Turner

IntroductionThis special issue contains selected papers from the panel Conceptual Contours at the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface,organized by the editors for the 7th International Pragmatics Conference,Budapest,9–14July 2000.It brings together some new research on the theoretical problem of the boundary between semantics and pragmatics.The common,well-defined focus of the collection is the distinction between what is said and what is implicated,and hence,a fortiori ,the issue of semantic ambiguity and under-specification.The semantics/pragmatics interface is addressed through an in-depth study of a particular construction in a particular language (Lee,Matsui),through a discussion of the power of extant theories (Leezenberg),or by placing equal emphasis on these two lines of argumentation (Dekker,Jaszczolt).In some papers,the merits of dynamic semantics and the role of information structure for semantic analyses are assessed.In others,the semantics/pragmatics boundary is addressed through the discussion of the applicability,or,indeed,the validity of the distinction between words encoding concepts and words encoding procedures that take the addressee towards the intended concepts.The papers adhere to the truth-conditional approach to sentence meaning and represent the three available standpoints on the role of pragmatic processing in utterance interpretation:(i)semanticization,as in dynamic semantics,(ii)nonce-inference,as in relevance theory,and (iii)defaults,as in the neo-Gricean approaches.Pragmatics is thus taken to be an intention-based,post-Gricean approach to speaker’s meaning.First,Dekker argues against a unique interpretation of indefinite descriptions and stresses the role of pragmatic principles in their processing.He investigates the con-nection between pragmatic principles and semantic rules and stresses the role of referential intention in the interpretation of indefinites.This emphasis on the role of intentions in utterance interpretation is continued in Jaszczolt’s contribution.Jaszczolt discusses referring expressions and presupposition as anaphora,suggesting that neither ambiguity nor underspecification provide a correct solution to the cases where a presuppositional-anaphoric expression can select several potential ante-cedents.Where multiple representations are viable,the potential anaphors are ordered on the scale of salience ranging from the default to the most unlikely one.The conceptual-procedural distinction is challenged in Lee’s paper.Lee proposes a new typology of sentential and discourse connectives,arguing against the binary dis-tinction into those encoding conceptual information and those encoding procedural information.Instead,connectives occupy places on a scale ranging fromlogical Journal of Pragmatics 34(2002)811–813/locate/pragma0378-2166/02/$-see front matter #2002Elsevier Science B.V.All rights reserved.P I I :S 0378-2166(01)00062-5812Editorial/Journal of Pragmatics34(2002)811–813conjunction to inferential connection.She demonstrates that the boundary between the semantic and the pragmatic components of meaning is not sharp but instead allows for degrees.Her hypothesis is supported with examples from Korean.The conceptual/procedural distinction is also addressed in Matsui’s paper.Matsui argues for the procedural account of a Japanese discourse connective dakara(‘so’,‘in other words’)and claims that it contributes to the higher-level explicature.She argues that the function of dakara is to present the utterance following it as an interpretive representation of other utterances or assumptions(for example,as their reformula-tion or contextual implication).In other words,the utterance introduced by the con-nective is a metarepresentation.The role of intentionality and conventions is also stressed in Leezenberg’s con-tribution.In his programmatic paper,he proposes that communication,intention-ality,and power are interrelated and discusses the role of social practices and collective intentionality in linguistic theory,founding this discussion on the recent work by Searle.Instead of a consensus-based view of collective intentions,he espouses a power-based,conflict-oriented approach from which he draws conclu-sions as to the scope of the respective domains of semantics and pragmatics.In general,the papers in this special issue approach the boundary problem from the perspectives