子的会话含义以及预设本身都可以决定预设的上升或取消。但这种理论在一些情况下对预设投射的预测也会出现错误。这两种理论在一些情况下对预设投射的错误预测，也使理论本身的正确性受到挑战。
鉴于此，本文引入了Fauconnier[12] 的心理空间理论(mental spaces theory)。它的哲学基础是经验现实主义(experiential realism), 与客观主义不同， 它认为语言和意义是人的认知与客观世界交互作用的结果，不存在一个脱离人的认知过程的绝对客观世界。意义没有绝对客观的真假值。心理空间是人们理解话语
的一种认知模式，它不存在于语言中，但语言表述能引导会话者构建心理空间，如时间状语，地点状语，主谓结构等等。一个空间中的成分(elements)可以由语用功能与另外的相关空间中的对应体(counterparts)联系起来。例如：“在照片上，小李很酷”， ‘在照片上’构成一个空间，另一个空间是‘现实’空间。这两个空间通过‘形象’(image)功能联系起来，相片中的小李的对应体就是现实生活中的小李。Fauconnier[12] 在心理空间理论的基础上，对预设的投射原则与策略进行了完善的形式化(formalizations)。这种理论对投射的解释是全面的，它的最大优点就是把语用因素进行了形式化，这是以前的语用学理论都没有成功尝试过的。而且它也能解释前两种理论所不能解释的所有反例。本文应用Fauconnier的理论来考察预设的投射现象并与前两种理论进行了比较。请看下例：
余老师相信扬小虎已经戒烟了。
P: 扬小虎过去抽烟。
卡土南[21](1973) 把‘相信’规入“塞子”(plugs)一类，即它会“阻塞”(block)从句中的预设上升到整个句子。因此，P: 扬小虎过去抽烟，不能看成是该句的预设。
而盖世达[11](1979)则认为，该句中的蕴涵意义和会话含义都不会阻塞该前提上升为整个句子的前提。
Fauconnier 把语用因素形式化的结果使我们对这种情况的分析更为全面：首先，如果听话人知道说话人是否知道P，即P!R(见第四章)，此时从句的预设P将上升为主句的预设；如果听话人知道说话人不知道P，即P?R， 此时从句的预设P将不能上升为主句的预设；如果听话人对说话人是否知道P一无所知，此时他可以自由选择P?R或P!R，即他可以自由选择预设上升或被取消两种理解方式。这第三种情况也让我们看到这种方法的缺点，即无论我们选择P?R或P!R，结果都会与另一种选择矛盾。虽然Fauconnier认为语篇中的信息可?
Chapter one is a brief introduction of the contents of the whole paper.
In chapter two, we first made a brief review of the philosophical investigations of the presuppositional phenomena conducted by Frege(in Geach and Black[1]) (1892, 1952), Strawson[3] (1952), and Russell[13] (1905), and then tried to indicate that, the examination of presuppositions within a semantic framework is not viable for any truth-conditional approach to meaning. Semantics is concerned with the specification of invariant and stable meanings that can be associated with surface linguistic expressions, while presuppositions, by nature, are not invariant and they are not stable. It soon became clear that apart from specific lexical words or grammatical constructions, contextual and pragmatic factors play an important role in the account of presuppositional phenomena.
In chapter 3, we discussed the pragmatic accounts of presuppositions that tried to take speaker's assumptions or mutual knowledge, felicity conditions and conversational implicatures into consideration. They have been proved one by one to be inadequate or improper in some sense， though each of them helped us to broaden our understanding of the nature of presuppositions. Moreover, if a pragmatic framework seemed necessary for such an account, the formalizations of contextual parameters that affect presupposition failure or inheritance are not easy tasks. Although Karttunen and Peters[10] (1979) formulated a number of ad hoc rules for presupposition-triggering words and sentential connectives, the counter-examples where they fail to make the correct predictions are nontrivial and seem to shake their very theoretical foundation. While Gazdar'[11]s Cancellation approach (1979) seems much more powerful and solves K&P's counter-examples effectively, it still leaves its own counter-examples unanswered. What's worse is that both of the two approaches are at most descriptively feasible in some respects, and neither of them is explanatory.
