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 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).
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).
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 Jacob L. Mey, Istvan Kecskes, Franco Lo Piparo, Eleni Gregoromichelaki, Jock Wong and Yan Huang for their positive feedback and encouragement throughout these years. I would also like to give thanks to Keith Allan, who has generously commented on a draft of this paper.
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Notes
- 1.
On the tension between semantics and pragmatics. “RASK: International Journal of Language and Communication”, 2013, 37, 5–39.
- 2.
See Capone (2010), Introduction to Pragmemes.
- 3.
Of course, this is reminiscent of Lewis’ ideas (on convention).
- 4.
- 5.
Keith Allan (p.c.) thinks this is an oversimplification: this may be mostly true but there are thoughts which have an indeterminated truth value. I suppose Allan has in mind cases like the one discussed by Strawson in his famous paper on referring.
- 6.
An extreme case would be: “I am seriously telling you that I am seriously telling you….that the Pope died. I am joking, of course”.
- 7.
I use ‘the legislator’ aware of the potential attributive/referential ambiguity. A legal text – such as a law – is different from other texts, because the individual intentions of the actual legislator (the person) can be superseded in case it can be proven that a certain interpretation (however different from the one the person had in mind in making the law) is more rational. The law maker is an entirely depersonalized entity, one who acts according to rationality. It follows that it must always be reasonable to attribute to her the most rational intention that can be reconstructed.
- 8.
Keith Allan (p. c.) sees a potential problem here, since I granted that pragmatics is philogenetically prior; so how does it come that semantics is prior to pragmatic in interpretation? Presumably, I am committed to there being some kind of directionality in the interpretation process. Although I exclude that there is a discourse rule to the effect that one should start with semantics first and then proceed with pragmatic interpretation, I think it can be easily granted that the directionality principle works with indexical expressions and with the majority of lexical expressions that are subject to pragmatic enrichment. Semantics, however incomplete, is required to direct/guide the interpretation process. We need something which interacts with context to produce semantic content, and this cannot clearly be pragmatic, as it needs to be stable enough to produce a principled interaction with contexts. Pragmatic interpretations are not stable as they vary with contexts.
- 9.
I was told that it might be easier in this case to talk about semanticization of the pragmatic. In a sense I agree and in a sense I do not. Traugott (2012) has shown that semanticization may take even long periods of time to take place. All I believe is that these loci of the tension between semantics and pragmatics show or could be taken to show that semanticization is taking place.
- 10.
One of the many examples that can be supplied is ‘You will not die (from this cut) said by a mother to a child. She does not mean ‘You will never die’, but ‘You will not die from this cut’. This example originates from Kent Bach’s famous paper on impliciture. See Carston (2002) for similar examples.
- 11.
This is simply a technical use of the term ‘know’ and its translation equivalents.
- 12.
Curiously enough, I found the case of the use of the indefinite article in stabilizing an old meaning of the word ‘baiser’ (Fr.), whose meaning shifted from ‘kiss’ to ‘fuck’ (Horn 2011). So, it appears that a language has ways to stabilize meaning in the face of an ongoing language change. Furthemore, such strategies attest to the fact that the change is still going on (we are in a phase in which the semanticization is not complete). [also Allan and Burridge 1991, p. 18.]
- 13.
However, notice that not all linguists take polysemy as a direction opposite to linguistic economy:
“Far from being a defect of language, polysemy is an essential condition of its efficiency. If it were not possible to attach several senses to one word, this would mean a crushing burden on our memory: we would have to possess separate terms for every conceivable subject we might want to talk about. Polysemy is an invaluable factor of economy and flexibility in language; what is astonishing is not that the machine occasionally breaks down, but that it breaks down so rarely” (Ullmann 1962: 167–68).
- 14.
It could be argued that the Gricean maxims are not rules but directions for the best behavior. I do not quarrel with this, but there are ambits such as, e.g. academic discourse where they have led to discourse rules.
- 15.
I found find similar ideas – albeit more radical – in a paper by Wayne Davis (2012). There he too considers the possibility that implicatures or explicatures are of a conventional type. The difference between me and Davis presumably is that I tend to place emphasis of the conventionalization process and I grant that, to start with, calculability had to be granted. I also tie conventionalization with certain domains of discourse – thus I accept that in general the conversational implicature analysis is to be accepted.
- 16.
Consider canons of construction in the legal practice. These could be taken to reflect Gricean Principles (Carston 2013), but only indirectly (thus the fact that there are clashes among canons of construction does not say much about the Gricean Principles). Canons of construction need to be learned – and we must also learn the priorities or how to establish priorities on the basis of moral considerations and social policies. This know-how is transferred from one lawyer to another.
- 17.
It may be appear that there is a tension between a modular story (one according to which pragmatic uses flow from principles of language use (presumably cognitive predispositions of the human mind) and a modularization story Karmiloff-Smith 1992), according to which a module is built up on the basis of experience (and generalizations, of course). This apparent redundancy may be explained in this way. In the same way in which redundancy is built into the perceptive system to guarantee that it is maximally efficient and that if damage to an organ should prevent the perceptual system from working, there is another organ ready to replace it (we have 2 years, two eyes, two hands (we suppose hands furnish tactile sensations), etc., the modular faculty of discourse-construction and the modularized faculty of discourse construction allow human beings to cope with the devastating effects of strokes, which notoriously affect a certain part of the brain and prevent the faculties located there to work properly.
- 18.
Meaning: It can be like that.
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Capone, A. (2016). On the Tension Between Semantics and Pragmatics. In: Allan, K., Capone, A., Kecskes, I. (eds) Pragmemes and Theories of Language Use. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_38
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