So looking at clauses joined by but is one way of revealing a speaker's or writer's underlying, unstated assumptions.

But the unstated assumption that the United States will always be ready to step in is a risky one.

Their relationship blossoms, but both have unstated assumptions that may be stronger than their needs.

Usually, no doubt, the audience shared the unstated assumptions, but even if they did not, it would have been a solecism to answer the question.

Why the unstated assumption that novels are the superior standard against which comics must be measured?

There were also unstated assumptions about mothers who work.

Of course, the unstated assumption behind all of these developments is that your pocket isn't big enough for the computer itself.

As it turns out, a long line of developmental inquiry, informed by a "transactional" perspective, has more or less been based on this unstated assumption.

He never says it outright, but throughout there is an unstated assumption that modernity is Western.

At the same time "the unstated assumption is that people did not have a voice," he added.