Linguistic entailment

{{Short description|Concept in linguistics}} {{other uses|Entail (disambiguation)}} '''Linguistic entailments''' are entailments which arise in natural language. If a sentence ''A'' entails a sentence ''B'', sentence ''A'' cannot be true without ''B'' being true as well.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Semantic Entailment and Formal Derivability|last=Beth|first=Evert Willem|year=1955}}</ref> For instance, the English sentence "Pat is a fluffy cat" entails the sentence "Pat is a cat" since one cannot be a fluffy cat without being a cat. On the other hand, this sentence does not entail "Pat chases mice" since it is possible (if unlikely) for a cat to not chase mice.

Entailments arise from the semantics of linguistic expressions.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Lexical Meaning|last=Murphy|first=M. Lynne|publisher=Cambridge Textbooks in Semantics|year=2010|location=Cambridge|pages=31–40}}</ref> Entailment contrasts with the pragmatic notion of implicature. While implicatures are fallible inferences, entailments are enforced by lexical meanings plus the laws of logic.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Presupposition and Implicature in Compositional Semantics|last=Sauerland|first=U|publisher=Pelgrave|year=2007}}</ref> Entailments also differ from presuppositions, whose truth is taken for granted. The classic example of a presupposition is the existence presupposition which arises from definite descriptions. For example, the sentence "The king of France is bald" presupposes that there is a king of France. Unlike an entailment, presuppositions survive when the sentence is negated. The negation test can be used to determine the difference between entailment and presupposition.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Indarti |first=Gatri Asti Putri |date=2015-04-01 |title=Distinguishing Entailment and Presupposition Under Negation Test |url=http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c42d/20aa9d0ca853ca449a13b7a0fe3b34d05893.pdf |journal=Language and Language Teaching Journal |volume=18 |issue=01 |pages=27–38 |doi=10.24071/llt.2015.180104 |issn=1410-7201|doi-access=free }}</ref> For instance, "The king of France is not bald" likewise presupposes that there is a king of France.<ref name=":0" />

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Category:Semantics Category:Pragmatics Category:Natural language conditionals