Presupposition Triggers in Online Editorial Discourse

Presupposition triggers play a very crucial role when readers draw inferences from what they read. This paper examined the prevalence of presupposition triggers in 39 online political editorials taken from three Philippine dailies, and how such presupposition triggers realize the intended meanings of writers. The paper is grounded on Yule (2008)’s and Huang (2007)’s classification of presupposition triggers. Analysis of the texts revealed that Lexical triggers are the most frequently used presupposition trigger, with Existential presupposition as the most common subtype. As for Structural triggers, ‘Temporal’ clauses appeared to be the most dominant. The use of specific words that signal the existence of presupposition provides the readers with a means of understanding the implicit meaning being communicated by the writers. Because these presupposition triggers offer the text's intended meaning, readers can more easily understand the main idea(s) of the text without drawing rash conclusions.