Difference between revisions of "Factive predicate"
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Wohlgemuth (talk | contribs) m (utrecht) |
(No difference)
|
Latest revision as of 20:34, 13 February 2009
Factive predicate is a predicate which entails or presupposes the truth of one of its arguments.
Example
A sentence such as John knows that Bill is ill can be true only if its propositional argument Bill is ill is true. Factive predicates are distinguished from non-factive predicates (such as believe) and counter-factives (such as pretend). Thus, the truth-value of John believes that Bill is ill does not depend on the truth-value of the proposition Bill is ill, whereas John pretends that he is ill can only be true if he is not ill.