Though words like knew or realised are commonly know factive verbs that trigger presupposition. Does verbs like enjoyed, paid, looking forward, commended and delighted also count as factive verbs which trigger presuppositions?

For example, Mark paid Debbie for publishing the book - the presupposition is clearly Debbie published the book. But does the paid acts as a a factive verb and presupposes the complement clause, or is it just semantic knowledge of the word paid, determine what should be assumed.

Or would the above example not be a presupposition at all?

Thank You.

From the book Semantics by Saeed, some dependent clauses can trigger presuppositions, so in the example, the presuppositional clause "for publishing the book" can be the trigger. However, I am unsure about this.

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    Semantics is not my field, but given that “Mark paid Debbie to publish the book” does not presuppose that Debbie in fact published the book (she may have just taken the money and run), I’d say at the least it would have to be the specific construction pay [sb.] for [gerund] that could be seen as factive. Oct 10 at 8:50
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    Firstly, thank you for the answer and apologies if the example sentence was a bit unclear. However, if it say "Mark paid Debbie 'for' publishing the book", therefore would the use of 'for' mean that the book was already published? Thus the money was paid after. Would that mean a presupposition would still exist? Thanks again.
    – Raywong19
    Oct 10 at 10:57
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    @JanusBahsJacquet There is a clear semantic difference between "Mark paid Debbie to publish the book." and "Mark paid Debbie for publishing the book." and the difference is that with "for" and the participle, there is a presupposition that the action has been done, and with "to", it is presupposed that it hasn't, but whether "pay" is a factive verb or not, I don't know. Oct 10 at 14:47
  • @QuintusCaesius-RM Yes, that’s pretty much exactly what I said (I don’t know if it would count as a factive verb or not either – but if it does, then surely only in the for construction, not the to construction). Oct 10 at 14:50
  • @JanusBahsJacquet I greatly misunderstood your first comment, sorry. Oct 10 at 15:59

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