Adpositions and presuppositions

This paper looks at presuppositions of adpositions, a topic which has not been examined much, in spite of the very large body of work on presuppositions. Some earlier assertions about adpositional presuppositions turn out not to be relevant, because (1) they are incorrect (2) presuppose and/or presupposition are not used in a technical sense in them, or (3) the presuppositions involved are not unique to adpositions. Some adpositions, e.g. despite, have been claimed to be factive, and thus could be presupposition triggers, but it is difficult to determine this, due to the fact that their complements are arguably always themselves presupposition triggers. On the other hand, directional adpositions are clearly presuppositional, as they trigger presuppositions about the location of an object/or entity before or after the motion whose description they are partly responsible for. Such facts may lead one to speculate about word classes and presuppositionality in general, and I will briefly discuss this issue.