of theories of semantics,pragmatics,and social anthropology,as well as through more data-based research on semantic representation of particular types of constructions in various languages.Both avenues are equally fruitful in theorizing about the interface in question,and in particular,about the need to talk about ambiguity,vagueness,underspecification,and pragmatic inference in utter-ance interpretation.As a closely-knit whole,the collection is a significant voice in the ongoing discussion on the semanticization(e.g.in Discourse Representation Theory(Kamp and Reyle,1993)or in Default Semantics(Jaszczolt,1999),prag-maticization(e.g.in relevance theory,Sperber and Wilson,1986/1995),or sociali-zation(Levinson,1995,2000)of that part of the semantic,truth-conditionally relevant meaning which cannot be attributed to the logical form as the output of grammar.The semantics/pragmatics boundary dispute has undergone various twists of orientation and fashion.Sense-generality of the1970s brought pragmatic infer-ence to the fore(see e.g.Cole,1981;Atlas,1989;Turner,1999).The emergence of the dynamic perspective brought about the shift of dominance from pragmatics to semantics(see Blutner and van der Sandt,1998:1).However,further developments of the idea of underspecification indicate that pragmatics has to be brought to the fore once again,either because sentences may not need to be fully‘disambiguated’(or:‘specified’)for logical reasoning to proceed(see van Deemter,1998),or because there is no other way to model meanings successfully(see Dekker,this issue). ReferencesAtlas,Jay D.,1989.Philosophy Without Ambiguity:A Logico-linguistic Essay.Clarendon Press,Oxford. Blutner,Reinhard,van der Sandt,Rob,1998.Editorial preface.Special issue on underspecification and interpretation.Journal of Semantics15,1–3.Cole,Peter(Ed.),1981.Radical Pragmatics.Academic Press,New York.Editorial/Journal of Pragmatics34(2002)811–813813 Deemter,Kees van,1998.Ambiguity and idiosyncratic interpretation.Journal of Semantics15,5–36. Jaszczolt,Katarzyna M.,1999.Discourse,Beliefs,and Intentions:Semantic Defaults and Propositional Attitude Ascription.Elsevier Science,Oxford.Kamp,Hans,Reyle,Uwe,1993.From Discourse to Logic:Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language,Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory.Kluwer,Dordrecht. Levinson,Steven C.,1995.Three levels of meaning.In:Palmer,F.R.(Ed.),Grammar and Meaning. Essays in Honour of Sir John Lyons.Cambridge University Press,Cambridge,pp.90–115. Levinson,Steven C.,2000.Presumptive Meanings:The Theory of Generalized Conversational Impli-cature.MIT Press,Cambridge,MA.Sperber,Dan,Wilson,Deirdre,1986.Relevance:Communication and Cognition.Blackwell,Oxford. (Reprinted in1995.Second edition).Turner,Ken(Ed.),1999.The Semantics/Pragmatics Interface from Different Points of View.Elsevier Science,Oxford.Katarzyna M.Jaszczolt is a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Newnham College,Cambridge.She also taught linguistics at the universities of Oxford,Sussex,and Brighton.She is managing editor of the book series Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface(CRiSPI)published by Elsevier Science.In1992she completed her D.Phil.dissertation Belief Sentences and the Semantics of Propositional Attitudes at the University of Oxford.Her recent research concerns ambiguities posed by reference assignment,intentions in utterance inter-pretation,and theoretical issues of the semantics–pragmatics interface.Her recent publications include a book Discourse,Beliefs,and Intentions:Semantic Defaults and Propositional Attitude Ascription,1999,Elsevier Science,Oxford,an edited book The Pragmatics of Propositional Attitude Reports,2000,Elsevier Science,Oxford,and a number of articles on the semantics and pragmatics of referring expressions and pro-positional attitudes,published,among others,in the Journal of Pragmatics,Theore-tical Linguistics,Journal of Literary Semantics and in edited collections.Ken Turner is senior lecturer in linguistics at the University of Brighton.He is co-editor of the book series Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Inter-face(CRiSPI)published by Elsevier Science,and is currently preparing a book on conditionals.Katarzyna M.JaszczoltUniversity of Cambridge,UKKen TurnerSchool of Languages,University of BrightonFalmer,Brighton,East Sussex BN19PH,UKE-mail address:k.p.turner@。