The semantics-pragmatic interface: propositional content and theories of processing

Abstract

This paper argues that a ‘minimal semantic’ theory does not account for the levels of appeal to context needed to evaluate truth at the propositional level. Specifically, it is argued that, beyond pronominal appeals allowed for by minimalists, pragmatics can permeate propositional content in a number of ways. These include saturation, free enrichment, and strengthening and loosening of constituent concepts. The first relates to how context aids referencing of indexicals; the second to unarticulated constituents (for example, ‘he paid’ with the unarticulated constituent being ‘the bill’) and the third to how context can fix ambiguities that may arise from attributing a specific meaning to a concept (For example, metaphorical as opposed to literal). By showing that pragmatic processes operate at the propositional level, it is concluded that a view which sees semantics as being primary to determining meaning at the propositional level and pragmatic processes as secondary is erroneous. Instead, a more plausible argument is that the two processes are parallel, which has two significant implications. The first is that propositions can only be fully assessed at utterance level. The second is that advocates for a computational, modular account of how the mind is modelled may need to revise their theory, based on the parallel processing argument.