presupposed

Presupposed is an adjective describing something assumed to be true or existing before a statement or action. In everyday use, it often refers to background assumptions that underlie an utterance rather than the claim that is directly asserted.

In linguistics, presupposition refers to background information that a sentence takes for granted. Various constructions trigger presuppositions: definite noun phrases (The author of the book), factive verbs (know, realize), change-of-state verbs (stop, finish), and certain adverbs or particles (again, even). For example, "John stopped smoking" presupposes that John used to smoke; "The king of France is bald" presupposes that there exists a king of France. Presuppositions commonly project through negation and questions, meaning they tend to remain part of the discourse even when the sentence is negated or posed as a question.

Presupposed content is not the same as the sentence’s asserted content; it is a background condition that must be compatible with the utterance and can be true or false independently of the main clause. Different theories in semantics and pragmatics address how presuppositions are triggered, how robust they are across contexts, and how they interact with falsity and uncertainty.

Applications of the concept span linguistics, philosophy of language, and natural language processing. Understanding presupposition helps explain how speakers convey implicit information, how listeners interpret statements within discourse, and how computational systems recognize and manage background assumptions in meaning and dialogue. See also presupposition, presuppose, and related topics in semantics and pragmatics.