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+---
+layout: linguistics
+title: linguistics/pragmatics
+---
+
+# pragmatics
+
+Pragmatics is the study of **context**.
+
+How do we convey meaning not explicitly expressed?<br>
+How can we unambiguously understand ambiguous sentences?<br>
+How does the listener *reconstruct* the speaker's intended meaning?
+
+## Basic Principles
+
+### Cooperation
+
+The *Principle of Cooperation* states that **language is a fundamentally collaborative action**. When we speak to one another, we attempt to convey the pure notion of meaning through the fallible medium of words. Success of such speech requires both the speaker and the listener to operate under shared assumptions, in order to reconstruct intentions not explicitly communicated.
+
+The Principle of Cooperation is composed entirely of several sub-principles.
+- **quantity**: Say as much as necessary. Do not say more than necessary.
+- **quality**: Do not say that which you believe false. Do not say that which you lack evidence.
+- **relation**: Be relevant.
+- **manner**: Avoid obscurity. Avoid ambiguity. Be brief. Be orderly.
+
+These principles are also referred to as *Grice's Maxims* (named such after Paul Grice, a strong candidate for being the single most influential person on the field of pragmatics) can be arguably all bundled up into one core notion of **relevance**. (This is a hot topic of debate in the philosophy side of pragmatics, though).
+
+As in all of linguistics: The Cooperative Principle is an *observation*, meant to *model* language's implicatures. It is not a hard and fast rule (in so much as hard and fast rules even exist in a descriptive framework), but even as rules go, it's not particularly strict: it can be violated, and indeed, often is.
+
+The ways in which speakers can behave in a conversation, relative to the Principle of Cooperation, fall into the following categories:
+- One can **observe** the principle, directly conforming to it
+- One can **violate** the principle, subtly and misleadingly violating it
+- One can **flout** the principle, clearly and straightforwardly violating it
+- One can **opt out** of the principle, directly expressing an intention to not play by the rules of conversation.
+
+## References
+
+- Introduction to Pragmatics
+- [Analyzing Meaning](https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/231)
+- [Invitation to Formal Semantics](https://eecoppock.info/bootcamp/semantics-boot-camp.pdf)
diff --git a/linguistics/semantics.md b/linguistics/semantics.md
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@@ -13,8 +13,42 @@ What conditions must hold for a sentence to be true?
Formal semantics attempts to answer those questions by providing a *framework* for determining what *conditions* must hold for a sentence to be true.
-This framework is [first-order/predicate logic](../mathematics/logic) and the [simply-typed lambda calculus](../plt/lambda-calculus). On top of this, we often build set theory, relying on *characteristic functions* of the lambda calculus to denote *set membership*.
+This framework is [first-order/predicate logic](../mathematics/logic) and the [simply-typed lambda calculus](../plt/lambda-calculus). On top of this, we often build set theory, relying on *characteristic functions* of the lambda calculus as denotations of *set membership*.
+## Basic Principles
+
+### Compositionality
+
+
+### Predicate Logic & The Lambda Calculus
+
+Formal semantics begets a formal system for such semantics, and *first-order logic* and *the lambda calculus* are a natural fit. As discussed above, language functions by composition - and what are functions but their property of composition?
+
+[*An Invitation to Formal Semantics*](https://eecoppock.info/bootcamp/semantics-boot-camp.pdf) covers basic logic and the lambda calculus well in its first six chapters. Otherwise, see [logic](../mathematics/logic), and [lambda-calculus](../plt/lambda-calculus).
+
+## Denotational Semantics
+
+With basic logic and the lambda calculus as our base, we may simply get straight to assigning *meaning* to language.
+
+### Entities and Functions
+
+### Quantification
+
+### Reference
+
+### Numbers and Plurality
+
+### Event Semantics
+
+### Tense and Aspect
+
+## Beyond Truth
+
+### Necessity and Possibility
+
+### Command, Request, Obligation
+
+### Questions
## Resources
- ✨ [Invitation to Formal Semantics](https://eecoppock.info/bootcamp/semantics-boot-camp.pdf)