Time, perspective and semantic representation

I discuss the perspectival nature of temporality in discourse and argue that the human concept of time can no more be dissociated from the perspectival thought than the concept of the self can. The corollary of this observation is that perspectival temporality can no more be excluded from the semantic representation than the notion of the self can: neither can be reduced to the bare referent for the purpose of semantic representation if the latter is to retain cognitive plausibility. I present such a semantic $\textit{qua}$ conceptual approach to temporal reference developed within my theory of Default Semantics. I build upon my theory of time as epistemic modality according to which, on the level of conceptual $\textit{qua}$ semantic building blocks, temporality reduces to degrees of detachment from the certainty of the here and the now. I also address the questions of temporal asymmetry between the past and the future, and the relation between metaphysical time (time$_\text{M}$), psychological time (time$_\text{E}$, where ‘E’ marks the domain of epistemological enquiry), and time in natural language (time$_\text{L}$), concluding that the perspective-infused time$_\text{E}$ and time$_\text{L}$ are compatible with time$_\text{M}$ of mathematical models of spacetime: all are definable through possibility and perspectivity.Research leading to this paper was partially supported by The Leverhulme Trust grant Expressing the Self: Cultural Diversity and Cognitive Universals (Grant ID/Ref: RPG- 2014-017)

Rethinking being Gricean: New challenges for metapragmatics

Arguably, forty years on, post-Gricean pragmatics is still the most successful and methodologically most rigorous approach to utterance meaning. However, and perhaps as a corollary of its extensive development, it has become necessary to ask what ‘being Gricean’ means for its current advocates. In this paper I address this question with respect to the current Anglo-American, truth-conditional paradigm, asking specifically how much, and on what identifiable dimensions, one can depart from his program and still remain ‘Gricean’. The label has generated very different challenges on several dimensions. First, (i) the role of inferential meanings has been questioned in that communication has since often been envisaged as mostly direct and non-inferential. In a similar spirit, (ii) the layered, also sometimes called ‘pipeline’ or ‘imbricated’ picture of meaning has been questioned within situation and game-theoretic semantics, and recently in their offshoot Equilibrium Semantics. Next, (iii) the explanatory role of intentions has often been denied in an attempt to reinstate the idea of multiple semantic ambiguities in lieu of meaning underdetermination, with the aim of aiding computational, formalizable accounts of discourse meaning. This reopened the question as to (iv) what kind of content, and how much of it, is attributable to grammar, following up on earlier proposals of the grammatical origin of some pragmatic meanings that were standardly classified as implicatures. Along yet another dimension, (v) the focus on cooperative interaction and proposition-based theorizing have been replaced with a focus on non-cooperative, such as strategic, communication and dialogue as the associated object of analysis. Finally, Grice’s project was a project in philosophy of language and as such in philosophical pragmatics. Theoretical, introspection-based methods employed without recourse to experimental or other empirical inquires are nowadays shunned in many pragmatics circles. So, the question arises regarding (vi) the place of philosophical pragmatics on a map of current research into meaning in communication. In this context, a metapragmatic question arises as to what qualitative and associated quantitative criteria current pragmatic theory has to fulfil in order to count as Gricean pragmatics. In this paper I address this question by discussing the identified areas (i)-(vi). Further, in doing so, using these indicators, I attempt to address the question ‘Quo vadis, pragmatics?’ with respect to the post-Gricean tradition. My metatheoretic inquiry begins by critically discussing the dimensions on which the Gricean program has been challenged and proceeds to arguing that none of the challenges constitutes a real threat to it. I develop two strands of argumentation showing how the approaches either (a) can be incorporated as its extensions or (b) are in pursuit of different goals and as such are not in competition with it. Argument (a) applies to automatic meaning assignment, the rejection of the ‘pipeline’ picture of meaning, emphasis on conventions, strategic conversation and generalized cognition. Argument (b) applies to the revival of semantic ambiguity and the grammatical foundation of implicatures. It is therefore concluded that the Gricean program can be relaxed on the dimensions covered by (a) and co-exist with the approaches subscribing to (b)

Towards a pragmatic category of conditionals

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. In this paper, we present the benefits of regarding conditionality as a pragmatic phenomenon as compared with approaches based on the syntactic category of a conditional sentence. We propose a pragmatic category of conditionality and justify it using theoretical arguments supported with examples from our database collected from the International Corpus of English-GB. Next, we demonstrate how conditional utterances that pertain to a variety of syntactic constructions can be represented in Default Semantics, a contextualist, truth-conditional approach to utterance meaning. We identify six types of such constructions, using the dimensions of (i) primary vs. secondary meaning (PM/SM index) and (ii) meaning conveyed through sentence structure vs. meaning conveyed at the level of merger representation (WS/σ index). It is concluded that in view of the diversity of constructions through which conditional thoughts are expressed, conditionality is best regarded as a pragmatic (and as such conceptual) category. Finally, we comment on the status of this claim as a potential semantic/pragmatic universal.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.04.01

Pragmatics and philosophy: In search of a paradigm

AbstractThere is no doubt that pragmatic theory and philosophy of language are mutually relevant and intrinsically connected. The main question I address in this paper is how exactly they are interconnected in terms of (i) their respective objectives, (ii) explanans – explanandum relation, (iii) methods of enquiry, and (iv) drawing on associated disciplines. In the introductory part I attempt to bring some order into the diversity of use of such labels as philosophical logic, philosophical semantics, philosophical pragmatics, linguistic philosophy, or philosophy of linguistics, among others. In the following sections I focus on philosophical pragmatics as a branch of philosophy of language (pragmaticsPPL) and the trends and theories it gave rise to, discussing them against the background of methodology of science and in particular paradigms and paradigm shifts as identified in natural science. In the main part of the paper I address the following questions:How is pragmaticsPPLto be delimited?How do pragmatic solutions to questions about meaning fare vis-à-vis syntactic solutions? Is there a pattern emerging?and, relatedly,What are the future prospects for pragmaticsPPLin theories of natural language meaning?I conclude with a discussion of the relation between pragmaticsPPLand functionalism, observing that contextualism has to play a central role in functionalist pragmatics at the expense of minimalism and sententialism.</jats:p

Functional proposition: A new concept for representing discourse meaning?

I address the question how to delimit the concept of a proposition that would suit the purpose of theories of meaning in discourse – meaning that is conveyed by the speaker, recovered by the addressee, partly co-constructed by them and transmitted via different modalities. Just as we have been, for several decades now, addressing the question of the boundary between semantics and pragmatics, so, I argue, we should address the question of the nature and content of the unit that functions as a suitable theoretical construct once the boundary has been decided on. My method is that of conceptual analysis and builds on the foundations of seminal answers to the questions as to (i) what scope one ought to allocate to propositions and (ii) how people interact with propositions in communication. I end up developing a radically contextualist notion of a pragmatics-rich, naturalized proposition, freed from the constraints of the sentence and its structure, and pertaining to the varied, multimodal input in communication. I conclude by discussing the concept of a functional proposition in the context of philosophical pragmatics, dispelling in the process some misunderstandings and myths about the status of the latter in current research on meaning in discourse