On the Tension Between Semantics and Pragmatics

Synthese, 2008

The semantics/pragmatics distinction is one of the most discussed topics in the philosophy of language today. Several collections have been devoted specifically to it (e.g. Turner 1999; Bianchi 2005; Szabo 2006), and a number of important recently published works address issues that crucially hinge upon the relationship between semantics and pragmatics (e.g.

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.

The Handbook of Pragmatics, 2006

Non-Verbal Predication in Ancient Egyptian, 2017

The fields of semantics and pragmatics are devoted to the study of conventionalized and context-or use-dependent aspects of natural language meaning, respectively. The complexity of human language as a semiotic system has led to considerable debate about how the semantics/pragmatics distinction should be drawn, if at all. This debate largely reflects contrasting views of meaning as a property of linguistic expressions versus something that speakers do. The fact that both views of meaning are essential to a complete understanding of language has led to a variety of efforts over the last 40 years to develop better integrated and more comprehensive theories of language use and interpretation. The most important advances have included the adaptation of propositional analyses of declarative sentences to interrogative, imperative and exclamative forms; the emergence of dynamic, game theoretic, and multi-dimensional theories of meaning; and the development of various techniques for incorporating context-dependent aspects of content into representations of context-invariant content with the goal of handling phenomena such as vagueness resolution, metaphor, and metonymy. The fields of semantics and pragmatics are devoted to the study of the semiotics of language. The fact that two separate disciplines have developed for this purpose reflects the complexity of human language as a semiotic system, as well as the debate as to how it should be analyzed. This complexity is of at least four types. First, we use language not only to represent information (or thought) to ourselves and convey it to others, but also to act on and interact with others in ways that do not directly have to do with the transmission of information, such as greetings, exclamations or orders 1,2. Second, language is simultaneously highly systematic and flexible. On the one hand, interlocutors are under strong pressure to be consistent in their use of language to transmit messages; otherwise, communication would be more difficult and less reliable than it is. On the other, they continually innovate in using existing linguistic forms to convey new, and sometimes even radically different, messages via metaphor 3 , irony 4 , and other devices 5. Third, even if we assume a certain stability in the relation between linguistic form and what is communicated, the immediate context of use is Related Articles Article ID Article title COGSCI-086 Lexical Semantics COGSCI-106 Semantics, Acquisition of COGSCI-201 Discourse Processing

My original intention is to prove that pragmatics is a ‘hybrid’ innovation. It grew out of three distinct branches of knowledge: rhetoric, semiotics and functional linguistics. My assumption draws on three simple observations: (i) many rhetorical concepts, like topoi, inference and argumentation, are pragmatically tackled, (ii) many works document a palpable influence of Aristotelian rhetoric in pragmatic researches (Tyteca &Perlman, 1992; Anscombre, 1995; Ducrot &Anscombre, 1997),and (iii) other works, always, put pragmatics at the cross of disciplines (Eemeren et al, 1986). The article provides a panoramic survey of pragmatics. Its main issue is to contribute to the understanding of the interface between pragmatics and surrounding disciplines, mainly rhetoric, functional linguistics and semiotics. Key words: pragmatics, rhetoric, semiotics, functional linguistics, speech act theory.

If you vary the context of utterance enough, i.e. vary the audience, the conversational context, the background knowledge, etc., you can get any sentence to communicate different propositions. One central task for those interested in the semantics–pragmatics distinction is to identify and classify such patterns of inter-contextual variability. Having identified such patterns, we develop models that can explain them. In what follows, I first present some versions of three important models: the Semantic Model, the Pragmatic Model , and the Index Model. In the second half of the chapter, I present what I take to be some of the most pressing challenges facing those working in this field. The goal is to present these issues and challenges, not to defend a theory. In particular, this is not a chapter meant as a defence of Cappelen and Lepore (2004). As this volume of essays clearly shows, the number of powerful objections and alternatives is now so large that responding to all of them would take a new book. This chapter is meant, rather, as a brief overview, written in the light of these criticisms, of how these issues are best structured, and so might serve to frame some of the debates triggered by the book. There is, however, one small point I will try to promote, at least indirectly: there's no such thing as the semantics–pragmatics distinction and looking for it is a waste of time. No such distinction will do any important explanatory work. You can, as I will below, label some level of content 'semantic content', but in so doing no interesting problem is solved and no puzzling data illuminated. To explain inter-contextual variability across different areas of discourse we will need an arsenal of explanatory models and data-gathering procedures. In the light of recent work in philosophy and linguistics, we should be sceptical of any suggestion to the effect that just a couple of such models will do all the work for us. Our bias, I suggest, should be in favour of

Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies

Disputatio, 2015

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.