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On the nature of pragmatic constituents
Considerations on the semantics/pragmatics debate
- Source: Pragmatics and Society, Volume 14, Issue 1, Mar 2023, p. 170 - 184
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- 14 Dec 2020
- 03 Mar 2021
- 14 Mar 2023
Abstract
Abstract
The present article focuses on certain points in the semantics/pragmatics debate. Among these, one of the most interesting is the possibility of reconciling, independent of the context, certain aspects of meaning which have always been the subject of discussion in formal semantics, with the view that meaning is socially and situationally conditioned. Recent new insights concerning the importance of pragmatics for enriching the propositional content of the utterance should not lead to a radical contextualism that denies the assignment of any role at all to semantics. Instead, it is possible to argue that both dimensions, semantics and pragmatics, along with their constituent parts, offer fundamental contributions to the transmission and understanding of the overall meaning of a (spoken or written) text.