1.1 Semantics and pragmatics (working definitions)

Semantics studies linguistic meaning as encoded by the conventional resources of a language (lexicon + grammar). In many traditions, this includes specifying truth-conditional content: what must be the case in the world for an utterance of a sentence to be true (given certain contextual parameters).

Pragmatics studies speaker meaning and context-sensitive interpretation: how hearers infer intended meaning from an utterance in a particular situation, drawing on assumptions about rationality, discourse goals, social norms, and shared knowledge.

A useful rule of thumb:

  • Semantics = what the language system contributes as a matter of convention.

  • Pragmatics = what language users contribute via inference in context.

1.2 The central interface question: “what is said” vs. “what is meant”

Interpretation typically yields multiple layers:

  1. Sentence meaning (semantic template)

  2. Truth-evaluable content (“what is said/ asserted”)

  3. Implicatures (additional inferred meaning)

  4. Speech act force and discourse effects

The theoretical dispute is largely about how much (2) is fixed by semantics versus shaped by pragmatics.

1.3 Warm-up examples

Example A: “It’s cold here.”

  • Semantic template: the temperature at the utterance location is low.

  • Typical pragmatic uses: request to close the window; complaint; hint to leave.

Example B: “Some students passed.”

  • Semantics: at least one student passed.

  • Typical pragmatic inference (scalar implicature): not all students passed.

2. Pragmaticism: 

2.1 Pragmaticism (Peircean core)

Pragmaticism (Peirce’s term) is a methodological principle for clarifying meaning by tracing the practical consequences of a concept. Roughly: to understand what a concept means, examine what would follow in experience and action if it were true.

For language and meaning, this pushes analysis toward:

  • use (how expressions function in actual practices),

  • inference (what commitments, entitlements, and expectations follow),

  • action (what speech does in social interaction).

2.2 Pragmaticism and meaning-as-use/inference

Consider: “I promise to call.”

  • Beyond truth conditions, the utterance creates a commitment and a set of normative expectations.

  • Interlocutors treat the speaker as accountable (e.g., later complaints: “You promised.”)

A pragmaticist-friendly point: the meaning of “promise” is illuminated by its practical role in social coordination, not only by a truth-conditional description.

2.3 Pragmaticist resonance in modern pragmatic theory

Modern pragmatics frequently embodies pragmaticist impulses:

  • Speech Act Theory: utterances are actions (assert, request, apologize, warn).

  • Gricean pragmatics: interpretation is guided by reasoning about cooperative intentions.

  • Relevance-oriented accounts: hearers choose interpretations that yield worthwhile cognitive/discourse effects with minimal processing effort.

Example: “Can you pass the salt?”

  • Semantics: a question about ability.

  • Pragmatics: in dining contexts, a conventionalized request.

3. Semanticism: emphasizing encoded meaning and limiting pragmatic intrusion

3.1 Why semanticism arises

“Semanticism” (in interface debates) refers to approaches that push explanatory work toward semantics, aiming to keep truth-conditional content closely tied to linguistic form. The motivation is to preserve:

  • stability of meaning across contexts,

  • compositionality (how meanings are built from parts),

  • a clear division: semantics gives content; pragmatics gives implicature and use.

3.2 Minimalism-style picture (representative semanticist impulse)

A common semanticist architecture:

  • Semantics delivers a minimal proposition (thin but compositionally derived).

  • Pragmatics contributes optional enrichments (useful, but not part of what is strictly said).

Example: “John is ready.”

  • Minimal content: John is ready.

  • Pragmatic enrichment: ready for the exam / to leave / to perform.

Semanticist emphasis: the sentence does not encode the activity; context supplies it, but the semantic core stays constant.

3.3 Semanticizing “contextual effects”

Semanticist approaches often attempt to treat as semantic (or semantically mandated) phenomena such as:

  • domain restriction (“Everyone is here” → everyone in a salient group),

  • implicit arguments (“It’s raining” → raining at location L),

  • comparison classes (“tall” relative to a class).

Example: “Everyone is asleep.”

  • In a dorm context, it typically means “everyone in the dorm is asleep.”

  • Semanticist move: encode a domain variable in the quantifier that must be assigned a value for truth evaluation.

4. Pragmatics–semantics relationship: interface models and key phenomena

4.1 A standard layered model (useful baseline)

  1. Semantics: compositionally builds a structured meaning, often with variables.

  2. Saturation: assigns values to context-sensitive elements (I, here, now; tense; demonstratives; possibly domains).

  3. Pragmatic inference: derives implicatures, resolves indeterminacy, enriches meaning.

  4. Discourse update: modifies common ground, commitments, and salience.

Disagreement centers on the boundary between (2) and (3): is a given adjustment required by semantics (saturation) or supplied by pragmatics (inference/enrichment)?

4.2 Indexicals and demonstratives (low-dispute context dependence)

“I am late.”

  • “I” is fixed by semantic rules: it refers to the speaker.

“That is mine.”

  • “that” requires contextual identification (pointing, attention, salience).

  • Many treat this as semantically required but pragmatically resolved.

4.3 Implicature (canonical pragmatics)

“Some of the guests arrived.”

  • Semantics: at least one guest arrived.

  • Typical implicature: not all arrived.

A key pragmatic hallmark: cancellability.

  • “Some guests arrived—indeed, all of them did.” (no contradiction)

4.4 Presupposition (semantics–pragmatics interaction)

“Jane stopped smoking.”

  • Presupposition: Jane used to smoke.

Presuppositions interact with:

  • semantic triggers (lexical items like “stop,” “again”),

  • pragmatic processes like accommodation (accepting presupposed content to keep discourse coherent).

4.5 Free enrichment / pragmatic intrusion (high-dispute territory)

These are cases where utterances seem to express more than what is explicitly encoded.

Example 1: “It’s raining.”

  • Often understood as “It’s raining here,” but can shift:

    • Phone call between people in Algiers: “here (in Algiers)”

    • Speaker watching a Tokyo live cam: “there (in Tokyo)”

Two interface treatments:

  • Semanticist: a hidden location argument is part of the semantic structure and must be saturated.

  • Pragmaticist: location is pragmatically supplied by relevance/salience.

Example 2: “John hasn’t eaten.”
Common interpretations: hasn’t eaten today / dinner / recently.
Again: hidden variable (semanticist) vs inferred interval (pragmaticist).

4. Synthesis: comparing pragmaticism and semanticism, and what the interface teaches us

4.1 Pragmaticism-leaning vs semanticism-leaning interface stances

Pragmaticism-leaning interface view

  • Emphasizes meaning via use, inference, practical consequences.

  • Accepts broader pragmatic shaping of truth-conditional content (enrichment is often central).

  • Strength: captures flexibility of real interpretation.

  • Risk: if unconstrained, may overgenerate interpretations.

Semanticism-leaning interface view

  • Emphasizes meaning as encoded, stable, compositional.

  • Limits pragmatics largely to implicatures and discourse effects.

  • Strength: preserves systematicity and clearer truth conditions.

  • Risk: may underdescribe how much context routinely affects asserted content.

4.2 A balanced division of labor

A productive stance for many analyses is a disciplined division of labor:

  • Semantics supplies constraints and invariants (what the grammar forces).

  • Pragmatics supplies rational inference and adaptation (what agents do with those constraints in context).

On this view, the “boundary” is not a single sharp line but an interaction zone where:

  • semantics often underdetermines,

  • pragmatics selects and enriches,

  • yet interpretation remains constrained by convention, salience, discourse goals, and social norms.