Stop thinking that I am only speaking about the world, go further : infer ! A short history of formal semantics of the twentieth century.

Résumé En

The aim of this paper is to retrace the evolution of the connections between semantics and pragmatics by comparing some representational and inferential approaches. First, we will analyse the referential conception of meaning and we will show how a semantics based on a theory of models can be open to what Wilfrid Sellars (1956) and Willard Quine (1969) have respectively called the “myths of the Given and of the Museum”. Then we will examine the inferential approach to meaning by underlining the various theoretical changes in orientation it induces (primacy of the proposition over subsentential expressions, holistic conception, ...). Finally, this analysis will lead to highlighting some consequences of the modification of the role of semantics and pragmatics. More specifically, we will stress the fact that certain parameters, which in a referential conception belonged to pragmatics, now belong to semantics, while from an inferential perspective, the taking into account of the referential dimension of languages is understood as a social practice which is part of pragmatics.