PRESUPPOSITION USED IN THE QUEEN OF SPADES
on
PRESUPPOSITION USED IN THE QUEEN OF SPADES
BY
NI PUTU DIAH KRISTINA YANTI
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, FACULTY OF LETTERS
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
2013
ABSTRAK
Jurnal ini berjudul “Presupposition Used in The Queen of Spades”. Tujuan dari peneletian ini adalah untuk menemukan jenis-jenis dan makna dari presupposisi yang ditemukan dalam novel yang berjudul “The Queen of Spades”. Teori yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah teori pragmatik oleh Yule (1996) khususnya mengenai presupposisi dengan teori pendukung oleh Levinson (1983). Dalam teorinya Yule (1996) membagi jenis presupposisi kedalam 6 jenis yaitu, existential presupposisi, factive presupposisi, lexical presupposisi, structural presupposisi, non-factive presupposisi, dan counterfactual presupposisi. Metode yang digunakan dalam menganalisis penelitian ini adalah metode kualitatif. Pembahasan data di awali dengan membaca novel, memberi tanda dan mencatat ucapan yang mengandung presupposisi, dan menganalisa jenis-jenis dan makna dari presupposisi tersebut. Dari analisis yang dilakukan ditemukan 5 jenis dan makna dari presupposisi tersebut.
Kata kunci: ucapan, presupposisi, novel
1.Background
Language is an important means of communication, which is used to communicate, to convey an ideas or information, to intract to each other, and also to develop knowledge. The study about language is called linguistics. One of linguistics aspects is concerned with pragmatics. One of brances of pragmatics is presupposition.
The reason why this topic was chosen because to develop the understanding of pragmatics especially in presuppostion, to find out the types and meaning of presupposition.
Based on the background mentioned above, there are problems that can be
formulated that related to this topic and will be discussed in this research, as follows:
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1) What types of presupposition used in the The Queen of Spades ?
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2) What is the meaning of presupposition used in The Queen of Spades ?
There are two main aims of doing this study that related to the problems proposed above, those are:
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1) To find out the types of presupposition used in The Queen of Spades.
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2) To find out the meaning of presupposition used in The Queen of Spades.
In analyzing the data of this study, the research method used is devided into three aspects, they are: data source, method and technique of collecting data, and method and technique of analyzing data.
The data source of this study were taken from English novel entitled “The Queen of Spades” by Aleksandr Pushkin published in 2003. The novel containts many dialogues between men and woman characters. There were 50 conversations taken from the novel as the data that contains presupposition as the object of research. However this study only took 36 of them randomly as a sample which represent the types of presupposition. This study is focused on the types and meaning of the presupposition in the novel.
The data of this study were taken from the novel of The Queen of Spades using library research. In this method the data were collected in order to find out the types and meaning of presupposition. The data in this study were collected using random sampling.
This research tends to emphasize the quality of the data, after the required data were collected, they were analyzed qualitatively and presented descriptively in order to give a clear description throught the theory of presupposition which is relevant with the topic. There three steps are used in analyzing the data, as follows: finding out the presupposition in the novel, indentifiying and classifying the utterances which contains of presupposition, analysing the types and meaning of presupposition in the novel “The Queen of Spades” based on the theory proposed by Yule (1996).
The analysis of the presupposition in novel The Queen of Spades was done on 36 sentences which appeared in novel The Queen of Spades.
There are five types of presupposition found in the English novel “The Queen of Spades”. The types of presupposition are:
In this type, the assumption which committed to existence of the entities named by the speaker (writer) and assumed present in noun phrase.
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(1) Hermann was a young man who lived in Saint Petersburg in Russia. His father had come from Germany to work in Russian before Hermann was born. When his father died, Hermann becamee an officer in the Russian army.
The utterance in example (1) above has existential presupposition, that is Hermann. Because Hermann is supposed to exist. The speaker is normaly expected to have presupposition that a person called Hermann exists and that he was young man who lived in Saint Peterburg in Rusia. He became an officer in the Russian army.
The presupposed information following a verb like ‘know’ can be read as a fact and describe as a factive presupposition. a number of other verbs used are ‘realize’, ‘regret’, as well as ‘be’, with aware, ‘odd’ have factive presupposition.
There was a party one night which went on until four o’clock in the morning. Tomsky lost a lot of money and was unhappy. He wanted someone talk to, so he sat down beside Hermann.
‘Why do you never play cards?’ Tomsky asked Hermann.
‘I have very little money,’ Hermann replied. ‘I cannot lose it at cards.’ ‘But you sit here every night and watch us win and lose,’ Tomsky said.
‘Yes,’ Hermann agreed. ‘I love cards very much.’
‘So would you play cards if you were certain to win?’ Tosmky asked with a smile. ‘Perhaps,’ Hermann answered slowly. ‘But that’s impossible.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Tosmky. ‘My grandmother, Countess Anna Fedotovna, knows the secret of the Three Winning Cards. But she won’t tell anyone and she never gambles.’
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(23) ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Hermann.
‘Then listen to this story,’ said Tosmky. ‘My grandmother is more than eighty years old, but she was very beautiful when she was young.
Tomsky told Hermann about his grandmother, Countess Ana Fedotovna, knows the secret of the Tree Winning Cards. The pronoun “I” in the utterance refers to Hermann. And pronoun “You” refers to Tomsky.
The utterance in example (23) above has factive presupposition. Herman doesn’t trust with Tomsky. The word “believe” in sentence (23) makes an assumption that Hermann doesn’t trust with Tomsky in the fact at the time of presupposition.
This is assumption using one word, the speaker can act as if another meaning (word) will be understood. In the case of lexical presupposition, the speaker’s use of particular expression is taken to presuppose another (unstead) concept.
