Semantics and pragmatics: a historical review to the end of the twentieth century

Semantics and pragmatics are defined in §1 and their respective histories examined in subsequent sections. §2 explains and gives the history of lexical semantics: the rise of componential analysis, fields and differential values, semantic primes and Natural Semantic Metalanguage, prototype and stereotype semantics. §3 examines the syntax-semantics interface: Katz’s semantic theory, identifying selectional restrictions, generative semantics, conceptual semantics, the issue of thematic roles, semantics and pragmatics in a functional grammar, semantic frames and meaning in construction grammar. §4 explicates and gives the history of logic and linguistic meaning: arguing for the importance of truth conditions, the characteristics of formal semantics, the semantics and pragmatics of anaphora. §5 surveys additional aspects of pragmatics: indexicals, scripts, and conversational implicature. Finally, §6 offers a summary of the foregoing.