In view of the above, in chapter 4, we introduced Fauconnier[12]'s (1994) Mental Spaces theory and his formalization of presupposition projection rules and strategies. Fauconnier's theory is explanatory to presuppositional
phenomena and solves K&P's and Gazdar's counter-examples satisfactorily. One thing extraordinary in his approach is that pragmatic knowledge, contextual factors and interpretation strategies are formalized in his rules and strategies, and this is something that has never been successfully done by any pragmatic approaches. Fauconnier not only specifies under what circumstance presuppositions introduced into "lower" spaces float all the way up to parent space R, but also explains why they can or cannot do so. We have in this paper tried to analyze the various presuppositional projection problems in Fauconnier's mental spaces framework, and concluded that his approach is far more superior to the former two approaches, though it has its own weakness.
According to his projection rules and strategies, implicit presuppositions will float up until they are blocked by incompatibility in a higher space (SP2 followed by SP1). This is close in spirit to the principle of cancellation theories in which potential presuppositions are cancelled by stronger implicatures or sentential entailments. But this superficial resemblance is not to cover their theoretical difference. Under the cancellation view, if lower clausal presuppositions are cancelled by the hierarchy of entailments and implicatures, they simply disappear to nowhere, while floating presuppositions from space to space does not change their status: it only changes the number of spaces in which they are satisfied. Presuppositions that do not float all the way up to parent space R still remain as presuppositions in the intermediate spaces to which they may have floated. This is important in reporting speaker's beliefs and assumptions that are not shared by the hearers. What are presupposed in a speaker's belief space may continue to be presuppositions in his belief world
引文
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Appendix: articles published during M. A. studies:
[1] 周洪彦. "Presupposition and English learning." In 《语言教学与文化研究》（下）。吉林科学技术出版社。2000。
[2] 周洪彦.“英汉相应词语的文化内涵比较。”《当代英语百论》。重庆大学出版社。1999。
[3] 周洪彦.“如何培养大学生英语学习的自主性。”《外语学术论丛》（2）。重庆大学出版社。2000。
[4] 周洪彦.“意义的构建-阅读教学的新方法。”《当代英语百论》。重庆大学出版社。1999。
[5] 周洪彦.参编〈〈高职高专英语词汇精解〉〉。从plus-kind.高等教育出版社。2000。
周洪彦. 参编并主编〈〈大学英语四级水平测试〉〉。重庆大学出版社。2002。
1 In the book Introduction to Logic Theory published in 1952, Strawson is the first to use the term "presupposition".
1 ┓means negation
1 As is done in Levinson's list, both positive examples and their negations are provided and separated by / , >> stands for "presuppose"; presupposition-triggers , except constructions like cleft sentences , are italicized.
1 We use the term complex sentence to cover both the compound sentence and the complex sentence in their traditional senses as Levinson does in his Pragmatics, 1983: 191.
1 Beginning from performatives, Austin proceeds to claim that every sentence when uttered felicitously would perform three kinds of acts simultaneously:
(a) locutionary act: the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and reference
(b) illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in uttering a sentence, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it (or with its explicit performative paraphrase)
(c) perlocutionary act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the circumstances of utterance
1 We have explained what projection means in 2.4.2 'the projection problem'.
1 Karttunen (1974) names the presupposition- preserving sense of not 'internal negation', and hence it is a hole; and the presupposition-negating sense of not 'external negation' and hence a plug.
1 Both the clausal implicatures and scalar implicatures here are based on Grice's maxim of Quantity. Gazdar's scalar implicatures can be derived from Horn's notion of "Quantitative Scale".
2 In Gazdar's theory, all potential implicatures and presuppositions are epistemically modified---i.e. what is implicated or presupposed as the proposition P in other theories, will here have the form "the speaker knows that P" or symbolically Kp.
1 In Fauconnier's theory, "reality" must itself be a mental representation: the speaker's mental representation of reality.