Presupposition in English And Uzbek: A Comparative Analysis and Its Implications for Forensic Linguistic Expertise

Abstract

Presupposition constitutes one of the fundamental mechanisms through which speakers encode information that is assumed to be accepted rather than explicitly asserted. Although extensively investigated within pragmatics and discourse analysis, its comparative realization in English and Uzbek remains insufficiently explored, particularly from the perspective of forensic linguistic expertise. This study examines the structural, semantic, and pragmatic characteristics of presupposition in English and Uzbek conflict discourse and evaluates its evidential significance in forensic linguistic analysis. The research employs a qualitative comparative methodology integrating semantic analysis, pragmatic interpretation, discourse analysis, and contextual reconstruction. English and Uzbek linguistic data are analysed to identify factive, lexical, structural, existential, non-factive, and counterfactual presuppositions and to determine their communicative functions within conflict-oriented texts. The findings reveal that although both languages share universal pragmatic principles, they employ different grammatical and discourse strategies for encoding presupposed information. English primarily utilizes syntactic structures, auxiliary constructions, and lexical triggers, whereas Uzbek frequently relies on agglutinative morphology, discourse particles, and culturally conditioned communicative conventions. The study proposes an integrated comparative framework for identifying presupposition in forensic linguistic expertise and demonstrates how objective linguistic evidence may assist in distinguishing implicit factual assumptions from explicit assertions without exceeding the methodological boundaries of linguistic expertise. The proposed framework contributes to comparative pragmatics, forensic linguistics, discourse analysis, and cross-linguistic studies by providing a systematic model applicable to multilingual forensic investigations.