Context-Dependence

Abstract

When pragmatists characterize the distinction between deictic and non-deictic expressions, and the corresponding distinction between pragmatics and semantics, they often employ a mathematical notion of functional context-dependence. A deictic sentence such as: ‘I am hungry’ would be characterized by having a context-dependent meaning in the sense that the complete meaning conveyed by using the sentence varies systematically with the context of use (and requires knowledge of the context). In contrast, a non-deictic sentence such as: ‘Ice floats on water’ would be characterized by having a context-independent meaning in the sense that the meaning conveyed by using the sentence does not vary with the context of use (and does not require knowledge of the context). The study of context-dependent meaning is then said to belong to pragmatics, while the study of context-independent meaning belongs to semantics, which studies meaning in abstraction from the context of use.¹