Monday, February 05, 2007

Pär Segerdahl, Language Use, "Language and Context" (Ch1)

Pragmatics incorrectly assumes that only the meaning of special sentences (like those containing indexicals) must be explained in terms of the context of use. Instead, every sentence (for example, those including expressions like '9:45am') has a meaning only as a result of our linguistic and non-linguistic practices involving the sentence. Meaning is not primarily a property of linguistic expressions, but of our practices.

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