Pursuing Meaning

Emma Borg examines the relation between semantics and pragmatics, and assesses recent answers to the fundamental questions of how and where to draw the divide between the two. In particular, she offers a defence of what is commonly known as 'minimal semantics'. Minimal semantics, as the name suggests, wants to offer a minimal account of the interrelation between semantics and pragmatics. Specifically, it holds that while context can affect literal semantic contentin the case of genuine (i.e. lexically or syntactically marked) context-sensitive expressions, this is the limit of pragmatic input to semantic content. Borg argues that this contextual influence on semantics can be limited to 'tame' pragmatics--the kind of rule-governed appeals to context whichwon't scare formally minded horses.

Emma Borg joined the Philosophy Department at the University of Reading in 1998, shortly before she completed her PhD at University College London. She has been with the Department ever since and is currently Head of Department. She has held visiting positions at Rutgers University and the University of Chicago, and was a recipient of a Philip Leverhulme Prize (for 'outstanding young researchers'). She is on the editorial boards for the journals Ratio, Theoria, and the International Review of Pragmatics, and has published widely on issues within the philosophy of language, including the monograph Minimal Semantics.