Semantic theory in linguistics cannot retain its traditional purity, free of
pragmatic contextual considerations. Agreement with the preceding
claim, generally shared by this volume's contributors, provides the
setting for a presentation of various provocative approaches toward a
precise definition of pragmatics along with a reconciliation of pragmatics
with semantics.
Here is a collection of leading-edge work that examines the
semantics/pragmatics dispute in terms of phenomena such as indexicals,
proper names, conventional and conversational implicatures, procedural
meaning, and semantic underdetermination. Examples show how these
phenomena reach from the linguistic realm to the fields of psychology,
philosophy, literature, and anthropology.
Claudia Bianchi is Researcher at the University S. Raffaele, Milan, Italy.
