The boundary between semantics and pragmatics has been important since the early twentieth century, but in the last twenty-five years it has become the central issue in the philosophy of language. This anthology collects classic philosophical papers on the topic, along with recent key contributions. It stresses not only the nature of the boundary, but also its importance for philosophy generally.

One of the most lively and contentious issues in contemporary linguistic theory concerns the elusive boundary between semantics and pragmatics, and Professor Laurence R. Horn of Yale University has been at the center of that debate ever since his groundbreaking 1972 UCLA dissertation. This festvolume in honor of Horn brings together the best of current work at the semantics/pragmatics boundary from a neo-Gricean perspective. Featuring the contributions of 22 leading researchers, it includes papers on implicature (Kent Bach), inference (Betty Birner), presupposition (Barbara Abbott), lexical semantics (Georgia Green, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Steve Kleinedler & Randall Eggert), negation (Pauline Jacobson, Frederick Newmeyer, Scott Schwenter), polarity (Donka Farkas, Anastasia Giannakidou, Michael Israel), implicit variables (Greg Carlson & Gianluca Storto), definiteness (Barbara Partee), reference (Ellen Prince, Andrew Kehler & Gregory Ward), and logic (Jerrold Sadock, Francis Jeffry Pelletier & Andrew Hartline). These original papers represent not only a fitting homage to Larry Horn, but also an important contribution to semantic and pragmatic theory.

This is a collection of papers by leading scholars in the philosophy of language and theoretical linguistics on how semantics and pragmatics embed into a larger theory of interpretation and also on the disputed territories between these disciplines.

This book explores new territory at the interface between semantics and pragmatics, reassessing a number of linguistic phenomena in the light of recent advances in pragmatic theory. It presents stimulating insights by experts in linguistics and philosophy, including Kent Bach, Philippe de Brabanter, Max Kölbel and François Recanati. The authors begin by reassessing the definition of four theoretical concepts: saturation, free pragmatic enrichment, completion and expansion. They go on to confront (sub)disciplines that have addressed similar issues but that have not necessarily been in close contact, and then turn to questions related to reported speech, modality, indirect requests and prosody. Chapters investigate lexical pragmatics and (cognitive) lexical semantics and other interactions involving experimental pragmatics, construction grammar, clinical linguistics, and the distinction between mental and linguistic content. The authors bridge the gap between different disciplines, subdisciplines and methodologies, supporting cross-fertilization of ideas and indicating the empirical studies that are needed to test current theoretical concepts and push the theory further. Readers will find overviews of the ways in which concepts are defined, empirical data with which they are illustrated and explorations of the theoretical frameworks in which concepts are couched. This exciting exchange of ideas has its origins in the editors’ workshop series on the theme ‘The semantics/pragmatics interface: linguistic, logical and philosophical perspectives’, held at the University of Lille 3 in 2012-13. Scholars of linguistics, logic and philosophy and those interested in the research benefits of crossing disciplines will find this work both accessible and thought-provoking, especially those with an interest in pragmatic theory or semantics.

It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words---that they are the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Robert's Stainton's study interrogates this idea, drawing on a wide body of evidence to argue that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complex thoughts.

Publisher Description

This collection of papers addresses context-dependence and methods for dealing with it. The book also records comments to the papers and the authors' replies to the comments. In this way, the contributions themselves are contextually dependent. It represents an inquiry into the activities on the semantics side of the pragmatics boundary.