Hermann did not have much money. But many of the other officers had plenty money. They loved to spend their evenings drinking wine and playing cards. He was very careful with his money, but loved to watch the rich young men
playing cards every night. (24) He wanted to be rich, but he did not have enough money to gamble.
The pronoun “He” in example (24) refers to Hermann. Hermann did not have much money. He did not drink and did not play cards. He was careful with his money, but he loved to watch the rich young men playing cards every night.
The utterance in sentence (24) has lexical presupposition. The word “wanted” in utterance makes asserted meaning that Hermann is not rich at the time. Lexical presupposition is that the assumption in using one word, the speaker can act as if another meaning (word) will be understood.
In this type, the assumption is associated with the use of certain words and phrases assumed to be true. In this case, certain sentence structures have been analyzed as conventionally and regularly presupposing that part of the stucture is already assumed to be true. We might say that speakers can use such srtuctures to treat information as presupposed.
WH-question contruction in English are conventionally interpreted with the presupposition that the information after WH-form (i.e when and where) is already known to be the case. The type of presupposition illustrated can lead listeners to believing that the information presented is necessarily true, rather than just the presupposition of the person asking the question.
The Countess raised her hands in front of her face, the fell back in the chair and did not move. Her eyes continued to stare at Hermann, but the eyes were lifeless. Hermann saw that she was dead. He opened the door to Lizavyeta’s room and walked up the stairs. Lizavyeta was still waiting for him. She was wearing her best dress. Her face was pale.
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(34) ‘Where have you been?’ she whispered.
‘In the old Countess’s bedroom,’ Hermann asnswered.
‘The Countess is dead.’
Lizavyeta listened as Hermann told her how the Countess had died. Hermann came to find out a secret. He wanted to learn the secret of the Three Winning Cards. He asked the Countess to tell him. But she was refused. Then, she fell back dead in her chair. He did not kill her. Lizavyeta’s eyes filled with tears. She understood that his letters of love had meant nothing. She began to cry bitterly. She wanted to get Hermann out of the house as quickly as possible. ‘Where have you been?’ she whispered.
After Hermann met The Countess, and he saw that she was dead. He opened the door to Lizavyeta’s room and walked up the stairs. Lizavyeta was still waiting for him. She was wearing her best dress.
The pronoun “You” in example (34) refers to Hermann. Lizavyeta told Hermann. So the utterance has presupposition Hermann is in the old Countess’s bedroom. The utterance in sentence (34) above has structural presupposition. WH-question construction in English are conventinally interpreted with the presupposition that the information after WH-form is already known to be the case. In this presuppsition “Hermann in the old Countess’s bedroom” is already known to be the case. The presupposition illustrated can lead listeners to believing that Hermann in the old Countess’s bedroom presented is necessarily true, rather than just the presupposition of the person asking the question.
The assumption that what is presupposed is not only not true, but is opposite what is true or contrary to fact is counterfactual presupposition. For instance, some conditional strutural, presupposes that the information,in the if-clause is not true at the time of uttrance. A conditinal structure of this type shown, generally called a counterfactual conditional, presupposes that the information in the if-clause is not true at the end of utterance.
At the next night, my grandmother played cards with the Duke of Orleans again. She played three cards – one after the other. They all won. She paid back the money and never gambled again. And she never told anyone the secret of the Three Winning Cards!’
‘It can’t be true,’ said Hermann slowly. It’s just a story. Isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Tomsky. ‘But look at the time! It’s almost morning. It’s quarter to six and time for bed.’
All the young men finished their drinks and went home. It was nearly dawn on a cold winter morning. Hermann could not stop thinking about Tomsky’s story as he walked through the snowy streets of Saint Petersburg. (35) If I knew the secret of the Three Winning Cards, I would be rich, he thought to himself. And if I was rich, I wouldn’t waste my money like Tomsky.
After telling the story, Tomsky and Hermann have different opinions about the story. Hermann think that the story can’t be true. And Tosmky don’t thin so. And then they went to bed. All the young men finished their drinks and went home.
Hermann could not stop thinking about Tomsky’s story as he walked through the snowy streets of Saint Petersburg.
The pronoun “I” in sentence (35) refers to Hermann. Hermann could not stop thinking about Tomsky’s story about Three Winning Cards. So the presupposition of the utterance Hermann didn’t know the secret of the Three Winning Cards. The utterance in sentence (35) above has couterfactual presupposition. Because the assumption of that what is not only true, but opposite what is true or countrary to fact. Some conditional structural, presupposes that the information, in the if clause is not true at the time of utterance.
There are six types of presupposition as identified by Yule (1996). They are existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical presupposition, structural presupposition, non-factive presupposition, and counterfactual presupposition.
After analyzing the data, it is concluded that only five types of presuppositions are found from the English novel entitled “The Queen of Spades” by Aleksandr Pushkin which was published in 2003. And that all utterances or sentences have presuppositions as the hidden meaning of what they (speaker or writer) means. From the analysis of the data, there are existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical presupposition, structural presupposition, and counterfactual presupposition are found. First, the existential presupposition that most dominant type of presuppositions found in the novel is existential presupposition. Based on the analysis, the research concluded that most utterances or setences presupposed the existence something. Second, lexical presupposition is also dominant type. And the other are counterfactual presupposition, factive presupposition and structural presupposition.
Levinson, S. C. 1983. Pragmatics. London: Cambridge University Press.
Leech, G. 1983. The Principle of Pragmatics. Trans. M.D.D. Oka. Jakarta: UI Press.
Punskin. Aleksandr. 2003. The Queen of Spades. Jakarta: Dian Rakyat.
Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
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