A Properly Pragmatist Pragmatics

Una tradizione plurisecolare ha quasi sempre perduto di vista che, in realtà, le forme linguistiche non hanno alcuna intrinseca capacità semantica: esse sono strumenti, espedienti, più o meno ingegnosi, senza vita e valore fuori delle mani dell'uomo, delle comunità storiche che ne facciano uso (De Mauro 1965). Abstract In this paper I offer my reflections on the relationship between semantics and pragmatics. I argue that semantics – the relatively stable and context-invariant meanings of the language – is necessarily amplified by pragmatics, which is a way of transcending the possibilities of semantics. Pragmatic layers, especially if they meet the cognitive needs of language users and represent culturally salient concepts, tend to become semanticized. The situation is complicated by the postulation of explicatures, which I argue are not cancellable and mimic the semantic resources of the language (very often I have claimed that explicatures are mainly cases in which a pragmatic inference does some work in rescuing a statement from otherwise insuperable logical problems). Like entailments they are not cancellable, but they share the features of all pragmatic inferences in that they are calculable. I propose that explicatures are loci of the tension between semantics and pragmatics, and given lack of cancellability they are strong candidates for inferences that become semanticized. In this paper, I see the tension between pragmatics and semantics exemplified by situations where an excessive weight is placed on the semantics (legal documents, such as laws) and situations where an excessive burden is placed on the pragmatics (pidgins like Tok Pisin). In this paper, I also argue that I would like to give thanks to Tullio De Mauro, who made me think of this topic by his stimulating considerations. I would also like to thank principles of language use tend to become semanticised in the form of discourse rules and I consider the praxis of language games and argue that discourse rules, unlike principles, have the advantage of being teachable and also of favoring the involvement of speakers in the communicative praxis (Lo Piparo F, Gramsci and Wittgenstein. An intriguing connection. In: Capone A (ed) Perspectives on language use and pragmatics. Lincom, Muenchen, pp 285–320, 2010).

2014

We introduce the principles behind the launch of a new journal in semantics and pragmatics and outline the journal’s processes and policies. S&P is a peer-reviewed open access journal. The main content is high quality, original, self-contained research articles on the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages. While our target audience is primarily academic linguists, we expect to also publish material by, or of relevance to, philosophers, psychologists, and computer scientists.

2009

Let intentionalism be the view that what proposition is expressed in context by a sentence containing indexicals depends on the speaker’s intentions. It has recently been argued that intentionalism makes communicative success mysterious and that there are counterexamples to the intentionalist view in the form of cases of mismatch between the intended interpretation and the intuitively correct interpretation. In this paper, I argue that these objections can be met, once we acknowledge that we may distinguish what determines the correct interpretation from the evidence that is available to the audience, as well as from the standards by which we judge whether or not a given interpretation is reasonable. With these distinctions in place, we see that intentionalism does not render communicative success mysterious, and that cases of mismatch between the intended interpretation and the intuitively correct one can easily be accommodated. The distinction is also useful in treating the Humpty Dumpty problem for intentionalism, since it turns out that this can be treated as an extreme special case of mismatch.

2019

I return to Davidson's "anti-conventionalism" papers to assess his famous arguments against the sufficiency and necessity of conventions for successful linguistic communication. Davidson goes beyond the common contention that the basic conventional layer of meaning, one that is secured by interlocutors' shared competence in their common language, must often be supplemented in rich and inventive ways. First, he maintains that linguistic understanding is never exclusively a matter of mere decoding, but always an interpretative task that demands constant additional attention to the indeterminately various cues and clues available. More radically still, Davidson denies that linguistic conventions are even needed. In particular, he argues against the fairly consensual thesis there is some essential element of conventionality in literal meaning. This still represents a very distinctive contribution to the persistent and tumultuous discussion over the relative natures and limits of semantics and pragmatics. I maintain that Davidson is only partially right in his claims. I agree with him about the general insufficiency of conventions for linguistic communication. I develop an argument supporting the thesis that genuine pursuit of linguistic understanding can never take the form of uncritical conformity to a fixed norm. I am also convinced that Davidson is right about the occasional dispensability of conventions. Often enough, as Davidson's examples show, literal meanings are improvised on the go-that is, interlocutors manage to coordinate on the meaning of some exchanged expression without the benefit of a shared convention governing that use. I reject, however, general non-necessity. I consider in some detail Davidson's argument from radical interpretation and conclude that it fails.

2010

Abstract: Context figures in the interpretation of utterances in many different ways. In the tradition of possible-worlds semantics, the seminal account of context-sensitive expressions such as indexicals and demonstratives is that of Kaplan's two-dimensional semantics (the contentcharacter distinction), further pursued in various directions by Stalnaker, Chalmers, and others.

1996

2003

The avowed aim of this first volume in the Current Research in the Semantics/ Pragmatics Interface series is, according to its editor, ''to begin to take some steps to reducing the heat of [.. .] discussions [relating to how linguistically-conveyed meaning should be defined, and therefore studied; M.T.] and to begin to increase the light that might profitably be shed on some of the problems of interdigitating content and context'' (p. 14). It is in the light of this pronouncement that the current review will assess the contribution made by the 15 articles of this volume to the ongoing debate regarding the boundary between semantics and pragmatics, and whether there should be any such. In the 'Introduction', Ken Turner prepares the ground for the volume, if not the entire series, by tracing the development from semantics to pragmatics (and back again). Carnap's distinction between ''pure'' and ''descriptive'' studies, Montague's model theoretic semantics, Gricean pragmatics, and finally current dynamic semantic approaches serve as intellectual milestones in this broad classification of modern approaches to linguistic meaning. The boundaries of the canvas are thus set out, while the details remain to be filled in. This is no small feat, given the introduction's intended brevity (implicit in the subtitle ''seven-inch version''), and it is accomplished in an informative, critical, and entertaining fashion. In Chapter 1, 'Discourse structure and the logic of conversation', Nicholas Asher picks up the discussion where the introduction left it, arguing for a way of potentially reconciling (Gricean) pragmatics and (dynamic) semantics. Discourse structure is the key to this, as it can provide evidence for modelling (agents'/systems') cognitive states, and vice versa, allowing us to re-cast Gricean maxims in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) terms. 1 Meaning construction is incremental, drawing on clues provided by different levels of interpretation: logical forms of sentences, discourse structure analysable in SDRT terms, and agents' cognitive states. While one may question the fact that one cannot know another's intention

2019

Semantics and pragmatics are defined in §1 and their respective histories examined in subsequent sections. §2 explains and gives the history of lexical semantics: the rise of componential analysis, fields and differential values, semantic primes and Natural Semantic Metalanguage, prototype and stereotype semantics. §3 examines the syntax-semantics interface: Katz's semantic theory, identifying selectional restrictions, generative semantics, conceptual semantics, the issue of thematic roles, semantics and pragmatics in a functional grammar, semantic frames and meaning in construction grammar. §4 explicates and gives the history of logic and linguistic meaning: arguing for the importance of truth conditions, the characteristics of formal semantics, the semantics and pragmatics of anaphora. §5 surveys additional aspects of pragmatics: indexicals, scripts, and conversational implicature. Finally, §6 offers a summary of the foregoing.

Cognition, 1981