Abstract

• Presupposition triggers, which are words or phrases that produce implied meanings, can be found in the conversations, and they help people to convey the information more concisely while omitting unnecessary details. It is crucial to know the triggers as they make the communication more effective. This research paper investigates the use of various presuppositions which depict the life experience of a juvenile imposter in the autobiographical novel Catch me if you can by Frank Abagnale. It is written in first-person narrative techniques to depict the young protagonist who pretends to be a doctor, a lawyer and a co-pilot. By using the theory of presupposition proposed by Yule (1996), presuppositions found in the protagonist’s utterances are categorized into six groups: existential presupposition, factive presupposition, non-factive presupposition, lexical presupposition, structural presupposition and counterfactual presupposition. Among these six types of presuppositions, the most dominant type is existential presupposition while the least dominance is non-factive. Furthermore, it is found that the excessive use of existential presuppositions reflects the actual or personal experiences of the young protagonist.