Grammar and Meaning

The study of linguistic meaning is normally divided into three fields: lexical semantics, compositional semantics, and pragmatics. Lexical semantics studies the meanings of words and relations between these meanings, as well as how these meanings are realized grammatically (i.e., morphosyntactically). Compositional semantics studies how the meanings of larger grammatical units — phrases, sentences, discourses — are built out of the meanings of their parts. Pragmatics studies how speakers enrich meanings contextually and the relation between context and meaning. Each of these aspects of meaning is related to grammatical aspects of linguistic structure (morphology, syntax, prosody), although pragmatics generally displays weaker strictly grammatical effects than the other two aspects of meaning, for which the relationship with grammar is intrinsic. In this paper, I understand grammar to be a productive system that characterizes the well-formed (potentially) meaningful units of a language. I do not take a crucial stance on what the minimal meaningful units are or what the precise relationship is between morphology and syntax, but I will tacitly assume a form of strong lexicalism (Lapointe 1980), such that the minimal units of syntax are words. The terms ‘grammar’ and ‘meaning’ are themselves open to a variety of interpretations, but a thoroughgoing consideration is not possible in this paper. I assume here that ‘grammar’ refers to syntax and that ‘meaning’ refers, on the one hand, to a truth-conditional conception of compositional and lexical semantics and, on the other hand, to how meanings produced by the linguistic system (syntax and semantics) are enriched contextually with knowledge from outside the linguistic system by speakers and hearers (pragmatics). The distinction between these two different aspects of meaning should be obvious in what follows. These decisions reflect my own background and competence, but also the currently predominant viewpoint in theoretical linguistics (see, e.g., Partee 1995 for a lucid introductory presentation of this view of grammar and meaning from first principles). As such, this seems like a natural starting point for students and researchers wishing to find an overview and an entry point into the literature. Nevertheless, this means that various other perspectives are not represented here. For example, I do not review morphological contributions to lexical and compositional semantics (see, e.g., Hewson 1972, Bolinger 1977, Leech 2004). Nor do I review theories of lexical semantics and its interaction with compositional semantics which emphasize the cognitive/conceptual underpinnings of meaning, most prominently Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 1991, 1999, 2008, Taylor, this volume). I similarly focus on a particular view of the relationship between lexicon and grammar that has received wide currency in various linguistic theories, but set aside other views (see, e.g., Duffley 2014, Jaszczolt 2016).