In pragmatics (linguistics), entailment is the relationship between two sentences where the truth of one (A) requires the truth of the other (B). In linguistics and semiotics, pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speakers meaning. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language. ...
For example, the sentence (A) The president was assassinated. entails (B) The president is dead.
Entailment differs from implicature, where the truth of one (A) suggests the truth of the other (B), but does not require it.[dubious — see talk page] Definition An implicature is anything that is inferred from an utterance but that is not a condition for the truth of the utterance. ...
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. In linguistics, a presupposition is background belief, relating to an utterance, that: must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context Will generally remain a necessary assumption whether the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial...
Implication or entailment is used in propositional logic and predicate logic to describe a relationship between two sentences or sets of sentences.
We need the definition of entailment to demand that every model of A must also be a model of B because a formal system like a knowledge base can't possibly know the interpretations which a user might have in mind when they ask whether a set of facts (A) entails a proposition (B).
In many cases, entailment corresponds to material implication: that is,
Feeds |
Contact