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Article published In: The Wealth and Breadth of Construction-Based Research:
Edited by Timothy Colleman, Frank Brisard, Astrid De Wit, Renata Enghels, Nikos Koutsoukos, Tanja Mortelmans and María Sol Sansiñena
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 34] 2020
► pp. 225–234

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Semantics and pragmatics in Construction Grammar

 | University of Paris 8
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 28 May 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.00048.lec
Abstract
This squib provides a theoretical discussion on the use of the terms semantics and pragmatics in Construction Grammar. In the literature, the difference between semantics and pragmatics is often conceptualized either in terms of conventionality or in terms of truth-conditionality (Huang, Yan. 2014. Pragmatics. (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, 299). It will be shown that, even though constructionists claim that there is no semantics–pragmatics distinction, both these underlying concepts are central to the study of constructions. Therefore, the aim is twofold. First, in keeping with Cappelle, Bert. 2017. “What’s Pragmatics Doing Outside Constructions?” In Semantics and Pragmatics: Drawing a Line, ed. by Ilse Depraetere, and Raphael Salkie, 115–151. Berlin: Springer International Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, it will be argued that constructionists should make more explicit the distinction between the two types of (encoded) meaning. Second, it will be shown that constructionists need to be more terminologically consistent and agree on how to use the terms semantics and pragmatics. Following Depraetere, Ilse. 2019. “Meaning in Context and Contextual Meaning: A Perspective on the Semantics–Pragmatics Interface Applied to Modal Verbs.” In Anglophonia. 281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, I will argue that the terms semantics and pragmatics are most explanatory when defined in truth-conditional terms. In this way, finer-grained understanding of the meaning of constructions can be achieved.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Defining semantics and pragmatics
  • 3.Meaning in CxG
  • 4.Reintroducing semantics and pragmatics
  • Notes
  • References
References (33)
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